1 John 2

John seems to portray Jesus as our defense attorney in heaven, who is working for us and “has the Father’s ear” (1 John 2:1). Is that how you think it really works in heaven, or is John doing something else?

What an odd way to put it: “There’s one way to tell if we really know God: We obey him” (1 John 2:3). But “to know him is to obey him,” to paraphrase a song, sounds odd and maybe even uncomfortable. What do you think John means by what he said?

Why do you think John would tell young adults, “You’ve won your battle with Evil” (1 John 2:13)? No one on earth is beyond the reach of Satan or any other kind of evil.

Clearly, it seems, John didn’t understand the meaning of the phrase “the last hour” (1 John 2:18), at least not the way we do. Or if he did, he missed the hour by about 2,000 years. Christians often associate that phrase with the return of Jesus and the end of this physical world: “I saw a new heaven and earth. The first heaven and earth were gone” (Revelation 21:1). What do you think John meant by the phrase?

It comes as a surprise to many people that the Antichrist is a no-show in the book of Revelation. Jesus doesn’t mention him either. Nor does Paul, who wrote almost half the books in the New Testament. How do you react to the idea of an end-times antichrist after reading everything the Bible has to say about him by name, antichristos, in Greek, the language of the New Testament? Here is every Bible verse that mentions him by name:

• “My dearest children, this is it—the last hour. You’ve heard an antichrist is coming. Look around. They’re already here, crawling all over the place. . . . Anyone who says Jesus isn’t the Messiah is a liar. There’s your antichrist. It’s anyone who turns their back on the Father and the Son” (1 John 2:18, 22).
• “People who don’t believe in Jesus aren’t speaking for God. They don’t have God’s Spirit. They have a spirit that’s antichrist. You’ve heard an antichrist is coming. Well, that spirit is already here” (1 John 4:3).
• “Liars have fanned out and covered the world. They’re anti-Jesus Christ. They won’t admit he came in the flesh as a human being. Anyone who tells lies like that is the antichrist” (2 John 1:7).

LIFE APPLICATION. “God, in his love, wants us to obey him” (1 John 2:5). That sounds a bit like something a parent would say to a kid. How do you think a parent might put it to the child, maybe in a scene you could imagine or have experienced?

LIFE APPLICATION. John says this is how to tell if someone is a true Christian: “People should see Jesus in them” (1 John 2:6). When have you seen Jesus in people recently?

LIFE APPLICATION. John says, “People aren’t telling the truth when they say they’re living in the light, yet they hate a fellow believer. That’s a dark place” (1 John 2:9). Come on, be honest. We can all think of situations in which one Christian could detest, hate, and want to punch a fellow Christian in the snoot a good one. Right? So, what should we do about what John wrote?

LIFE APPLICATION. Test your knowledge of Roman history. How do you think John’s readers, probably at the end of the first century, understood the following quote differently than we would today? “Don’t fall in love with this world or anything it offers you. When you fall in love with this world, you fall out of love with the Father” (1 John 2:15).