1 John 4

We've seen by now how John is cycling through several themes in this epistle. Like a jeweler showing off a prized gemstone, each time John picks up a theme he has already addressed, he "rotates" it a little -- displaying it from a slightly different point of view -- and calls on us to take a fresh look at the new angles displayed.

If we were to list the themes in 1 John 4 -- love, false teachers, our identity as children of God, the harmony that should exist between our actions and our professed beliefs -- all of them have been addressed in the previous chapters. But John continues to unfold them in new ways.

In this chapter, I see an emphasis on how we recognize truth:

• Here's how you test false spirits...
• Here's how you recognize teachers sent by God...
• Here's how you recognize if God really resides in you...

True and False Teachers

Not every feel-good, warm-and-fuzzy spiritual teaching is from God. Not every spiritual teacher who receives acclaim and large following is teaching anything close to the truth of the Gospel Jesus taught. I could name some names and raise some controversy, but the names are not the point and the controversy is counter-productive. The point is... We need to TEST what we're considering adopting as truth.

How do we do that? Well, the language John uses suggests a parallel to the Old Testament instruction to testing a prophet. This involved two parts:

• If a prophet made predictive prophecies that failed to be fulfilled, he was a false prophet and was to be killed.
• If a prophet advocated idolatry, even if he had attesting miracles, he was a false prophet and was to be killed.
• In John's context, he puts forward a "litmus test" relevant to his times and the heresies which were being raised then:

Authentic Christian teachers confess that Jesus is the Messiah, came in the flesh, and is from God -- those who dispute that are false teachers.
Now, this is not the one-and-only criteria by which false teachers are to be judged. Rather, it is a test that was relevant to the particular type of false teaching common in that day. There've been many other, equally destructive, false teachings in the intervening centuries.

So John gives us another test:

We know God spoke through the Apostles... Authentic Christian teachers will heed them. Teachers who dismiss them (their writings) are false teachers.

True and False Beliefs

But teachings from others are not the only things John would have us test? What about our ideas about ourselves, our opinions of others, our confidence in salvation?

So here are some other tests he offers:

• A claim to know God, by someone who does not love, is false.
• A claim to know God, by someone who loves other people, is likely true because it is an indication that God lives in them and is perfecting His love in that person.
• Evidence of the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives is evidence that we're residing in God and He in us.
• A spirit of fear is evidence of a lack of maturity in love.
• A claim to love God, by someone who hates other believers, is false.

My Prayer Today

Father, Thank you for loving us -- apart from your love we wouldn't even know what it is to love purely. Let us experience, more and more, what it is to love like you do. To love without fear. To love without selfishness. To love across cultures. To love those we have trouble even "liking".

Let our love be our distinguishing characteristic as outsiders look at us -- "Look at how they love!" Let our love leave a concrete impact on the world around us. If we're ever accused of extremism, let it be for that!

Above all, let us love you. Let us love the truth of the Gospel. Let us love Jesus. Let us love the change He brings into broken lives when we turn back to you in trust.

SCOTT PURCELL | Elder

Scott committed his life to Christ as a child under the teaching of his parents and church. He graduated from Ozark Christian College in 1989 with bachelors degree in Biblical Literature and served 8 years as Minister of two churches in Missouri and then 3 years as a Church Planter in San Marcos. Since then, he has worked as a technical trainer at Dell and Rackspace. In 2008 Scott and Nan joined HCBC-NW and then Hutto Bible in 2011. Scott serves in Small Group leadership, as secretary to the Elder board, and as the elder over IT and Discipleship. Scott and Nan have been married since 1985 and have three children (Mindy Schultea (married), Kate, and Matthew) and two grandchildren.