John continues his theme of God’s love and our response. Is he repeating himself for emphasis? How is he elaborating on what he has already been saying? What nuances about love fill his thinking as he writes? What does he want indelibly stamped into his readers’ thinking? Download the handout and find how this passage impacts you. Then join us on Sunday to share your discoveries.
Download discussion questions: 1 John 3:14-4:6
One repeated phrase characterizes this section of John’s letter: “We know.” Once he words it as “we will know” and again as “you know,” but the theme is consistent. He is confirming certain truths about the faith and about the lives of believers. Over and over John makes assertions about reliable facts. He describes the evidence for the facts. He states the implications of the facts. Our discussion focused on following that pattern through the passage. Continue reading
Download discussion questions: 1 John 3:14-4:6
John is emphatic about what Christians know (or should know). Growing up in a western culture, perhaps even in a Christian home, we may take many Christian truths for granted, even if our neighbors may not. For John’s original readers this clarity and certainty was not guaranteed. If you were surrounded by apathetic or even hostile challengers you would probably want to know exactly what the Gospel is and what difference it makes. If some of those around you were offering very different explanations, how would you know what to believe? John is writing to help believers – first-century and twenty-first century – sort out truth from error. Use the handout to stir your thinking, then join us on Sunday for a lively discussion.
Download discussion questions: 1 John 3:1-16
Table Talk: What are ways that you have seen evidence of God’s work in your life? What have you seen recently? What have you seen over the long term?
[“Table Talk” is an opening question or topic for discussion at the beginning of our time together. The intent is to help group members (around tables, with four to six at each table) build connections with each other, as well as to guide thinking in a direction related to the passage.]
This passage seems to contain a shift in John’s tone. He has made many encouraging and comforting statements about the forgiveness of sin and having fellowship with God. Some of his comments have been warnings about the consequences of “walking in darkness” or loving the things of the world. In these verses he makes stronger, unbending absolute statements, such as “no one who abides in Him sins” (1 John 3:6a) and “no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him” (v. 6b). Any honest reader must be troubled by these pronouncements: “I sin, so what is John saying about me?” Continue reading
Download discussion questions: 1 John 3:1-16
John has written about not sinning (1 John 2:1) and keeping commandments (1 John 2:3) and living in the light (1 John 2:10). This passage seems to take on a new urgency and intensity. John makes seemingly radical, even extreme universal statements about who does and does not sin. Download the handout and see how your life corresponds to the standards that John sets. Join us for a discussion on Sunday that is certain to be interesting.
Download discussion questions: 1 John 2:23-3:3
Table Talk: What are things that concern you about the future? What stirs in you when you think about the future? What is your reaction to conversations about the future? Are you hopeful? Angry? Frightened? Indifferent? Something Else?
[“Table Talk” is an opening question or topic for discussion at the beginning of our time together. The intent is to help group members (around tables, with four to six at each table) build connections with each other, as well as to guide thinking in a direction related to the passage.]
In this passage John makes repeated references to events – some in the past, some in the present (for John and his readers), some in the future. We began our discussion by organizing his comments into those three categories on a whiteboard, similar to the table below: Continue reading
Download discussion questions: 1 John 2:23-3:3
John has warned about the dangers of inappropriate love for the world and of an inaccurate understanding of God. In this passage he summarizes a wide overview of the Christian experience, from the first hearing of the Gospel to the return of Christ. Download the handout and see what you can learn about John’s perspective on the different timeframes of our Christian life.
Download discussion questions: 1 John 2:15-25
Table Talk: “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” – A. W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy
What comes into your mind when you think about God?
[“Table Talk” is an opening question or topic for discussion at the beginning of our time together. The intent is to help group members (around tables, with four to six at each table) build connections with each other, as well as to guide thinking in a direction related to the passage.]
Our discussion began with the difference in perspective between our reading of the passage and the original recipients’ reaction. Phrases like “the world is passing away” and “this is the last hour” probably caused a more intense response in the first century, read from the pen of the last living member of the Twelve. We tend to take such statements figuratively. We believe that Jesus will come someday, but usually the belief has little immediate practical impact on us. Even the warning about the coming antichrist is part of our “sometime, not now” thinking. John’s statement that “now many antichrists have come” (1 John 2:18b) carries a different tone. Continue reading
Download discussion questions: 1 John 2:15-25
John’s letter so far has described weighty concepts about light and darkness (1 John 1:5), about sin and forgiveness (1:9), and about making superficial claims to know God (2:4). He has given words of encouragement for all those at different seasons of their Christian life (2:12-14). This passage begins with the first actual direct command he has given in this letter, a negative instruction: “Do not love the world” (2:15a). He mentions the last hour and the antichrist, lies and truth, denial and abiding. Download the handout and see how these different threads intertwine in John’s thinking. Join us on Sunday for our continuing discussion exploring this first of John’s three letters.
Download discussion questions: 1John 2:10-17 Children, Fathers, Young Men
Table Talk: Think about where you were in life when you first responded to the Gospel. Then think of the most spiritual individual who you know personally. Where are you along that path, from first belief to mature faith?
(“Table Talk” is an opening question or topic for discussion at the beginning of our time together. The intent is to help group members (around tables, with four to six at each table) build connections with each other, as well as to guide thinking in a direction related to the passage.)
Our discussion started with the question, “What part of this passage do you find the most puzzling or even confusing?” That approach led us first to almost the end of the passage, when John writes, “If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15). Our discussion soon focused on a single word, a small preposition, the love “for” the Father, since someone pointed out that other translations say love “of” the Father.[1] The importance of the question became clear when one person suggested that love “for” the Father was directed “upward” as our love for Him, while love “of” the Father (or “the Father’s love”) is downward, from Him. Is John saying that if we love the world, God will not love us? That seemed to be an alarming suggestion. Continue reading