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Warning against antichrists part 2

7/19/2014

5 Comments

 
1 John 2:26-28 click here for the reading

Given the context of John's community, using the antichrist language is difficult to translate into modern times.  Seems far to often we want to demonize public figures and ideas (presidents, chiefs of state, world leaders, politicians, athletes, video games, card games, etc.)
as the antichrist.

The thing about naming everything evil is that nothing is evil and we miss out on what the devil is actually doing in the midst of us.  Understanding that their is truly only one adversary (Satan) helps us identify what the little antichrists are doing.  Since Satan's main message is to distract the faithful from fellowship with God, than anything that contributes to that could be identified as antichrists.  HOWEVER, over naming something or someone can get to the misuse of such a powerful identification.


Therefore, John encourages his community to remains steadfast in the teaching from the Holy Spirit (That Jesus is Lord, divine and human), remain in fellowship and community under the name of Jesus (the church), be full of courage in this teaching so that you (we) cannot be led astray by the things of this world and all of the antichrists working on behalf of the greatest liar, Satan.

Lord, keep us steadfast in our faith by the power of your Holy Spirit encourage us to stand firm in our communties of faithful witness.
- Amen
5 Comments
Deb Gerner
7/20/2014 03:20:15 pm

My late homework: father: Christ as the Holy Spirit, Teacher,
holder of truth.
ID: US, Student, The recievers of truth
Obedience: LIve by what we are taught.

Kingdom: Christ as the Holy Spirit
Authority: Us, we are anointed /equiped with the
truth. It lives in us.
Power: Resist Satan and the those who try to
distract you from the truth. Be a
witness to the truth.


Question: Why is it that in some versions of the bible, Christ is "he" and not He? For example: New International, Good News, Living Bible?
Thanks for the links to Bible Gateway.

Reply
Deb Gerner
7/20/2014 03:29:50 pm

I realize this is John 1, the New Testament, but how would a Jewish person reconcile verses 22 and 23?

Reply
Pastor Andy
7/22/2014 03:56:10 am

Jews would not read 1 John as Scripture. Also, the historical and contextual aspect of John's community dealt mainly with the issue of Christ's divinity and humanity. The dissenters that were leaving the community denied Christ's divinity and therefore, that was John's reasoning for calling them the antichrist (literally, anti - christ). Seeing Jesus as only human, for John, is to deny Christ. HTH

Reply
Pastor Andy
7/22/2014 04:48:22 am

The use of he or He is a matter of subjectivity. In the Greek form "anthropos' was used to describe mankind or humanity, giving a lower case nomination. The word Christ or Jesus was used to designate divinity. However, when the pronoun is used it was regular designation of 'he', I believe king James was the first to begin to capitalize the pronoun to distinguish when the pronoun referred to God. There is no heresy to lowercase those pronouns and you may notice that in referring to God I try and stick to a God-all-the-time protocol. (i.e. God's people, God's children, God's creation God's self)

Good question

Reply
Deb Gerner
7/22/2014 02:38:46 pm

Thanks

Reply

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