The Whole World Lies in the Power of the Evil One
In the second “We have come to know” statements with which John closes his First Letter, he writes: We have come to know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. (1 John 5:19) The two halves of this verse speak to the infinite chasm between [...]
Greek in the Spread of Early Christianity
From Michael Green’s classic Evangelism in the Early Church: The advantages for the Christian mission of having a common language can hardly be overestimated. It did away with the necessity for missionary language schools. Missionaries using it would incur none of the odium that English-speaking missionaries might find in some of the underdeveloped countries; for [...]
He who was Born of God Protects you from the Touch of the Evil One
John closes his First Letter with three “We have come to know” statements and one command. In 1 John 5:18, the Apostle writes the first of these statements: We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil [...]
One-to-One Bible Reading
Preface: If you go to Redeemer Church in Lincoln, we have extra copies of this book that I want to give away. Please don’t be shy–contact me, and I will get you a copy. I want this book to be a resource for evangelism, discipleship, and leadership training in our community and our church, so [...]
Praying for the Prodigal Brother
In 1 John 5:13-15, John explains how the confidence that we have toward our eternal life translates into the way we conduct lives that are motivated and governed by prayer. In v. 16-17, John gives us a very specific application for the prayer that should stem from our confidence: [16] If anyone sees his brother [...]
Confidence in our eternal life results in prayer
After assuring his readers that he has written his letter to confirm that they have eternal life if they believe in the name of the Son of God, John begins to unfold what the confidence looks like: [14] And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to [...]
How confident are you that you have eternal life?
Finally, almost at the very end of his letter, John gives the primary motivation behind what he has written: I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life. (1 John 5:13) Everything John has written in 1 John–the commands [...]
Thoughts on the End of the World
Today is supposed to be the day that the world ends, according to self-appointed prophesy expert Harold Camping. Of course, Jesus was very explicit that no one would be able to do this in Matthew 24:36. (A local pastor, Stu Kerns, had a great interview on the radio on this topic, which you can listen [...]
Whoever has the Son has Life
In God’s grace, he has given us two witnesses that testify to the profoundly unique mystery of Jesus Christ’s having come in the flesh: the water and the blood. At Jesus’ baptism and at Jesus’ cross, our Lord physically received the sacrament of baptism and he physically bled out his life–yet in doing so he [...]
There are Three that Testify
Even though Christians experience a victorious new birth, being born of God himself, in order to believe, love, and obey, we must still wrestle for the rest of our lives with why we believe, love, and obey. Does our faith rest on some kind of psychological deception, whether from a hyper-emotionalized experience, a desperately guilty [...]
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