David Pawson - Letters of John Part 2 

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THOUGHTFUL THOUGHTS 31.10.25 BY JOHN DUNNING.

TRUTH - AS WELL AS LOVE; (THE LETTERS OF JOHN, PART 2.)

A). INTRODUCTION…

John the apostle was the best friend of Jesus and lived to old age, writing these letters sometime between 85-95 AD-ish. 

1 John was written to confront the teaching of a heretic called Cerinthus. John corrected bad teaching by defining how we can know who is a child of the Father. Later on in other writings, they recorded that as an old man, John once said to his helpers carrying him to the public baths; “Get me out of this water… I won’t be in the same water as that man”, (ie Cerinthus).

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B). COMBINING ‘TRUTH AND LOVE’; THE FIRST LETTER OF JOHN.

John is known as the apostle of love, but here he teaches that both truth and love must be practiced together. John starts his letters with 1 John addressing the truth about sin. He starts by emphasizing that sin is exceptionally serious in believers, (1 John 5:15-16). That is why we need to keep short accounts with God and why Jesus taught His disciples in the Lord’s Prayer of the need to confess sin when we pray to our Father in heaven. In Rev. 22:19-20, Jesus said “If anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the book of life, …”. As their name was originally in the book of life, they used to be in God’s family. They had been on track to go to ‘the holy city’, but came to be rejected because of disobedience, so in Rev.22:20 Jesus taught here that we can lose our salvation. 

This time we look at the importance of combining Truth AND Love. The apostle John is known as the apostle of love, yet these letters show there was also much more substance to him than that. We like to quote the verses about love as long as we don’t have to also quote their context! John puts that love into context in his letters. In spite of John adding context, we often ignore context because that is the challenging bit! For example, in the first letter, John points out just how serious sin is in believers; ( 1 John 5:15-16.) We need to keep short accounts with God. Remember Jesus taught His disciples in the Lord’s Prayer of the need to confess sin even though they were already disciples, and when Jesus’ disciples pray, it is to our Father in Heaven.

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BOTH truth AND love at the same time…

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C). PUTTING TRUTH INTO PRACTICE; THE SECOND LETTER OF JOHN.

The second letter of John is written to “the elect lady”, because John identifies a problem of the truth being ignored, in order to show love. “The elect lady” had been welcoming any teacher to teach her group. John tells her to only have teachers of truth. She extended hospitality regardless of who they were. (I knew a land-lady who ran weekly Bible studies just like that ‘elect lady’.) Showing ‘love’ all sounds very Christian, but what kind of love sends people in the wrong Biblical direction? 

Again and again today we hear that love is the thing  and John says in his 2nd letter that it is not enough, as only speakers who have the truth may be permitted to speak.

The truth was so critical for this so-called “apostle of love”, that he would not socialize with a heretic. The world famous Christian philosopher, Francis Schaeffer, once said, “The greatest problem for the church in the future will be the loss of the truth.” 

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D). PUTTING LOVE INTO PRACTICE; THE THIRD LETTER OF JOHN

John wrote his 3rd letter to the elder, “Gaius”, who had the opposite problem. He was so possessive about what he saw as being “his” church, that he had not permitted even the right people to teach the truth, so, John had to teach Gaius about love.

Gaius taught correct doctrine without demonstrating love, which made his example incorrect. He was so possessive, he did not even permit good teachers to teach. He saw the church as “his” church. God’s love is about “DOING”. (James emphasised that point too, but using the word translated as “works”.)

An Anglican vicar I once knew had the problem Gaius had, became furious when the church youth leader invited a Baptist pastor to speak about the immersion of believers to the youth group, as if he was the enemy. That is the unredeemed part of us showing through. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth as well as love. God’s children should have both. God’s children should be able to be identified because they have both the agape love of God as well as truth. Church leaders may not just stick with teaching that’s popular, (for example, on love,) at the expense of truth, (just because the truth may not be popular. When Jesus taught about the kind of love that God has, He also taught us everything we know about hell, which is why God sent Jesus so that we may avoid it.)

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E). SUMMARY…

I once heard Francis Schaeffer say, “The greatest problem for the church in the future will be the loss of the truth.” 

What he prophesied has already been happening in the church. Showing ‘love’ all sounds very nice, but what kind of love does not give the truth?

What we have in the church today is the problem that “the elect lady” had, of sacrificing the hard truths, by simply focusing on love. Showing ‘love’ sounds nice, but what kind of love sends people in the wrong direction? John put into practice his point about Truth AND Love. He refused to socialize with a heretical church leader. Reading the Bible can help to protect us against wrong teaching. A general sum-up of these letters is;-

i).   In the first letter, John warned of the seriousness of sin in believers…

ii).  In the second letter John warned of the critical importance of truth, where there had only been  love…

iii). In his 3rd letter, John warned of the critical importance of including love  where there had only been truth…

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth as well as love. God’s children should have a balance of both. So, John is saying we must stick to truthful teaching as well as showing agape love. These leaders must have the love of the Father in them as well as sticking to the truth about Him.

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F). EPILOGUE

The Bible protects us against wrong teaching, if we study it. Our weekly messages enable you to have a reading plan which will take you through the whole Bible. Read the Bible book after reading the blog and watching the video. We need to give the Bible a higher priority than TV!

As the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth AND love, God’s children should have a balance of both. God’s children should be able to be identified because they have the love of the God of truth in them. The same Jesus who taught us about the kind of agape love God has, (shown through His agape love to the world,) also taught us everything we know about hell.) Disciples can’t have one without the other… Yes, we demonstrate Jesus’ teaching on love, but we also pass on Jesus’ teaching that is unpopular, like His teaching on hell.

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John Hus, martyred for preaching the Gospel by the Catholic Church, said;-

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If you would like to know how to find peace with God, listen to the podcasts at this link…

https://www.inspirational.org.nz/pages/johns-devotionals-podcast

This is John Dunning signing off from “Thoughtful Thoughts” for another week.

This link takes you to our devotional https://blog.inspirationalmedia.org.nz/

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This is John Dunning signing off from “Thoughtful Thoughts” for another week.

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