Sermons, Articles, and Other Things

We can see from these verses that John closes his letter first by expressing the certainty that Christians have and then leaving a challenge with them regarding alternative forms of worship. I would say that verse 20 is one of the most amazing verses in the Bible, and hopefully we will see that is the case after we have thought about it. Their certainty concerns the person and mission of Jesus Christ. So the first detail we can ask ourselves is, Who is Jesus? John says three amazing things about Jesus: he is the Son of God, he is the true God and he is eternal life. In order to link these three features, we can begin by thinking about what it means for Jesus to the true God. This is a reminder of his uniqueness because other objects of worship are false and unreal. It is also a reminder of his competence because he possesses the attributes, performs the actions, and plans the aims of God. The attributes of God are many and Jesus possesses every one of them. We list them in differe

We may wonder why Paul focuses on this area of theology because initially his comments here seem to have no connection with the issue of the strong and the weak that he has discussed in the previous section. Yet there is a connection as we can see from the word ‘for’ that begins verse 8. The matter of strong and weak was hindering harmony in the congregation. In verses 6 and 7 Paul had appealed for unity, and now he shows that this was one of the main aims that Jesus had when he came into the world. We noticed that Paul had given three guiding principles for sorting out the issue if the strong and the weak (the fact that we shall give an account at the judgement seat, the importance of brotherly love and the example of Jesus). Now he gives a fourth reason, which is that they should know why Jesus came. So here is a reminder that we should have theological understanding because it usually helps us deal with problems that arise. Jesus became a servant (vv. 8-9a) Paul does not sa