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...

RELIGION — Back when people wrote letters, they did so for lots of reasons. They wanted to stay in contact with a loved one from whom they were separated (This was especially true in the days before there were phones, and later when people had phones but long-distance...

By BRUCE GREEN RELIGION — A man had fallen into an old, dry well and was stuck at the bottom. He called out for help, and finally someone came by. The person lowered a rope down to the man. The man grabbed the rope, looked at it and asked, “What happens if this rope...