1 John 4.1-6.
From time to time Christians ask me how I know whether someone’s an on-the-level Christian, or whether they’re a phony, a heretic, a hypocrite, or just generally on the wrong track. For two reasons, usually:
- They honestly don’t know. And these guys make them nervous… and somehow I don’t, which is odd, but whatever. They’ve decided they can trust me enough to pick my brain.
- They not-so-honestly do know, or think they know. So this is a test to see whether I believe as they do, and whether I can be trusted.
Frequently I point ’em to 1 John. It’s a letter full of good commonsense advice about living in a fallen world, including a world full of Christians gone corrupt, ’cause that’s exactly what John had to deal with when he ran the church of Ephesus:
“Spot the heretic” isn’t a complicated game when we know what Christians oughta believe. Problem is, so many of us know nothing. Or we’re looking for the wrong thing: We’re being very very careful
So often, I’ve heard ignorant Christians say
Yeah, on the other extreme people will follow heretics because they’re such nice people. Because they’ve confused niceness with rightness. They’re not the same thing. My friendly waiter might never wash her hands; friendly or not, she’s wrong. As would I be if I decided
But fruit counts. And orthodoxy counts. Christians oughta have both. Good works and
Today’s passage focuses mainly on orthodoxy, but I figured I should first remind you both fruit and orthodoxy are important, lest you get the idea it’s just orthodoxy. You might also notice a little bit of good fruit comes up in this passage too. And of course
1 John 4.1-6 KWL - 1 Beloved, don’t believe every spirit!
- Instead examine whether the spirits are from God,
- because many fake prophets have gone forth into the world.
- 2 This is how you know God’s spirit: Every spirit is from God
- who acknowledges Christ Jesus came in the flesh.
- 3 Every spirit is not from God
- who doesn’t acknowledge Jesus is even from God.
- And this behavior is of antichrist,
- which you heard “is coming”: It’s already in the world. Now.
- 4 You children are from God, and you conquered them,
- because the One in you is greater than what’s in the world.
- 5 They’re from the world, which is why they speak from the world,
- and the world heeds them.
- 6 We’re from God. One who knows God heeds us.
- One who’s not from God doesn’t heed us.
- From this we identify the truthful spirit, and the erroneous spirit.