Bible Study: 1 John, Chapter 4

The First Letter of John

Chapter 4

Read 4:1-6.

1. (Notes: A. The term “every spirit” means every person moved by a spirit to speak “prophetically”. Such persons might be inspired by the “Spirit of God” or else they might be inspired by a false, demonic spirit. B. The term “Jesus Christ has come in the flesh” means that the man Jesus of Nazareth and the everlasting Son of God are one and the same person, in the flesh, not merely in appearance.) Imagine what would be implied by saying that, looking at Jesus Christ, we were either: not seeing the true God becoming truly human, or not seeing in Jesus the true God. What would that say about “The Gospel”.

2. How would the anti-Christ, anti-God, find an advantage in the false version of who Jesus Christ is?

3. Why would “the world” prefer the false message over the true one?

4. What does it mean to overcome the false prophets? (In what we believe and what we do?)

5. How does verse 6 say that we can also tell the Spirit of truth from the spirit of falsehood?

Read 4:7-21.

6. How does our love of one another relate to the message of the Spirit of Truth in the first six verses of this chapter? How does our love test the genuineness of our relationship with the truth?

7. What does verse ten say about God’s level of involvement in human life? And what is the reason for this?

8. What does verse thirteen mean in light of Romans 8:15-16?

9. In verses 1 John 4:15-16, how does the identity of Jesus enable us to rely on the love of God?

10. How does love of others make us like Jesus and so cast out fear? For one thing, was Jesus ever afraid of his Father?

11. How is not loving our brothers and sisters in Christ the biggest and easiest of sins?

12. What is the cure for this? (Think about this before you look at 1 John 1:8-9.

13. What does this chapter teach us about God’s love? 

14. What does it teach us about Jesus Christ?