By BRUCE GREEN RELIGION — The Gnostic influencers John was opposing in 1 John were not known for their love. They were spiritual elitists. Anyone who was “in the know” as they were was OK, but everyone else was looked down upon in contempt. They were like some of the...

By BRUCE GREEN RELIGION — Why is it whenever someone starts to talk about keeping God’s commands, people get uneasier than a long-tailed cat in a room full of rockers? Why, when John pointedly tells us, “His commands are not burdensome” (1 John 5:13), do so many...

By BRUCE GREEN RELIGION — First John is a brief but marvelously rich letter. But when you first get into it, there’s a good possibility it will overwhelm you with its repetition of a cluster of words. In its 105 verses, “know” is used 32 times, “love” is used 27...

By BRUCE GREEN RELIGION — John assures the disciples he is writing in 1:1-4 of his first letter that the message they had shared with them about Christ was rooted in historical reality. There were Gnostic influencers who were spreading the heresy that Christ had not...