I John, Introduction

Well here, these are the different things we'll go over this morning. We'll look at the author of 1 John, the date it was written, who it was written to, look at the historical and cultural background of the epistle of the time. We'll look at the purpose, why did John write the book. We'll look at key words found in the book, the character of the book, the style, what kind of language is used in the book.

And then we'll briefly look at textual criticism, not higher criticism, which is what liberal theology employs. That's where they just try to destroy the meaning of the text, but I'm referring to lower criticism or healthy criticism, just as what scholars do when they try to take all the different texts they have of the Bible and determine which ones are the most accurate, things like that. And then there's a couple handouts at the back of your notes mention.

Alright, so ultimately God is the author of scripture and I've got to mention that because again of what's done a lot of times in Christianity today where theologians and teachers will take one of the books of God's Word and just rip it apart and claim that it wasn't written by who it claims to be written In fact, it was written by several different editors and several different authors, and they're all pretending to be this man.

So, really sad to see. So, I just want to mention that God is the author of Scripture, and 2 Peter says that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation. No prophecy was ever made by an act of human will. So it wasn't a bunch of men deciding that they were going to write a book. God decided. God inspired His Word. Men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.

And then 2 Timothy 3.16 says, all Scripture is inspired by God. God breathed.

Did you know that Hebrews and 1 John are the only two New Testament books that are anonymous? In other words, 1 John doesn't say, I, John the Apostle, am writing to you. He doesn't tell us specifically who he is when he writes. And Hebrews is the same.

But the Apostle John is the author of 1 John, and we'll look at reasons why we're going to say that. John also wrote the Gospel of John, 2 and 3 John, and Revelation. I don't think I missed any. I think those are his books. So here are two reasons why the Apostle John is considered the author of 1 John.

There are many similarities between 1 John and the Gospel of John. And we'll look at some of those in detail. And also the witness or testimony of the early Church Fathers. referring to the Christians who lived just after the New Testament canon was completed at the end of the first century, up until about the time of Constantine, Augustine, 300s, 400s AD. So we'll look at some of these in detail here. So, similarities between 1 John and the Gospel.

Opposites abound. The author John, in both the Gospel of John and in 1 John, and by the way, I'll lump in there 2 and 3 John, uses opposites or contrasts. Light, darkness, life, death. He also lumps people into one of two categories. They're either children of God or they're children of the devil. They either belong to the world or they do not belong to the world.

Things like that. These are styles of John. John's writing. He doesn't use very many particles. Particles are just small Greek words that they can put all over their Greek sentence. For example, the word now, or even, or except are examples of particles. John begins sentences emphatically. This is that you may know. Or, by this, we know that this. So he's very emphatic. He writes with authority.

Just another observation, John doesn't use relative pronouns, who, whoever, to begin a subordinate clause. If you're into English and want to look at that, there's an example there. John, who is the author, lived in Ephesus. So John doesn't use very many relative pronouns.

A minor detail, but I'll mention it. Now, there are differences between the book of John, the Gospel, and 1 John. There are differences, but these can be explained by the different purposes of the books, and the time that lapsed between the writing of the two books. They were written to different audiences. And this, I think, is a neat observation. 1 John and the Gospel of John are more similar in style and content than any other two New Testament books, even Paul's writings. And we know from studying with Verne and the main service that Ephesians and Colossians are very similar and have a lot of parallel passages, but John's two books here, 1 John and the Gospel of John, are more similar than even Paul's writings. Okay, so, and then there's also the testimony or witness of the early church fathers.

Polycarp, he dies around 155, he quotes from 1 John a couple times, but he doesn't mention that John's the author, he just uses those verses. Papias, A.D. 150, he used John's writings, and through another historian, Eusebius, he's the first to actually say that, yeah, John wrote this. But again, we don't have Papias' writings, we just have Eusebius who says that John, I'm sorry, Eusebius said that Papias claimed that John wrote 1 John. And by the way, both Papias and Polycarp were direct disciples of the Apostle John. So they knew him intimately, John taught them, and so you can see this little diagram. And in the back of your notes, there's a full page on this.

Okay, another Christian from the first 2nd century is Irenaeus, and he quotes from 1st and 2nd John, and is the first to directly attribute these books to John, to the Apostle. Clement of Alexandria is another, and then I listed a few more. Tertullian, the Muratorian Canon, which was a list of New Testament books made in Rome, around 190, Cyprian and Eusebius. So just so you know, and you can have these things to refer back to.

Okay, so when was the first epistle of John written? And the best date is at the end of the first century. The Book of Revelation is the last book that John wrote, and it's the last book of the New Testament, and this first, second, third John were written towards the end of the first century. Some conservative scholars will disagree, and they'll say, no, it was written closer to the time of the Jewish revolt in A.D. 70, but So some conservative scholars will say that, but from what I can tell, the end of the first century is a better date. Where was it written from?

Tradition. So the Bible doesn't tell us this, but just church tradition and the writings of those other fathers. And by the way, the fathers aren't authoritative, right? Only scripture is authoritative. But we can learn a lot of things from the writings of the early church fathers.

So tradition tells us that John moved to Ephesus shortly before the Jewish revolt in Jerusalem of 66 to 70. And we'll mention that again in a minute. And so John would have written his gospel and the three epistles probably from Ephesus. And we'll look at a map in a minute here as well.

So the book of 1 John doesn't tell us exactly who wrote it. John doesn't say, hey, I, John, am writing this letter to you. And also, he doesn't directly tell us who he's writing it to. He just has a little introduction and then just gets right into it. So then, who are we going to say John writes to? The people he writes to, he does know well. He loves them dearly. He uses terms like beloved several times. He calls them my little children. So he has a very good relationship with them.

And most likely, John is writing from Ephesus to the various churches located in Asia. And we'll look at a map here. The Roman province of Asia. And in Asia, here are some of the key cities. Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea. These were key Asian cities. And what's familiar about those seven cities? Yeah, that's right. John writes, to these, well, God, let's see, Revelation says, to the angel of the church at Laodicea. So, messages are sent to these seven churches by John. So, we'll come back to those.

You have this page, this map, blown up at the back of your notes, see it a little easier. But the Roman province of Asia is located on the western section of modern day Turkey, or the western section of Asia Minor. And Doug's been there, a lot of other people have been there as well. Doug lent me some of his videos from Ephesus and Hierapolis and some of those other cities.

So, from what we can tell, John's writing in that area, probably in Ephesus. In fact, church tradition tells us that he lived in Ephesus. So, that's fine to determine. He lived in Ephesus, wrote from there, and he would have written to the churches around him, to the believers around him. And those are some of the cities. So, just talk briefly about now the historical and cultural background of Asia, which is where this book was written.

Before the turn of the millennium, in 133 BC, the king of Pergamum gave his kingdom to the Romans when he died. On his death, he willed it to the Romans. And so it was governed by the Roman Senate for a while. And originally, the Roman capital was in Pergamum, but by New Testament time, they had moved that capital to Ephesus. So Pergamum is up on the north, the city, and Ephesus is down a little to the south. And then what we're going to do now is just briefly look at each of those seven cities, just to get a good idea of the background, where this book was written to. Ephesus was the fourth largest city of the Roman Empire.

It was known throughout the ancient world as the temple keeper of the goddess Artemis, or Diana. In fact, the temple of Artemis was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Prostitution, idol worship, thievery, just to name a few of the sinful practices were all part of their culture. And even an important part of their culture. And I'm not referring to the church, I'm referring to the pagans who lived in Ephesus.

Okay, and then here's just some pictures for you. There's a theater, there's inside of a house, and there's a library that was built a little later. Now Smyrna was a major seaport, and maybe you can follow it on your map if you're not familiar with where it's located. Coins from the city have this inscription, first of Asia in beauty and size. They built the first temple to the goddess Roma. Polycarp, who remember was a direct disciple of John, lived there. And here's a few different pictures. At the bottom, there's a picture of the landscape. There's the old market place on the upper left, there's a coin.

Pergamum, another city there, was the capital of the Attalid Empire, 263-133 BC, and it was the first capital of the Roman province of Asia, initially. And it had a famous library with over 200,000 books. In fact, it was second in size to the great library of Alexandria. And it's funny that when the Alexandria library was plundered, Mark Antony went up to Pergamum and plundered and destroyed their library and took all the books and gave them to Cleopatra to kind of get even.

Anyway, and here's actually a statue of one of their gods that's located in where the library used to be. And then look at that view of their theater on that hillside. Isn't that cool? Really pretty. Okay, now Thyatira was a major inland city of the first century, and remember that Lydia, who Luke mentions in Acts, is from Thyatira. She makes purple dye, sells purple dye. It was located in a fertile plain. Many guilds or trades operated in the city. And here's just, bottom right, a picture of the landscape. And not a lot of archaeology has been done, apparently. There's just many ruins.

Sardis was located in the fertile Hermes River Valley. It was the capital of the ancient Lydian Empire, 680 to 547 BC. It was the capital of the Seleucid Empire then, and those were the descendants of Alexander the Great, from 281 to 190. And a major earthquake occurred in AD 17 and devastated the city.

In fact, that same earthquake devastated several of the other cities we're looking at as well. Here's a couple pictures from it, from the city. Philadelphia was a comparatively young city compared to the other cities we're looking at. Because of the many earthquakes, this city was nicknamed the burnt land.

And grapes was the only crop that the residents could grow on the volcanic soil. And there's volcanic rock everywhere, so they could grow grapes. And today, they still grow grapes. Let's just make sure you're awake. Alright, and here's a modern day picture, and then you can see the arrow, the note that tells you where the ancient city was located, and then you can still see a vineyard in the forefront there. And then they were right up against the mountains as well.

Laodicea, founded by Antiochus II, he was one of the Seleucids, one of the descendants of Alexander the Great, founded in 260 and named after his wife. And the city was located along a major road. This road stretched from Ephesus in the west to Assyrian Antioch in the east. And through a Roman aqueduct, the city received its water from hot springs five miles to the south.

And so by the time the water reached the city, it was lukewarm. Hierapolis also had hot springs, but they were to the north. And of course, John in Revelation calls them lukewarm. And here's a couple. pictures, the skyline, and then there's the old theater, and then the top right picture is not of Laodicea, but it's of the hot springs at Hierapolis.

Judaism in the province of Asia. Now, before Christianity started, of course, God's chosen people were the Jews, they still are, but Something to note, in 210, Antiochus III relocated 2,000 Jewish families from Babylon to Phrygia and Lydia. So he sent 2,000 Jewish families from the old Babylon area up to Asia, Asia Minor. So that's the origin of a lot of the Jewish synagogues. Was there anything given for that? I don't know what it was. I'm sure there was. No, I'm sure there was a reason. Okay, um, I know we're moving pretty fast, but you guys doing okay? Yeah?

There's um, I want to go over a few slides just to kind of go over the history of Christianity, specific to the province of Asia, because, you know, here we're going to spend the next nine months studying 1 John, and let's just remind ourselves what actually happened in Asia in relation to Christianity. So, first thing to know is that the Church began in Acts 2 at the Feast of Pentecost, and some of those first Christians were from Asia, it tells us.

Okay, toward the beginning of Paul's second journey, and I'll have a map here in a second, The Spirit prevented him from entering Asia. Remember, he was on the top of Asia and he wanted to go down into Asia, but the text tells us the Holy Spirit prevented him, so he went on over into Greece. Well, at the end of that same journey, he does swing into Asia, down by Ephesus, stays there briefly, and then goes on back to Antioch. And here's a map showing that second journey. You see he starts out On this one he starts out in Jerusalem, goes up, and then, I don't have a laser pointer, but right here he stops, and then tells us that he wants to go down into Asia, but he's prevented from doing so. So he goes on into Greece, and then just stops in to Ephesus, which is part of Asia, on his way home.

Now on the third journey, oh I'm sorry, after he leaves, He leaves Priscilla and Aquila in Ephesus at that time, at the end of his second journey. And while there, Priscilla and Aquila encounter Apollos. Remember, Apollos was an Old Testament believer from Alexandria, and he had never heard about Jesus Christ, he only knew about John the Baptist. So they explain to him the Word of God, they bring him up to speed, and then he ends up going over to Corinth to be involved in the local church, to be involved with evangelism to the Jews. So then when Paul starts his third missionary journey, he goes through Galatia, then right to Ephesus. And the first thing the text tells us he encounters are some of the same type of disciples, Old Testament believers. They knew about John the Baptist, but not about Jesus Christ. Paul taught in the synagogue in Ephesus for three months, but because of the Jewish opposition, he withdrew to what they called the School of Tyrannus. There's no archaeological evidence for that. They haven't found it. It's there. It's been destroyed.

But he taught there for two years in that school. And Acts tells us that the result was that all who lived in Asia, and again, we just went over the geography of Asia and some of the history and culture, All who lived in Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks. So, by God's grace, Paul's ministry was very effective. All of Asia heard the word of the Lord.

Because of that, a lot of the pagans were becoming Christians and were leaving their idol worship, and the idol trade was suffering. The guys weren't making as much money crafting these idols. They opposed Paul and the Christians, and Paul ended up leaving and going into Greece, Macedonia. Alright, then, at the end of his third journey, a few years later, Paul returns to Asia, and gathers the Ephesian elders together at Miletus, and he reminds them of everything that he taught them when he was with them for three years, and then he says goodbye. Okay. And here's a map of his third journey. And you can see he goes into Asia at the beginning, which is yellow, and then he comes back through Asia on the end of the trip, which is in green. Roger, I forgot my watch. Can I look? Okay. Okay.

So then Paul goes back to Jerusalem. He's rushing. At the end of his third missionary journey, he's rushing. He's trying to get back to Jerusalem to make it there in time for one of the feasts. But he's arrested soon after he arrives in Jerusalem. And then they send him to prison in Caesarea. Then he ends up in prison in Rome. And while he's in prison in Rome, Paul writes to the Colossians, which is one of the Asian cities.

And again, I mention that just because we're going over the history of Christianity in Asia. Now after Paul is released, he and Timothy go to Ephesus. So when Paul, at the end of his third journey, Paul says, I'm not going to see you again, and tells him bye, and he doesn't think he's coming back.

But from 1 Timothy 1.3, it's clear that Paul and Timothy had gone to Ephesus. And then from the letter, we also can tell that from 1st Timothy, we also can tell that Paul writes to Timothy in Ephesus from Macedonia. So Paul's over Macedonia and he writes to Timothy in Ephesus. Paul gets arrested again, ends up in prison in Rome, and just before his death, Paul writes to Timothy again, which is the book of 2nd Timothy. And it's hard to tell exactly where Timothy's at, but we know he's in Asia when he receives 2nd Timothy.

Then Peter's first and second epistles are partially addressed to Christians who live in Asia as well Okay shortly before the Jewish revolt that's lasted from 66 AD up to 80 70 and at the end of the Jewish revolt The the Romans finally gained control of Jerusalem in the city and they utterly destroyed the temple, you know They threw all the stones. They pushed all the stones of the temple off the temple Mount down onto the Road below and some of those stones are still there standing today Archaeologists haven't removed all of them. I think they've removed about two-thirds of the stones. Anyway, at that time, a lot of the Christians moved to Asia. Philip and his daughters moved to Heropolis, and this is by tradition, so it doesn't tell us this in God's Word, but it's by tradition. Philip and his daughters moved to Heropolis, and then John also would have moved to Ephesus at this time.

And lastly, from his exile on the island of Patmos, John wrote Revelation. Something else we want to look at briefly is Gnosticism, because when John writes this letter, it's apparent that there was Gnostic teaching prevalent in the churches to whom he was addressing.

So what is Gnosticism? Gnosticism did not fully develop until about the middle of the 2nd century AD, but there was pre-Gnostic thought all over the place at the time this epistle was written, at the time that Colossians was written, and Ephesians as Verne is going over next hour. Okay, Gnosticism maintained a dualistic worldview.

In other words, matter Physical matter was essentially evil, and spirit or spiritual was good. Okay, so everything physical was bad, everything spiritual was good. They also talked that the world was created by an evil angel, a demiurge, because if God's perfect, then he couldn't create something evil. So they had to come up with a philosophy that had God giving the responsibility to these series of angels to create the world.

The Gnostics also rejected the resurrection, because if you're a Gnostic, and these aren't my thoughts, but these would be the Gnostics' thoughts, why would I want to be reunited to a body, even if it's a resurrected body? Because to them, the body was bad. So, they rejected the resurrection.

And their purpose or goal in Gnosticism was to release their spirit from the evil body by possessing this special knowledge. So, they believed that by passing this knowledge along, which wasn't for And so, somehow your spirit would be released from its bondage. Now, there are different applications or different ways that Gnosticism would be applied to your life, whether you're a Christian or not. One way is that you would treat your body harshly.

You would deny it of its desires because, again, you believe the body's bad. The second application would be that you view that what's done in the body is insignificant. I mean, because again, if the spiritual is all that matters, then it doesn't matter what I do in my body. So you can sin, you cannot sin, it doesn't matter. Okay? So that's something else that was being taught. And John does encounter that type of thought in this book that we'll study.

Another way is that some Gnostics believe that they were obliged to experientially know everything. Okay, because the word Gnostic comes from gnosis, which is knowledge in Greek. So they, some view that they had the responsibility to experientially know everything, the good and the bad. Okay, so that would lead them to sin. And then some Gnostics believe that they had arrived and that they were so spiritual that they couldn't sin.

And John addresses that as well. I think they had completely detached themselves from their body, so they could do whatever they wanted. The body made me do it. Now, there's a couple special types of Gnosticism that John would have encountered, or something similar to this.

The first is Gnosticism. And this taught, and these are really wild, this taught that Christ didn't actually have a physical body. It was just an illusion. So when people interacted with Jesus Christ in the first century, they weren't actually seeing a body. They were just seeing what appeared to be a body. And again, you can see why they would have to say that. If the body is evil, and God became man, then he couldn't have really became man. It only seemed like he became man.

And docane is the Greek verb to seem, so that's where they get docetism today, that word in English. Now another form of Gnosticism, which Paul would have interacted with to some degree, is what was taught by a man, Cyrenthius. So that's the man, Cyrenthius. And tradition tells us that he knew John, and that they actually opposed each other in Ephesus.

That's not in the Bible, it's just tradition. Corinthians taught that Jesus was born as a real man, but he didn't have a divine nature until his baptism. And at Jesus' baptism, Christ descended upon Jesus in the form of a dove, and empowered Jesus to live the supernatural life, perform miracles, and heal people. But then right before Jesus' death on the cross, Christ left. Because again, God couldn't be associated with death, humility, you know. Okay, obviously, unbelievable.

Another form was taught by Bacillides, and this is in the 2nd century AD, so this is just for what it's worth. John wouldn't have encountered this, there's no indication that he encountered this in 1 John, but this is so bizarre, and it's clear, so I thought I'd throw it in. Bacillides taught that Jesus didn't suffer on the cross at all, but what happened is, What happened was that Simon, from Cyrene, who was forced to help Jesus carry the cross, actually was the one who died. Because Jesus made him look like himself, and then Jesus made himself look like Simon and stood by laughing with the crowd as Jesus was crucified. As Simon was crucified.

So, bizarre. Alright. Okay, so that's a little background and history of Gnosticism, what it was. because the churches and Christians that John writes to here in our book were affected by it to a degree. The purpose. So, why does John write the book? Well, what I did is just went through the book and just pulled out purpose statements where John himself declares why I'm writing this. So we'll look at, I think, nine of those briefly.

So, the first is so that you may have fellowship with us, and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ." So John's writing so that these Christians and believers would have fellowship with himself and with the Lord. John's writing these things so that our joy may be complete. I'm writing these things to you so that you may not sin.

Pretty clear? I'm writing to you little children because you have been forgiven and because you know the Father. Makes you wonder if they were being taught that their sins weren't forgiven, and that they don't know the Father. Because remember, Gnosticism was all about knowledge, and only certain people had the knowledge.

So John's writing the children to tell them He's writing because you do know the Father. He's making a point. I'm writing you because you do know the Father. And then he tells the Father something similar. I'm writing to you, Fathers, because you know Him. And makes you wonder if they're being told that they really don't know God.

You know, that kind of thing. To the young men, he says, I'm writing to you because you are strong, the Word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one. I am right, seven, I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it." So again, similar idea. He's writing to them because they do know the truth.

And he taught them the truth. And that's similar to Paul. Paul does that a lot. He goes through the region on one of his missionary tours. teaches the word, the Lord saves people, the church is established, and then Paul leaves, the false teachers come in, and they distort the teaching. So Paul writes and goes, no, no, no, you know, I wrote to you the truth, and hold fast to the truth, and all those kinds of things. Eight. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.

What are some of the themes that we see in the book of John? One is fellowship, the Christian in sin, we'll study that, the advocacy of Christ, when a believer does sin, keeping the commandments, that's a theme, don't worry, we're not talking about the Mosaic law, we're under grace, not law, but that is a theme that comes up quite a bit, the world, a Christian's relationship to the world, The Antichrist. The Holy Spirit is referred to several times. The Rapture is even talked about by John. Loving one another is a very big theme. And prayer shows up at the end of the book.

And this is for you Greek geeks. Here are the key words in the book, and it shows how many times they're used And that's in your notes, so you can take a look at that. But, ain't me is the Greek verb, I am. And then, you can take a look at that. We won't go through all those.

Okay, the character of the book, the style of the book, the language that's used. Well, first, John is written in the simplest Greek. John's writing is very simple, it's easy to understand. Although he does talk about deep spiritual truths, his writing is very clear and basic. The entire New Testament, and these are just observations, the entire New Testament is made up of 5,437 different words. But in John, actually 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John, the author only uses 303 different words. So he uses a lot of the same words and phrases.

This is from Uncle Lenny. John's style of writing is more like writing Aunt Marge or Grandma, demonstrating to us that you don't have to be super-educated like Paul to be used of the Lord or some theological giant. I mean, because all believers have different capacities, their minds, God gave them different minds, and I won't comment about mine, but however the Lord has made us, we can glorify Him with our minds. But anyway, off track.

Now, I've mentioned this a couple of times. 1 John doesn't have the form of a lot of the other New Testament letters. Now, if you compare 1 John with 2 and 3 John, you'll see the differences, because 2 and 3 John were actually a short length, probably the exact length that would have fit on a sheet of papyrus. So they're very typical letters, 2 and 3 John. They mention the author, I, the elder, writing to you, and even at the end of the letters they have a little salutation.

Well, 1 John, like we mentioned earlier, it doesn't have that. The character of the letter is exhortative, or hortatory. John just gets right into it. He's already taught them. He knows them well, he's already taught them God's Word, and now he's just encouraging them to walk with the Lord. Based on what they already know, walk with the Lord. There are also more Old Testament quotations. unique to only four books of the New Testament.

It's also very difficult to create an outline for 1 John, and most Bible students and theologians just give up, and they admit, we can't track, we can't follow John here. John writes about a subject, then moves on to something else, but then comes back to that subject he just talked about, talks about it a while, then goes on to something else, and he'll come back to it later. So if you're trying to put together a real logical outline, it's difficult. Okay, textual criticism. The text of 1 John doesn't present many problems for healthy lower criticism. because there were no parallel texts or parallel traditions to supply additions or modifications to the original words. If you know a little bit about textual criticism, there were a couple different areas in early Christianity, after New Testament times, where there were schools and training centers. Alexandria, Egypt was one location. Antioch was up in northern Syria, above Palestine. That was another area. They were more conservative. The Christians down in Alexandria liked to allegorize God's Word a little more.

So, sometimes textual critics have to look at those, consider that when they look at the different texts that the scribes copied in those different schools. But First John doesn't present them with many problems. First John occurs in the following Greek manuscripts. The first type of manuscript is an untral manuscript, also called majuscule, and it's just written in all caps. I forgot, I originally wanted to give you an example of it, but I think you know what I'm talking about.

The book wouldn't have any spaces between the words. It would be written in all capital letters. And so, pretty tricky to Probably wouldn't be tricky for them to read, but we would have a hard time reading it today. Anyway, this is in your notes, so you don't have to try to read that if you can't see it. Here are the different manuscripts. Codex is just another word for an early book. It wasn't a scroll, it was an actual book.

And here are the different manuscripts where 1 John is included. Another type of manuscript was called a cursive manuscript. Minuscule was another term for that, and it was just handwritten. And these were used a little later by the scribes, and there's over 200 manuscripts that include 1 John. Minuscule manuscripts. Also, the Book of 1 John occurs in the following Bible versions.

Latin had a couple versions, the Old Latin, and then the Latin Vulgate. The old Latin, I think, was from the 2nd century, and then the Latin Vulgate was by Jerome a little later. The Syriac language had the Peshitta and the Harklian. Peshitta was early, Harklian, I don't know when that was, honestly. Peshitta was early, an early Syriac version, and it had 1 John as well. Then the Egyptian versions of the Bible contained 1 John as well. Okay, then this is our schedule, which you have. And I'll mention then at the back of your notes, there is the picture that shows the Apostle John and his disciples.

Now there's also a pretty neat article that you can take a look at this week when you have time. And it talks about the early church fathers' misunderstanding of who the letter was written to. Some of the early church fathers thought that John was writing this to the Parthians, which is an empire way to the east, to the east of the Roman Empire. So that article will address that.

And then there's the map of Asia. And then I put in a couple of different outlines of 1 John. So even though it's difficult to come up with an outline, there's a few good examples for you. in there. Okay. Your turn. Do you guys have any comments, anything you'd like to add or add about First John? What's that? Yeah.

There's a lot to go through, but I figured Let's go through it and try to have a good introduction and look at a little bit of the history and culture, a little bit of the style and themes and purpose of the book, and then we'll just keep your notes, obviously, and then as we study through the book, some of the introduction should be helpful as we actually study the text.

I was going to say for next week, actually, I'm up for next week, first two verses. Read 1 John chapter 1 and the Gospel of John chapter 1. Right off the bat, we're going to get right into comparing the Gospel versus the Epistle. The first two verses are some of my favorite verses in the Bible. There's a lot there. You wouldn't think in two little verses you could have so much, but there's basically John's eyewitness account of the Lord and how it's so vivid to him.

The Greek is so vivid that he still can remember touching the Lord and hearing his voice in his ears. If you look at the Greek, and we're going to do that, I'm going to have you do some translation, too. I'll let you guys translate. So you can be translators next week.

Well, actually, you know, it's really cool. I mean, it's really, when you see some of the tenses and the way you can render it, I mean, it actually is, as Vern has done, Vern has done his, and, you know, there's enough good aides out there that you can do it, really. And you can do it accurately, I think. Because God's Word is accurate. I mean, it's not that you're accurate, it's you're depending upon His accuracy. It's an exciting book. You did a great job. Alright, anybody else have anything to add?

When Jesus was referred to John as a disciple, wasn't John still quite young? He was one of the youngest. He lived to be the oldest, partly because some of the other apostles were killed, murdered. It seems like he was one of the youngest. Because James and John were the sons of Zebedee, and weren't they fishermen that Jesus called? So, it seems like they were young men.

I think once we were just studying the disciples, And what intrigued me the most about John is how he was just so young and starstruck and how we can look at our own children in their youth and watch them grow and imagine how John grew in his belief to where he came, where he sat down, and wrote these epistles. It was kind of neat when we were studying it.

It was very young. Yeah. They had a suggestive age. I thought it was pretty old. For some reason, I don't know, 90, I don't know. Something you hear over the years. I don't know, it seems like it. But was it Revelation written in 96? Yeah, most people think 96. That's why I got the odds, too.

Good point, Doug. It's got to be really old. Yeah. That's good. Detergene also is the only one of the disciples that wasn't murdered. You're the only one to die of a natural death. Yeah. Alright. Let's pray. Dear God, thanks for letting us go over an introduction of 1 John. Please teach us this morning as we go and study Ephesians and Colossians a little more. Thanks for your grace. Thanks for your Word as well. In Jesus' name, Amen.