Category: Bible Study

Today’s passage: 1 John 5:1–5

Focus verse: Everyone born of God overcomes the world. (1 John 5:4)

There is a lot packed into today’s passage, but most of it reviews what John has already written. He talks about believing in Jesus as our Savior (the Christ) for us to be born again.

How loving the Father is loving his Son. There’s a reminder to love others and obey God’s commands, which are easy to do and not a burden (see Day 18).

Then John slides in the word overcome. He’s already mentioned this word in two passages. 

First, he said that the word of God lives in us, and we have overcome the evil one (1 John 2:13–14). Second, he said that since we are from God—that is, his children—we have overcome the spirit of false prophets, the antichrists (1 John 4:1–4).

For his third mention of overcome, John does not build on either of these prior mentions. Instead, he adds a third consideration, one even more grand. He says that everyone born of God overcomes the world.

Yes, we, through our belief in Jesus as God’s Son, have overcome the world. Not that we can, not that we might, but that we are actually doing so. We are overcoming the world.

From a spiritual sense we will overcome the world as we move closer to our time of joining Jesus in heaven. From a tangible perspective we overcome the world each day—at least that’s God’s expectation.

Yet many Christians don’t act as though they’re overcoming the world. Instead, they live defeated, dejected lives that prove how the world has overcome them. I get that. I’ve been there. But that’s not God’s plan; this is not his intent.

Everyone born of God overcomes the world. Not a few. Not some. Not even most. Everyone. Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Son of God has this overcome-the-world condition in them. 

Then why don’t our lives show it? Or show it more often?

I wonder if it’s because we try to live a life that’s too close to the world we hope to overcome. If we act like the world and think like the world, it’s impossible to overcome the world because we are part of it; we’re fully immersed in it.

But this isn’t a call to segregate ourselves from our worldly neighbors, community, and society. If we do that, we’ll never have a chance to tell them about Jesus.

Yes, we must stay in our world, but if we’re too much like it, our witness will be ineffective, and we’ll have no hope of overcoming the world.

Questions:

1. Are we overcoming the world or is it overcoming us? 
2. How can we move from living a defeated life to overcoming it?
3. What should we do to be less like the world?
4. How can we remain in the world and not be overcome by it?
5. How can we be a better witness for Jesus?

Discover what else John writes about overcome in John 1:5 and John 16:33.

Tips: Check out our tips to use this online Bible study for your church, small group, Sunday school class, or family discussion. It’s also ideal for personal study. Come back each Monday for a new lesson.

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Discover practical, insightful, and encouraging truths in Love One Another, a devotional Bible study to foster a deeper appreciation for the two greatest commandments: To love God and to love others.

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

Today’s passage: 1 John 4:19–21

Focus verse: We love because he first loved us. (1 John 4:19)

Perhaps the most misused, most misunderstood word in English is love. I love my wife, and I love to watch movies. I love nature, and I love blue. I love to write, and I love spring.

I also love God. 

If our love of God means anything, we show it by how we love. This is because he loved us first. Therefore, we respond to his love by loving him back and by loving others.

We show our love to him by how we worship him, how we spend our time, and how we use the resources he blesses us with. Our love for him is a fitting response to his love for us.

We also show our love to God by obeying his commands. One of his chief instructions is for us to love one another (Day 16). 

If we do not love the brothers and sisters we live with and can see, how can we expect to love the God we don’t live with and can’t see?

We delude ourselves if we claim to love God yet remain mired in hate toward others. Therefore, if we love God, we must also love our brothers and our sisters.

We may wonder who qualifies as our brothers and sisters. Surely, this goes beyond our own family, but does it expand to include only those in our faith community, or does it mean everyone in the entire world? 

We can ask the same question about the command to love one another. Does this only apply to the Church of Jesus, or does it apply to everyone?

For the answer to this question, recall the parable of the good Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37). A religious expert asks Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life.

Jesus tells him to love God fully and to love his neighbor as much as he loves himself. The religious expert asks Jesus to define neighbor. This is when Jesus gives his parable.

It’s a story about a man who’s robbed and left on the side of the road to die. A priest comes upon the man but walks by him. Next a Levite arrives and ignores the hurting man as well.

At last, a Samaritan—a person Jesus’s audience reviled—arrives on the scene. He stops to help the man and takes steps to nurse him back to health.

Jesus asks the religious expert which of these three people acted as a good neighbor to the injured man.

The religious leader can’t bear to even say “the Samaritan man.” Instead, he simply says, “The one who showed mercy.”

Jesus tells him to do likewise.

In the same way we should love one another—our brothers and sisters—because God first loved us.

Questions:

1. What is your definition of love?
2. In what ways do we misuse the word love? 
3. How can we love God more fully?
4. How can we love our brothers and sisters better?
5. Who can we show mercy to?

Discover more about loving our neighbors in Galatians 5:14.

Tips: Check out our tips to use this online Bible study for your church, small group, Sunday school class, or family discussion. It’s also ideal for personal study. Come back each Monday for a new lesson.

Read the next lesson or start at the beginning of this study.

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Discover practical, insightful, and encouraging truths in Love One Another, a devotional Bible study to foster a deeper appreciation for the two greatest commandments: To love God and to love others.

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

Today’s passage: 1 John 4:16–18

Focus verse: There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear. (1 John 4:18)

In the Old Testament of the Bible, we read the command to “fear God” (Ecclesiastes 12:13). In the New Testament we see the principle to “love God” (1 Corinthians 8:3), and we read that God is love (1 John 4:8 and 16).

How can we fear someone we’re supposed to love, someone who loves us? Is it even possible?

Is there a difference between fearing God in the Old Testament and loving God in the New Testament? Although it’s the same God in both, one who doesn’t change, the difference is Jesus. Jesus alters the way we understand and perceive God.

True, we are to fear God, and we are to love God. This is a spiritual paradox.

In the Old Testament, the focus is on the law (rules) and the result is fear because we fall short of God’s expectations. Based on our failure to follow every part of the law, we deserve to die; stumbling over one small point makes us guilty of all (James 2:10).

The penalty for our sins is death; it doesn’t matter if it is one sin or many. This is something to fear.

Under the law we can’t make ourselves right to stand before God. This conclusion is the purpose of the law. It shows us our sin and the need for Jesus to save us (Romans 7:7).

In the New Testament, Jesus fulfills the law—overcomes or replaces its rules—with love. This is the immense love of Father God in sending Jesus to earth to save us and our Savior’s incomprehensible love to die in our place.

The result is that love trumps fear. This doesn’t mean we should disregard a healthy fear of God, but instead we should temper our fear with his love.

His love serves to push away our fear of punishment. This is because his perfect love drives out our fear. 

Therefore, by faith we can have confidence on judgment day because of his love. Whoever lives a life of love has God living in them. 

But we need not feel guilty if a touch of fear remains. This simply means that his love has not yet fully matured in us. But through him we move closer toward realizing his perfect love.

When his love becomes complete in us, it will drive away our fear of the future and judgment.

Questions:

1. How can we balance the paradox between fearing God and loving God?
2. How can God’s love in us move toward completion and become perfect? 
3. What does a healthy fear of God look like?
4. What should our attitude be toward any fear that remains in us?
5. How can we be confident on judgement day?

Discover more about fear in Luke 1:50, Luke 12:5, Luke 23:40, Philippians 2:12, and Revelation 14:7.

Tips: Check out our tips to use this online Bible study for your church, small group, Sunday school class, or family discussion. It’s also ideal for personal study. Come back each Monday for a new lesson.

Read the next lesson or start at the beginning of this study.

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Discover practical, insightful, and encouraging truths in Love One Another, a devotional Bible study to foster a deeper appreciation for the two greatest commandments: To love God and to love others.

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

Today’s passage: 1 John 4:13–15

Focus verse: If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. (1 John 4:15)

In yesterday’s reading John said that anyone who loves has been born of God and knows him (1 John 4:7).

Later we’ll read that anyone who believes in Jesus as the Messiah is born of God (1 John 5:1). And today we read that anyone who acknowledges Jesus as God’s Son has God living in them (1 John 4:15).

Are these three ways to approach God in conflict? Or are they alternative options to achieve the same outcome? Neither.

Instead let’s view them as complementary, working in cooperation to bring about our right standing with God and our future with him in heaven.

It starts with believing in Jesus as the Messiah, as our Savior. We then acknowledge him as the Son of God and give testimony to others about him.

The outcome of our belief and our testimony is loving others. Loving others isn’t a requirement to earn our salvation. It’s the result of our salvation—a natural byproduct of our faith.

The word acknowledge appears four times in the book of first John. This is more than any other New Testament book. (As you might expect, acknowledge also shows up in the gospel of John, 2 John, and Revelation, three of John’s other writings.)

First, we read that whoever acknowledges Jesus as the Son of God also has the Father (1 John 2:23). It’s as if they’re a package. Acknowledging one acknowledges the other. Through our acknowledgment we have the Son and the Father.

Next, in 1 John 4:2–3 the word acknowledge comes up twice. (See our discussion about the false prophets in Day 19.)

Every spirit who acknowledges Jesus as the Messiah who walked among us in human form is from God. Whereas every spirit who does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God.

Acknowledging Jesus is key. 

This means our faith can’t be silent. We need to tell others about the confidence we have in Jesus and what he’s done for us. 

At a basic level acknowledging him means to give our assent. If someone asks if we’re a Christian—a believer or a follower of Jesus—we acknowledge our standing with him by saying yes. And we do so with confidence.

On a more consequential level, acknowledging means taking the initiative to tell others about Jesus. We testify about him. We are his witnesses to the world. If we don’t tell them, who will?

This is what it means to acknowledge Jesus as the Son of God.

Questions:

1. When have we been silent about Jesus when we should have spoken? 
2. How can our actions, apart from our words, acknowledge Jesus?
3. How can we do a better job at acknowledging Jesus before a world who needs him?
4. What can we do to better tell others about Jesus?
5. What does our witness look like?

Discover what John says about acknowledgment in John 9:22, John 12:42, 2 John 1:7, and Revelation 3:5 and 9.

Tips: Check out our tips to use this online Bible study for your church, small group, Sunday school class, or family discussion. It’s also ideal for personal study. Come back each Monday for a new lesson.

Read the next lesson or start at the beginning of this study.

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Discover practical, insightful, and encouraging truths in Love One Another, a devotional Bible study to foster a deeper appreciation for the two greatest commandments: To love God and to love others.

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

Today’s passage: 1 John 4:7–12

Focus verse: This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. (1 John 4:9)

So far in John’s letter he’s already talked a lot about love, building up to this passage in chapter four, where the topic of love becomes the focus. In the rest of chapter 4, John mentions love twenty-seven times. That’s a lot of love.

Building on his encouragement to love one another from the prior chapter, John again reminds us—his dear friends—to love one another.

This is because love comes from God, and he empowers us to love others. When we are born of God and know him, we’re able to love others well. But those who don’t know God aren’t able to love. 

Loving others is the fruit of our relationship with our Heavenly Father; it’s proof of our right standing with him, through Jesus.

Though we love God, he loved us first (1 John 4:19). He proved this by sending his precious Son to earth so that we might live eternally through him. Father God sent Jesus into our world as the sacrifice to atone for our sins (1 John 4:10).

We often think of Jesus’s great love for us. He showed this ultimate expression of love through his willingness to die in our place for all the wrong things we’ve done in our life—and all the wrong that we will do. 

Jesus endured a most painful death, tortured at the hands of his Roman executioners. Dying in our place is the epitome of love, and we celebrate him for making this supreme sacrifice. In turn, we love him back to the best of our ability.

Yet John isn’t talking about Jesus’s love for us by dying in our place. Instead, the apostle is talking about Father God’s great love for us. God showed his immense love for us by sending Jesus to save us.

For those of us who are parents, we don’t want to see our children suffer. We’d gladly stand in their place if we could shelter them from the pain of their struggles.

Our Heavenly Father is no different from us in this regard. How hard it must have been for Father God to send his precious Son into our world, knowing what he would have to endure.

That’s real love. And God’s immense love for us is why we should love one another.

When we do, “God lives in us and his love is made complete in us” (1 John 4:12).

Questions:

1. How well do we do at accepting God’s love for us? 
2. How well do we do at loving others?
3. Who do we love well enough to die for?
4. Should our list be longer? Why?
5. How can we thank God for loving us?

Discover more about God’s love for us in Romans 5:7–10.

Tips: Check out our tips to use this online Bible study for your church, small group, Sunday school class, or family discussion. It’s also ideal for personal study. Come back each Monday for a new lesson.

Read the next lesson or start at the beginning of this study.

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Discover practical, insightful, and encouraging truths in Love One Another, a devotional Bible study to foster a deeper appreciation for the two greatest commandments: To love God and to love others.

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

Today’s passage: 1 John 4:4–6

Focus verse: The one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. (1 John 4:4)

After talking about the Holy Spirit and false prophets—that is, false teachers under Satan’s control—John gives us a comforting truth.

As Father God’s children who believe in Jesus, we have the Holy Spirit (whom John calls the Spirit of truth) living in us. Greater, John says, is the one who lives in us than the one who is in the world.

Many people don’t realize this, and their behavior belies John’s teaching. They view God and Satan as equal and opposing forces. They’re left quaking, wondering which force will win—and praying that they haven’t misplaced their faith. 

Yet this perspective is incorrect. God and Satan are not equal. God, as Creator, made all the angels—including Satan, a fallen angel. The Creator is clearly superior to his creation.

That’s why John can confidently teach us that God—who lives in us—is more powerful than the devil who lives in the world around us.

Yes, God has granted Satan a bit of authority in our world for a time. But our Lord will one day take back that authority and punish the evil one forever.

This victory over Satan began when Jesus died in our place for the wrong things we have done, defeating death and our enemy who specializes in death (John 10:10).

We’ll find the finale of Jesus’s victory revealed in full at the end of time, when Father God ushers in a new heaven and a new earth where we’ll live forever (Revelation 21:1–2).

We must focus on God’s power and Jesus’s victory. John reminds us that we are children of God. As his children, our heritage comes through him. He has overcome evil, and as his children we can overcome evil too.

God is greater than the devil. The battle has already happened, and God has won. We are on the winning side. And God is in us. Through him we can overcome the evil one’s opposition and the evil that is in the world.

We can count on God as the ultimate power and should live confident lives as a result.

Questions:

1. How can we better embrace God’s spirit who lives in us?
2. In what ways do our lives show we believe we’re on the winning side? 
3. When have we placed too much emphasis on the power of our enemy?
4. What does it mean to you to be a child of God?
5. How should we respond when we encounter evil?

Discover what else John says about the Spirit of truth (Holy Spirit) in John 14:16–17, John 15:26, and John 16:13.

Tips: Check out our tips to use this online Bible study for your church, small group, Sunday school class, or family discussion. It’s also ideal for personal study. Come back each Monday for a new lesson.

Read the next lesson or start at the beginning of this study.

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Discover practical, insightful, and encouraging truths in Love One Another, a devotional Bible study to foster a deeper appreciation for the two greatest commandments: To love God and to love others.

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

Today’s passage: 1 John 4:1–3

Focus verse: This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. (1 John 4:2)

The third chapter of 1 John wraps up with a reference to the Holy Spirit, whom God sent to us. John now contrasts the Holy Spirit to other spirits.

These manifest in the form of false prophets—that is, purveyors of wayward doctrine. These false messages come from demons in the spiritual realm. 

The Holy Spirit speaks truth to us. These contrary spirits fill us with lies. They distort who God is and what the Bible says. Many unsuspecting believers fall victim to their twisting of the truth.

This first happened back in Genesis when the serpent (the devil) lies to Eve and misrepresents what God said to her. She foolishly believes him, and Adam passively follows her (Genesis 3:1–7).

Because of Adam and Eve’s failings, resulting from the serpent’s mischaracterization of God’s truth, sin enters our world and God expels Adam and Eve from their idyllic paradise.

John recommends that we test every spirit, that is, to test every prophet and their message. This is because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This implies that they started as part of Jesus’s church.

John gives us a simple test. He says that every spirit—that is, every teacher—who acknowledges Jesus as the Messiah who physically came to earth in human form is from God.

If someone does not recognize this truth, they are not from God. In fact, they are the antichrist—that is, anti-Christ, which is to say they are against Jesus the Messiah. 

These false prophets were in the world two thousand years ago, and they’re still with us today. We must be equally discerning of their error.

In addition to John’s basic test to identify these false prophets, we can also consult the Bible. In the book of Acts, Luke applauds the cautious approach of the believers in Berea in discerning between truth and error.

They eagerly received Paul’s message about the good news of Jesus. But because of their noble character, they examined the Scriptures (the Old Testament) to verify that what Paul claimed was correct (Acts 17:10–15). 

We should follow their example to avoid the teachings of any false prophets who threaten to lead us astray.

Questions:

1. How does The Holy Spirit speak truth to us?
2. In what ways must we be more discerning about who we listen to? 
3. What doctrines have we accepted that we might want to test against what the Bible says?
4. What are some practical ways to test them?
5. How can we discern between truth and error?

Discover more about false prophets in Matthew 7:15, Luke 6:26, Acts 13:6–12, and 2 Peter 2:1.

Tips: Check out our tips to use this online Bible study for your church, small group, Sunday school class, or family discussion. It’s also ideal for personal study. Come back each Monday for a new lesson.

Read the next lesson or start at the beginning of this study.

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Discover practical, insightful, and encouraging truths in Love One Another, a devotional Bible study to foster a deeper appreciation for the two greatest commandments: To love God and to love others.

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

Today’s passage: 1 John 3:21–24

Focus verse: And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. (1 John 3:23)

John teaches us that if we have a clear conscience before God, we can be confident that we’ll receive from him whatever we ask (1 John 3:21–22).

We’ll cover this more in Day 27, but for now, we’ll look at John’s reason why God will answer our prayers. It’s because we keep his commands.

But this doesn’t refer to the Old Testament law and the many directives we find there. Instead, it refers to a pair of commands. That’s right.

Just two commands rise above all others. These are what God expects us to follow. We’ve touched on them in our prior readings. 

What are they? 

The first is to believe in Jesus. The second is to love one another. When we keep these two commands, we live in him, and he lives in us. 

In considering this first command—to believe in God’s son, Jesus Christ—let’s not make the mistake of thinking that Jesus is his first name and Christ is his second.

Though Jesus Christ may roll off our tongues as if it’s his full name, this is not the case. Christ is a descriptor of Jesus, not his name—even though we’ve made it into one. 

Christ means Messiah (John 1:41), as in Jesus the Messiah (Mark 1:1) or Jesus the Christ (1 John 2:22).

Therefore, when we read the instruction to believe in Jesus Christ, it means to believe in Jesus the Messiah, the Savior—essentially to believe in Jesus as our Messiah, our Savior.

The second command of John—to love one another—stands as a recurring theme of his. He’s already covered it and will continue to do so.

We see it throughout the book of 1 John. We’ve also covered this in Day 16 and touched on it in many other days.

God’s two commands—to believe in Jesus as the Christ and to love one another—are consistent with Jesus’s teaching about the two greatest commandments in Scripture (Matthew 22:36–40).

In a broad sense, believing in Jesus is the key way we love God, which Jesus says is the greatest Old Testament commandment.

The second is to love our neighbor as ourselves. That is, we should love one another.

Questions:

1. How clear is your conscience before God?
2. Have we taken the essential step to believe in Jesus as our Savior? 
3. Is believing enough? Why?
4. What can we do to more rightly consider the word Christ as a descriptor and not a name?
5. How well do we do at obeying God’s second command to love one another?

Discover more about loving one another in 2 Thessalonians 1:3. Contrast this with Titus 3:3.

Tips: Check out our tips to use this online Bible study for your church, small group, Sunday school class, or family discussion. It’s also ideal for personal study. Come back each Monday for a new lesson.

Read the next lesson or start at the beginning of this study.

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Discover practical, insightful, and encouraging truths in Love One Another, a devotional Bible study to foster a deeper appreciation for the two greatest commandments: To love God and to love others.

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

Today’s passage: 1 John 3:16–20

Focus verse: This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. (1 John 3:16)

The ultimate expression of love is to die for another, to sacrifice ourselves for the good of someone else. Jesus exemplifies this highest form of love by dying as a human sacrifice for us—for all people, for all time.

His death covers the penalty our sins deserve, thereby making us right with Father God.

In the same way, we should be willing to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters in Christ. Yes, this may mean to actually die for them so they can live. But in practical terms our call to sacrifice may be less demanding.

John writes that we prove God’s love in us when we have pity on our brother and sister in need. The most direct application is to share what we have with them, to give our possessions to those in Jesus’s church—our brothers and sisters. 

Having pity on them, however, doesn’t always mean giving them our belongings. At times we may need to say no. 

This isn’t a justification to not help them with tangible solutions, but to note that giving them what they lack isn’t always the answer.

Sometimes our generosity could enable them to continue to make the same ill-advised decisions or persist in the same wrong behaviors that caused the situation in the first place.

In these instances, the wise thing is to say no. We offer them tough love. This is how we can best take pity on them.

Another way to take pity on our brothers and sisters in need is to pray for them. As strange as it seems to say, in this case we must ensure that prayer isn’t our default position but a secondary one.

We get this understanding when John implores us to not love with words only but with actions and in truth (1 John 3:18).

In this way we can have a clear conscience, knowing that we responded rightly and can therefore rest in God’s presence.

We must remember that we are not to accumulate wealth for ourselves. Instead, we are to store up our treasures in heaven (Matthew 6:19–21).

God blesses us—just as he did Father Abraham—so that we can bless others (Genesis 12:2). Yet we need to balance this with a call to be a wise steward of what God has given us (Matthew 25:14–30).

These passages give us much to contemplate when we consider how to best take pity on our brothers and sisters in need.

Questions:

1. How can we lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters? 
2. Who are we willing to die for?
3. When have we tried to help someone with our words when we should have acted?
4. When should we love others in prayer?
5. How can we better help those in need?

Discover more about Jesus’s great love in laying down his life for us in John 10:11–18.

Tips: Check out our tips to use this online Bible study for your church, small group, Sunday school class, or family discussion. It’s also ideal for personal study. Come back each Monday for a new lesson.

Read the next lesson or start at the beginning of this study.

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Discover practical, insightful, and encouraging truths in Love One Another, a devotional Bible study to foster a deeper appreciation for the two greatest commandments: To love God and to love others.

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

Today’s passage: 1 John 3:11–15

Focus verse: For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. (1 John 3:11)

John tells his audience that we are to love one another. 

It’s not a new command but one we’ve heard from the beginning. He first mentions this in 1 John 2:7–8. And now he tells us what this command is: we are to love one another. It’s that simple.

Saying that we’ve heard this from “the beginning” centers on Jesus. 

When an expert in the law asks Jesus to name the greatest command, he says it’s to love God.

Then he tacks on a second one—which makes it the second greatest command—to love others. In a most effective manner, these summarize everything in the Old Testament (Matthew 22:35–40). 

We are to love God and love one another.

Jesus also talks about the importance of loving one another in his Sermon on the Mount. In that message he tells his listeners to love others in the same way that they love themselves (Matthew 7:12).

He says the same thing, although more succinctly, in his Sermon on the Plain (Luke 6:31). 

Though it’s through Jesus that we get this essential command to love one another, we find it throughout the Old Testament. All the commands God gives his people either relate to their relationship with him or their relationship with others.

As we’ve already mentioned, this comes from the Ten Commandments too. We first love God (commandments one through four) and then we love others (commandments five through ten).

This is why Jesus says the greatest command is to love God and the second greatest is to love others. Everything else in the Old Testament underscores these two (Matthew 22:37–40).

We find this command to love others hidden in the Levitical law too. Quoting the words of Father God, Moses writes that we are to love our neighbors in the same way we love ourselves (Leviticus 19:18), which Jesus later quotes in Matthew 22:39.

Paul reiterates this in his letter to the church in Rome. He says we should owe no outstanding debt other than the continuing debt to love one another. When we do this, we fulfill the Old Testament commands (Romans 13:8). 

In his letter to the church in Galatia, Paul confirms that we can keep the entire law by obeying the singular command to love our neighbor as much as we love ourselves (Galatians 5:14).

This command to love one another as we love ourselves is the essence of the Golden Rule. We are to treat others the way we want them to treat us.

This means doing for them the same things that we’d like to receive ourselves. It also means not doing to them the things we don’t want to receive. The Golden Rule is based on the Bible, going back to Leviticus 19:18.

This idea of loving one another as we love ourselves permeates Scripture. It’s been there since the beginning.

Questions:

1. What must we do differently to more fully obey God’s essential command to love our neighbor? 
2. Beyond that, how well do we obey God’s greatest command to love him?
3. What is an area where your love shines?
4. What is an area where you need to love better?
5. Is it wrong to love others more than we love ourselves? Why?

See John’s instructions to love one another in John 13:34, John 13:35, 1 John 3:11, 1 John 3:23, 1 John 4:7, 1 John 4:11, 1 John 4:12, and 2 John 1:5.

Tips: Check out our tips to use this online Bible study for your church, small group, Sunday school class, or family discussion. It’s also ideal for personal study. Come back each Monday for a new lesson.

Read the next lesson or start at the beginning of this study.

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Discover practical, insightful, and encouraging truths in Love One Another, a devotional Bible study to foster a deeper appreciation for the two greatest commandments: To love God and to love others.

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.