February 5, 2016
Scripture Reading: 1 John 4:11-16
11Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
13This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. 14And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. 16And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
Questions for Reflection:
For the better part of 10 years I coached a high school debate team in Indiana. One of the principles that we taught our students was that you needed to make sure that you understood the terms of the argument. Sometimes when we look at the definition of a word, even a familiar word, we get a new insight. John says that we “ought to love one another.” What does the word “ought” mean? The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines it as a “moral obligation.” John is returning to the idea that God’s love for us should serve as the fuel, the driving force, for our ability to love each other. Kruse notes, “The author is not giving a lesson about the love of God for its own sake, but to show that God’s love for us must cause us to love one another.”
One of the familiar concepts in John’s writing is that we have not seen God. In the Gospel, John goes on to tell us that through Jesus Christ, we have seen God. Here in 1 John 4, John expands the idea and says that if we love others, they see God in us. How have you witnessed God at work through the way others have loved you? Has there been times that others have told you that they have seen God through how you loved them?
John introduces the idea of the Holy Spirit in this passage. Often, when Christians read the phrase “Holy Spirit,” they begin to picture an emotional experience. Dr. William Lane Craig provides a great example of the role that reason and the Holy Spirit play in our understanding of our faith.
There’s a belief in our world that faith is just an emotive thing, that it has no rational framework or support. Yet for John his faith was rooted in his experience. He believed there was an intellectual part to it as well. Read the passage again and pay attention to the times John uses the word “know” or “acknowledges”. Gary Burge in his commentary on this passage notes that John’s faith has “theological content…John’s vision of discipleship demands our minds as well as our hearts.” At One Life, we believe that people can bring their brain to church. We are called to follow God with all our hearts and our minds. How do you regularly engage in your mind in theological thought? How are you developing your understanding of your faith and your ability to communicate your beliefs to others in a gracious and loving way?