1st John

As evinced by Megan's enthusiastic post a few days ago, we are both thoroughly excited to be studying 1st John this summer. We received our study materials today, and have just started what the Sword Study calls an "Arial View" of the book. This means that we are looking at the big picture: major themes and patterns. Part of this "Arial View" is reading through the whole book once a day. 

John tends to write with many parallels and repetitions, which makes it fairly easy to pick out the important words. An obvious example is "love", used 46 times (counting loves and loved) in only 105 verses. John tells his readers to love God, each other, and not to love the world. Other key words I've found so far are truth, light, and commandments. 

Another aspect of the "arial view" which I'm enjoying is learning the background of the author. John is a fascinating character in the gospels. He is very close to Jesus, often participating with Peter and James in activities the others miss out on (like the transfiguration). Jesus even has a nickname for him! He calls James and John "Sons of Thunder". Sounds pretty exciting to me. 

The next things to study out will be the historical background, and John's reason for writing this book. I can't wait to learn more about these aspects of 1st John as well.