"...that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ." (1 John 1:3)

May 23, 2026

Dear friends,

In our morning Bible reading, my wife and I are going through the first epistle of John. Four words stood out to us in the first chapter...

"The beginning" (ἀρχή archē)("beginning, origin") echoes back to Genesis chapter one and the beginning of the Gospel of John. At some point in John's young life as a disciple of Jesus he realized that the rabbi he was following and hearing and hanging out with was none other than the eternal Son of God. What a shock it must have been to realize, as he touched, embraced, and broke bread with Jesus, that this Man was God in the flesh.

"Fellowship" (κοινωνία koinōnia)("fellowship, community, communion, participation"). The greatest joy for John and the other apostles was to proclaim the gospel of Jesus in order to see others come into fellowship with the Father and the Son, and with the wider fellowship of all true believers. The goal of our salvation is not that we would merely know Jesus' identity and to privately know forgiveness and joy, as wonderful as that is, but that we might have communion with God and his people.

"Light" (φῶς phōs). God is light. He is true and holy and righteous. And we are to walk in the light. We are to live and walk in fellowship with him. This is a prominent theme of John's epistle. We have been declared righteous in Christ (Rom 3:21-26). We have become partakers of the divine nature (2 Pet 1:4). We are putting off the old man and putting on the new man (Col 3:5-17).

We "confess" our sins (ὁμολογέω homologeō)("to say the same thing as another; to agree with, assent; not to deny") We come into the light and are honest about our condition. We see God for who he is, and we see ourselves for who we are and who we are to become. We also see the freeness and fullness of Christ's sacrifice for us.

It is to be honest, and to stay honest, about who we are as we walk in the light of Christ (1 John 1:8-10). "Blessed is the man against whom the LORD counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit." (Psalm 32:2) It is to continually and consciously recalibrate ourselves to the presence of God. This is liberating, not burdensome. Listen to what C. S. Lewis wrote:

"I know all about the despair of overcoming chronic temptations... No amount of falls will really undo us if we keep picking ourselves up each time. We shall of course be very muddy and tattered children by the time we reach home. But the bathrooms are all ready, the towels put out, and the clean clothes are in the airing cupboard. The only fatal thing is to lose one’s temper and give it up. It is when we notice the dirt that God is most present in us; it is the very sign of His presence." (C. S. Lewis, letter to Mary Neylan, Jan. 20, 1942, from The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume II)

What struck me in the first chapter of 1st John was that the purpose of the gospel is more than bringing me personal joy and forgiveness. It’s about bringing me into fellowship with the Father and the Son, and into an eternal and holy community of fellow believers. It’s about restoring us to glorious reality.

Here's the rest of my overview of the 1st Epistle of John.

IN OTHER LINKS.

-- "We cherish too, the Poppy red That grows on fields where valor led, It seems to signal to the skies That blood of heroes never dies." On the meaning of Memorial Day.

-- Armenian Christians have suffered for many centuries, and this has continued under Muslim-majority Azerbaijan.

-- Fifteen classic Christian works every Christian should know, in my opinion.

That's it for this week!

Sandy

Afterwords is an occasional newsletter on topics of interest to me (Sandy Young) since my retirement from full-time pastoral ministry. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The ESV Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version), copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.