(Tap footnote to read it. Old Testament quotations are underlined. "Love" with a caret ("^love") is agapé.1"agapé" The Greek words ἀγάπη (agapé, noun), and ἀγαπάω (agapaó; verb) are typically translated "love". However, unlike our English word "love" – which primarily speaks of affection and feelings – agapé centers on choice and behavior. It’s the "love" based on will, choice, behavior, and action; not feelings. (Feelings-based love is the Greek word φιλέω (phileó), which properly means "brotherly love/affection".) Thus, you could hate someone passionately and still treat him with "agapé". Agapé "love" is best understood as the pursuit of what is most beneficial to someone or something, regardless of the cost to yourself or the type of response received from the person or thing. It can also indicate a preference for someone or something over other things. )
If you know Him, keep His commandments
- My little children, I write these things to you so you might not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father; Jesus the Anointed, the Righteous One.
- And He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole world.
- And by this we know that we *know Him: if we keep His commandments.
- The man saying: “I *know Him” and not keeping His commandments is a liar and the truth isn’t in him.
- But whoever keeps His word, truly the ^love of God has been perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him.
- The man claiming to dwell in Him, that man is also obligated to walk in the same way as He walked.
- Beloved, I write no new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which you heard.
- Then again, I write a new commandment to you which is true in Him and in you, because the darkness passes away and the true light already shines.
- The man claiming to be in the light and yet hating his brother is in the darkness until now.
- The man ^loving his brother remains in the light and there isn’t a stumbling block1“stumbling block” is a single word in the Greek. It specifically refers to a “bait stick”, meaning the trigger stick of a trap or snare to which the bait is attached. Think of the part of a mouse trap to which you affix the cheese. On reaching for the bait, the “bait stick” triggers the trap and ensnares the unsuspecting victim. It can also refer to offending someone, or to stumbling, or the means by which someone stumbles. in him.
- But the man hating his brother is in the darkness, and walks in the darkness, and doesn’t *know where he is going because the darkness blinded his eyes.
- Little children, I write to you because your sins have been forgiven through His name.
- Fathers, I write to you because you *know Him who existed from the beginning. Young men, I write to you because you have overcome the evil one. Young children, I wrote to you because you *know the Father.
- Fathers, I wrote to you because you *know Him who existed from the beginning. Young men, I wrote to you because you are strong, and the word of God remains in you, and you have overcome the evil one.
Don’t ^love the world
- Don’t ^love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone ^loves the world, the ^love of the Father isn’t in him,
- because everything in the world – the craving of the flesh, and the craving of the eyes, and the arrogance of life – isn’t from the Father but is from the world.
- And the world is passing away, and its cravings2“cravings” is literally “craving”, but the man doing the will of God remains through the age.
- Young children, it’s the last hour. And just as you heard that the anti-anointed is coming, and now many anti-anointeds have appeared, from which we know that it’s the last hour.
- They went out from us, but they weren’t of us. For if they were of us, they would have remained with us. But they went out so it might be obvious that they aren’t all of us.
- And you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all have known this.
- I didn’t write to you because you haven’t known the truth, but because you have known it, and because every lie isn’t from the truth.
- Who is the liar except the man denying, who says that Jesus isn’t the Anointed? This is the anti-anointed; the man denying the Father and the Son.
- Every man denying the Son doesn’t have the Father either. The man confessing the Son also has the Father.
Remain in Him
- What you heard from the beginning, let it remain in you. If what you heard from the beginning remains in you, you will also remain in the Son and in the Father.
- And this is the promise that He Himself promised to us: the life of ages.
- I wrote these things to you concerning the men leading you astray.
- And you, the anointing that you received from Him remains in you, and you have no need that anyone might teach you. But just as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true and isn’t a lie; and just as it taught you, you remain in Him.
- And now little children, remain in Him so we might have boldness when He appears and not be ashamed before Him at His coming.
- If you have known that He is righteous, you also know that every man doing righteousness has been born of Him.
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