This morning I will begin a new sermon series on the New Testament letter of 1 John. John was provoked to write his first epistle (1 John) by the threat of a dangerous theological heresy that appeared at the end of the 1st century. Gnosticism (knowledge) was a complicated and multi-headed and insidious heresy. It paid lip-service to Christianity, but denied the New Testament portrait of Christ. It claimed to hate evil but often encouraged outright immorality. Gnosticism promised its followers the possibility of a deeper mystical knowledge than could be found by following the Scriptures. The result of all of this was that Gnosticism attacked the authority of the Scriptures and the claims of the Gospel. Defending Christianity against Gnosticism produced in 1 John a letter with a very clear and useful theme: to define true Christianity, to describe a true Christian and to detect false teachers. Students of the Bible have often viewed 1 John as a series of tests to diagnose the reality of one’s faith; to help answer the question, Am I truly born again?
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