I was working on reading the Bible with my oldest daughter, age 9. A couple of days ago, I had her read a little of 1st John, and we talked about it before bedtime.
As I talked with her, the Holy Spirit connected something up for me about John's writings. He starts the book by explaining that he is writing from his own personal experience with Jesus, the Word of life.
It hadn't occurred to me before this, but the picture of Jesus as the Word of God shows up at the beginning of 1st John, just as it does in John's Gospel.
Jesus is displayed as the Word of God as a primary identifier at the beginning of both books.
Like most deep things, it feels like that's a very simple thing to comment on. But think about it - John thought so much on this idea of God talking to us through His Son, he pondered it so much, that John wrote about it all over the place.
Not only that, in the Gospel of John he writes that 'in Him was light, and that light was the life of men'. 1st John speaks over and over about how 'God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all', and John identifies Jesus as the Word of life in that introductory passage.
The Word. Life. Light.
So that's what I'm pondering these last couple of days, when I slow down. I'll probably write more about that over the next few days.
I've already given some energy to meditating on that idea of 'the Word'...I already see connections from 1st John to both the Gospel of John and to Hebrews. Where do these ideas come together in Revelation, 2nd and 3rd John?
The Light and Life are concepts John ties to the Word, so I'm asking God for revelation - What did you show to John, as he walked with you? What did John understand, that led him to write about you that way, with those ideas in his heart?
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