Bible Study: 1 John, Chapter 5

The First Letter of John

Chapter 5

Read 5:1-12.

1. When a person is born of God, who becomes the object of that person’s love?

2. What are God’s commands? (See 3:23.)

3. What is the content of John’s faith? What does faith do? What does faith receive? Or what is the spiritual environment of the people of faith?

4. What do water and blood refer to in the story of Jesus? To what do they testify concerning the identity of Jesus or the mission of Jesus?

5. How does the Spirit extend the “testimony” to us?

6. Verse 10 describes two kinds or conditions of people. What are they?

Read 5:13-21.

7. In verses 13-15, what kind of attitude does John what believers to have?

8. What does John say is the ideal relationship between the believers and God in prayer? (Also check one thing Jesus said about prayer in the Gospel of John 14:14.)

9. Might as well look into “the unpardonable sin”. (See Matthew 12:31-32, and parallels. Look at 1 John 1:7 seeing if it excludes any sin from forgiveness. Relate 1 John 1:18 to the issue of whether a Christian will be allowed by God to practice a sin that ends with death. Does 1 Jn. 5:16 say, specifically, that a Christian may be the one committing a sin that ends in death?)

10. How are verses 18 and 20 an answer to the problem presented in verse 19? (John is teaching here using the technique called “chiasm”, an ancient Jewish thought form.)

11. What is our relationship with Jesus in verse 20? And who is Jesus in this verse? Again, what does it mean, here, to “know” him?

12. An idol is a fabricated god, a god created by human imagination, based on human desires or ways of understanding things. Jesus, according to John, is the true representation of God. How does devotion to Jesus keep us from pursuing false goals, or putting other things before the true God?