John at Ephesus Part Five

What's wrong with the World

 ¹⁵Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. ¹⁶For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world. ¹⁷The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.

What does John mean by the world?

As indicated many times through out the  bible the relationship between  the world and the christian is a complex one, to fair as is the relationship between God and the world.  The world represents at least three things in the context of the Bible.  The first is the world of the creation perfect and natural as defined by God in the passages in Genesis (Genesis 1).  The second is the Fallen world that Christ gives his life for (Jn3:16).  The third and clearly the world to which John is referring too here is the world of the tempter, corrupted by the works of the fallen and ultimately representing the trap of worldly / material concerns for a christian.

 

What's interesting about this is of course that all are equally valid world views within the Christian experience and there has since the beginning of time been a conflict between all three.  I find it challenging in the modern world with environmental degradation and pollution causing such huge problems to not reflect on the fact that we have not given enough priority on the World of Genesis 1.  I also believe we continue to struggle as Christian with the attention between the fallen world needing salvation and the fallen world offering temptation.  There is a letter from the days of the early church arguing against Martyrdom by Christians as they were seeking to escape to the future perfect world by being killed in the modern one.  The letter argues that this is an escape from their duties as Christians to spread the word and support other Christians.  Sadly I can't remember the name or the location of the letter at this point.But we can see even in the very early church a conflict existed between the two most obvious christian responses to a Fallen world.

 

I believe almost certainly wrongly that we need to be here to speak on behalf of the world of Genesis 1, and the lost people within a broken world first.  After all this is what Christ did and the ultimate injunction of the New Testament is to follow him (Hebrews 12:1-3,) I find this requirement binding and am deeply troubled by some thinking in fringe elements of both the pentecostal and evangelical movements in the US that sort to inspire a Human made Armageddon to bring about the rapture.  Firstly I can see no reward in heaven for such a terrible crime against God's creation and secondly it stinks of hubris, we do not know what form the rapture will take and it would be best to not predict its form or timing.

How does the world attract and tempt us, how could this be described as a deceptive or deceitful attraction?

I suspect the one thing most people would agree on is the threat that a complete focus on material and worldly concerns offers everyone, be you a secularist, a Hindu, a Muslim or a Christian.  All creeds here recognise the inherent threat such a focus offers in taking something away from us, in this case the focus on a deeper meaning or morality.  Christians are called by God to not fall prey to the temptations of this worldly distraction and to always remember we are in the world but not of it (Romans 12:2).  As a side note despite by assumptions to the contrary there is actually no verse in the New Testament that explicitly states we are in the world but not of it.. 

 

I don't think many people surrounded by the modern consumerist culture would doubt how it tempts us - it offers us an instant and easily distracting fix to our needs, just buy this, just do this and you will be happy.  It also surrounds us with morally ambiguous choices that are somehow portrayed as easy or acceptable in the light of modern thought.  Christians are mostly exiled to the fringes of society for some of their more radical (to use the modern language) ideas or concepts.  It is so easy seek acceptance from the world or to allow the changing nature of the world to undermine and displace core christian values.  I want to make the point at this moment that it is core christian values that get displaced not cultural mores representing as core values simply because they are conservative values.  The abolishment of slavery is a case in point, for centuries it was an accepted cultural practice to keep slaves and support for this behaviour could be found even in the highest levels of the Church.  It is however difficult to reconcile this approach with the core Christian requirement to love one another.  Eventually it was William Wilberforce who put a stop to slavery in England as a result of his belief in Core Christian Values.

 

Core Values for a Christan are those related to the following of the two great commandments - love God and Love thy Neighbour.  They represent the touchstone of our beliefs and should be adhered too.  It is also clearly important to pay correct and proper attention to the writings contained in the inspired word of god (the Bible).  I am sure their are others but you get the idea.

What does it mean to do the Will of God and what is the outcome of this behaviour

Simple and concise John reminds us again and again of the importance of following Gods commands and listening to his will as we travel through life.  John deliberately places this at the end of his warning about the world to remind us as to the correct Christian response to the threat of the world.  Follow God and be saved simple and not difficult to understand and yet as already pointed out so hard to do.

John at Ephesus Part Four

How the True Light Shines

Verses 1 John 2:7-8 How should we understand this command that is old yet new?

⁷Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had since the beginning. This old command is the message you have heard. ⁸Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in him and you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining

It seems that John here is referring to the core commandment of God, and the one that Jesus places most of his emphasis on throughout his ministry, namely that we love our neighbour as ourselves (Gal 5:14).  This command is old in the sense that it was probably the command that many Christian's have right from the beginning of their Christian Walk.  In any case the focus on the message of God's love for us is critical to John's overall message of salvation, without it we would be without the redeemers grace and protection.  What is also clear is that John is continuing his use of the motifs of Light and Dark to illustrate the difference between the sinful world and the sinless God.

The second part of these two verses is a reminder that Christ's message of God's love for us is one we are meant to emulate.  I think that it is clear as described in the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:30-37), that Christ recognises the value in acting out our love from God in a practical way. Christ uses this parable to point out that simply following laws and doing the correct things mentally is not enough, the Good Samaritan ultimately does something for the man by the side of the road, something no one else thinks to do. 

Verses 1 John 2:9-11  'light and love go together'  why does John emphasis this link so strongly ?  what is the challenge for us?

  ⁹Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. ¹⁰Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him^[a] to make him stumble. ¹¹But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him.

John makes the point here of linking the message of love as Christians with our relationship with God.  He also seeks to place love for one another particularly Christians as one of the most important aspects of an active Christian Life.  In the Light of God's love how can we fail to do anything other than love our brothers and sisters in Christ, for clearly God loved them enough to sacrifice his only Son for them as well as for us.  In the light of this relationship I think we are obligated to love them in the same way, or at least as far as our Human Natures allow us too.

The challenge is always resident in the emotive nature of the word love, here John is not calling upon us to love our brothers and sisters in a academic or theoretical way rather he seeks to make us love them in a practical way.  The use of the term hate here seems important as it clearly indicates the possibility of us hating our brother and sisters.  One has to wonder how this would be possible though as Christians to hate another Christian, I suspect the warning to not hate is intended to drive a stake through the thought of a theoretical approach to this problem, for if we ignore those in need are we not acting out of hate rather than love as the opposite force to the one Christ invoked in the Good Samaritan Parable mentioned earlier.  We are called in this verse then to act in love, not to accept it as mental challenge but rather actively seek to impact on those lives in a positive way.

Verses 1 John 2:12-14 ' who are the dear Children, Fathers and Young Men of this poetic section?, what particular conviction does John want each group to hold and why?

¹²I write to you, dear children,
      because your sins have been forgiven on account of his name.
 ¹³I write to you, fathers,
      because you have known him who is from the beginning.
   I write to you, young men,
      because you have overcome the evil one.
   I write to you, dear children,
      because you have known the Father.
 ¹⁴I write to you, fathers,
      because you have known him who is from the beginning.
   I write to you, young men,
      because you are strong,
      and the word of God lives in you,
      and you have overcome the evil one

It seems from the commentaries that the Dear Children referred to in this set of verses relates to the congregation as a whole, John was quite elderly by this point and saw himself as a apostolic father figure to the congregation,  I find it unlikely that John was referring to actual children with this set of verses as its application is universal. The fathers most likely is a call to the elders of the church, Men (and Women) who were leading the congregation and drawing upon their understanding of god to lead the congregation as a whole.  Young men most likely means the next generation of the church. 

The children (congregation) are reminded here once again of Christ's salvation of us all and his relationship with God Almighty.  this core truth repeatedly referred to in all of John's writings draws us to the inescapable realisation of Christ's constant and enduring sacrifice for us as sinners.

Fathers (elders) are reminded of their knowledge of the message of Christ and on the nature of the messenger itself.  They are also enjoined to remember that they are the knowledgeable ones who have know he who is from the beginning.

Young Men (next generation /generations to come) are reminded of the victory Christ has had in their lives over the evil one.  They are also reminded of the importance of God's word in making that possible.