¹ We pro­claim to you the one who existed from the beginning, whom we have heard and seen. We saw him with our own eyes and touched him with our own hands. He is the Word of life. ² This one who is life itself was revealed to us, and we have seen him. And now we tes­tify and pro­claim to you that he is the one who is eter­nal life. He was with the Father, and then he was revealed to us. ³ We pro­claim to you what we our­selves have actu­ally seen and heard so that you may have fel­low­ship with us. And our fel­low­ship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. ⁴ We are writ­ing these things so that you may fully share our joy.

Touched Him

John begins his let­ter by remind­ing his read­ers that he was there. He was there. He walked with Jesus. He heard the words come out of Christ’s mouth. He ate with him, laughed with him, cried with him. He touched Jesus’ skin.

Paul couldn’t say that. Billy Gra­ham couldn’t make that claim. Mother Theresa never expe­ri­enced Jesus in that way.

But John did.

I won­der if John got tired of some of typ­i­cal ques­tions peo­ple prob­a­bly asked him. “What did Jesus look like?” “Did he have an accent?” “Was he funny?” “Did he smell dif­fer­ent?” Let’s face it, I’m sure John was asked ques­tions like that all the time. At the time of this writ­ing, John was liv­ing in Eph­esus. That entire church fam­ily was in the same boat as we are: they had never seen Jesus in real life. They would have had the same ques­tions as we would have.

And yet, like Peter, or the other Gospel writ­ers, John never both­ers to answer these ques­tions in writ­ing. I have no idea if he took the time to answer them through spo­ken word, but he never wrote down the answers to those ques­tions. It’s pretty clear that it wasn’t a pri­or­ity for these early church writ­ers, or for God himself.

Yet, I can’t help but be curi­ous. Yes, some of you more spir­i­tual types will be quick to point out to me that we see Jesus every­day. The poor, the mis­treated, the pris­oner, the widow. As Jesus pointed out, when we min­is­ter to these peo­ple, we are min­is­ter­ing to him. He looks back at us through their eyes. And yes, it’s true, that Jesus is with me every­day. The Spirit resides within me, and I live every moment with Christ in my life.

But, just back away from the spir­i­tual talk for a minute and just con­sider what it must have been like for John. As he writes these words, the death and res­ur­rec­tion of Jesus is fifty years ago. John is around eighty years old. And yet, the mem­o­ries of walk­ing with Jesus are as sharp and as vivid as if they hap­pened yes­ter­day. Talk about “awe” moments.

There’s a con­fi­dence we can talk from that. The teach­ings of Jesus are not three or four or even five gen­er­a­tions old. They are still fresh. When we lis­ten to John, or Peter, or some of the other New Tes­ta­ment writ­ers, we are hear­ing first hand accounts of what Jesus did and said. That’s fairly rare in his­tor­i­cal accounts.

My prayer: Lord, thank you for peo­ple like John. As he begins this let­ter, he reminds us of his first hand expe­ri­ence with you. It must have been so incred­i­ble. And so, while we can­not expe­ri­ence that our­selves, we can know what it was like through the eyes of John. I find that incred­i­ble. It builds my faith know­ing that I am hear­ing from some­one who was there. Some­one who walked with you. Speak to me through his words. Amen.

Until tomor­row.

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¹¹ And this is what God has tes­ti­fied: He has given us eter­nal life, and this life is in his Son. ¹² Who­ever has the Son has life; who­ever does not have God’s Son does not have life.

1 John 5:11–12

Intro­duc­tion to 1 John

We are about to begin the thir­teenth book of the Bible in this Oil Change (and that’s not includ­ing the var­i­ous pas­sages from Psalms and Hebrews that we’ve looked at). It’s truly incred­i­ble when I look at the amount of writ­ing that has gone in to doing these daily devo­tion­als. Accord­ing to my word count, I have writ­ten 249,221 words over the past few years. If you were to print all of these devo­tion­als out, it would take 790 pages!

So, whether you have been fol­low­ing us for only a few days or a few years, thank you for being a part of this jour­ney with me.

Today, we are going to begin look­ing at the first of John’s let­ters. John was one of the twelve dis­ci­ples (he was actu­ally one of the three clos­est to Jesus). He was the only one of the dis­ci­ples who was brave enough to show his face at the cru­ci­fix­ion. Tra­di­tion tells us that he was also likely the only dis­ci­ple who wasn’t mar­tyred for his faith. Rather, John prob­a­bly died of old age while exiled to the Island of Path­mos (where he wrote the book of Revelation).

Prob­a­bly the most famous of John’s writ­ings would be his account of the life of Jesus (the Gospel of John). A close sec­ond would be his vision of the end times (book of Rev­e­la­tion). These three let­ters, tucked away after Peter’s writ­ings, are not as well known or quoted. And yet, that doesn’t make them any less impor­tant. Like all Scrip­ture, they offer some great insight and direc­tion to liv­ing out the spir­i­tual life.

Most schol­ars believe that John wrote this let­ter around the same time that he wrote his Gospel (between 85–95 AD). He was likely liv­ing in Eph­esus (shortly after Paul’s let­ter to that church), and his focus was to chal­lenge the church to get back to the basics of their faith.

For those who have been fol­low­ing the Oil Change for awhile, you might remem­ber me telling you that John wrote his Gospel in an attempt to respond to a group know as Gnos­tics. These peo­ple were empha­siz­ing knowl­edge over every­thing else. John’s Gospel, often referred to as “the love Gospel” was an attempt to show that sal­va­tion came through faith in God — a God who loves us — and not through gain­ing knowl­edge or insight. This let­ter fol­lows the same theme. Yes, John does empha­size the impor­tance of sound doc­trine, but remind his read­ers that doc­trine with­out grace is meaningless.

Unlike Paul, John’s let­ters come across almost as ser­mon man­u­scripts. If you close your eyes and try, you can hear him stand­ing and preach­ing these words. His pas­sion and focus is clear.

As we go through this let­ter, think of your­self sit­ting at the feet of an old timer. As he shares his words, he isn’t speak­ing the­o­ret­i­cally. He’s speak­ing as some­one who has expe­ri­enced it all. Paul didn’t walk with Jesus first­hand. John did. As he shares the mes­sage of Jesus, I’m sure he’s remem­ber­ing actual encoun­ters that he had with his Sav­iour. That’s an incred­i­ble thought.

This should be a great journey.

Oh, and as I point out every time we begin a new book, let me sug­gest that this is the per­fect time to for­ward the Oil Change to a few friends. Invite them to sign up and begin fol­low­ing the devo­tional firsthand.

My prayer: Lord, thank you that we can still hear from those who walked with you. As we dive into John’s first let­ter, cause it to come alive for us. Help us dis­cover fresh the chal­lenge that he had for the early Church. Amen.

Until tomor­row.

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