Ephesus, c. AD 85

(1,2,3 John)

THE APOSTLE JOHN, cousin, and close associate of Jesus has released an open letter warning Christians not to be taken in by attractive but false teachings, and commanding them to use their minds.

‘Test the spirits,’ he says, ‘to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out from the world.’ Believers are not to be gullible but to check that messages disseminated by preachers agree with the truths of Christianity which were taught originally, and that their lives match up to the message.

The letter does not flow logically from start to finish, but meanders like a river around the subjects. However, the author, who is now quite elderly, returns regularly to three major tests of faith. One is obedience; people who claim to know God but don’t keep his unchanging commands are liars, he says bluntly.

The second test is love; Christians who hate their fellow believers are not enlightened but remain in darkness, he says, turning catchphrases from the new mystical heresies back on their authors. The third test is holding to established Christian beliefs such as the full bodily life, death, and resurrection of the divine Christ, which the new teachings, sometimes called ‘gnostic’ (from the word for knowledge) deny.

Using characteristically strong language, John ‘the son of thunder’ claims that ‘many anarchists have now come’, heralding ‘the last hour’. They were never true Christians, he asserts. To counter them he recalls his own personal experience of the presence and teaching of Jesus. But the stormy apostle has not lost his pastoral touch. He combines forthright teaching with gentle encouragement, reassuring the doubtful of the love and forgiveness of God.

The disciple, who has been based in Ephesus for some years, does not indicate to whom the letter is to be sent. It is likely that it is being circulated around the churches in the province of Asia, to whom he is something of an elder statesman.

John has also written two other short letters. One urges readers to be careful who they give hospitality to; not all strangers who come in the name of Christ are angels in disguise. The other is a personal message of encouragement to John’s friend Gaius.