A Handbook on the First Letter of John
Overview
This set of detailed commentaries provides valuable exegetical, historical, cultural, and linguistic information on the original text. Over the years this series has been instrumental in shedding light on the Scriptures so that translators all over the world could complete the important task of putting God's Word into the many languages spoken in the world today. Over the years church leaders and Bible readers have found the UBS Handbooks to be useful for their own study, since many of the issues Bible translators must address when trying to communicate the Bible's message to modern readers are the ones Bible students must address when approaching the Bible text as a part of their own private study and devotions.
Top Highlights
“But the world can occur also (5) with a negative connotation, standing for all who are, or for all that is, in enmity with God and the believers (see 2:15–17; 3:1, 13; 4:4f, 19). Taken thus it refers to the world and the persons in it as an evil system, as a way of life that is in the power of the evil one and, therefore, is friendly to the false teachers. Then the opposition between world and ‘God’ is parallel to that between ‘darkness’ and ‘light,’ cp. 1:5.” (Page 55)
“Those main points are, (a) their denial of the testimony about Jesus Christ that has been given from the beginning (cp. 2:7, 22, 24; 3:11; 4:2f; 2 John 1:7, 9); and (b) their feeling that it did not matter whether they did good or did evil, or with a more learned term, their ethical indifferentism.” (Page 3)
“The proposition stated in v. 3 starts from the conviction that a man’s visible behavior and his invisible relation to God are so closely parallel that one can draw conclusions from the one concerning the other.” (Page 37)
“The verb then refers to inner possession, and shows a person to be in a certain condition, or to have a certain emotion, which influences him continually. Thus ‘to have sin’ means that one has the source and principle of sin in oneself, and is continually dominated by it. The expression does not refer here to sinful deeds (as it did in v. 7), but to a sinful attitude that is the source of sinful deeds, and implies personal guilt. Some ways to render the clause are, ‘we claim to be sinless’ (NEB), ‘we have no evil in our head-hearts,’ ‘we are persons who never sin.’” (Page 29)
- Title: A Handbook on the First Letter of John
- Authors: J. L. Swellengrebel, Marinus de Jonge
- Series: United Bible Societies’ Handbooks
- Publisher: United Bible Societies
- Print Publication Date: 1972
- Logos Release Date: 2003
- Era: era:contemporary
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subjects: Bible. N.T. 1 John › Commentaries; Bible. N.T. 1 John › Translating
- Resource ID: LLS:29.67.8
- Resource Type: Bible Commentary
- Metadata Last Updated: 2024-03-25T18:57:35Z