03 — The Johannine Epistles
The three Epistles of John: the homiletic First Epistle, written into a crisis of secession and false teaching about the person of Christ; and the two short personal letters of “the Elder” (2 John, 3 John), the briefest writings in the New Testament. These files set out the occasion and theology of the Epistles and then dwell on their double commandment — to love one another and to abide in the truth — which is the moral and doctrinal heart of the Johannine writings.
Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Apostle and Evangelist)
The Epistles breathe the same air as the Fourth Gospel — light and darkness, truth and falsehood, love and hatred, life and death — and they apply its theology to a community torn by a schism over the reality of the Incarnation (1 John 2:19; 4:2–3). The First Epistle gives the Church its most direct statement that “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16) and its sharpest test for discerning spirits; the two short letters show the same “Elder” governing his churches with a fatherly hand. This section examines the occasion, authorship, and theology of all three, including the famous textual problem of the Comma Johanneum, and then draws out the twin commandments of love and truth.
Files in This Section
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| The Epistles of John | The three letters: the secessionist crisis behind 1 John (2:19; 4:1–3), its structure and tests of fellowship; the two short letters of “the Elder” (2 John 1; 3 John 1); and the Comma Johanneum (1 John 5:7–8) textual question. |
| Love and Truth | The double commandment — “that we love one another” (1 John 3:11, 23) and that we “walk in truth” (2 John 4; 3 John 4) — and how love and confession of the Incarnate Christ are, for John, inseparable. |
See Also
- God Is Love — the central confession of 1 John 4:8, 16
- The Gospel of John — the writing whose theology the Epistles apply
- The Authorship Debates — the relation of the Epistles to the Gospel and “the Elder”
- Holy Scripture — the Catholic Epistles in the canon
References
- The First, Second, and Third Epistles of John (cited by chapter and verse).
- Brown, Raymond E. The Epistles of John. Anchor Bible 30. Garden City: Doubleday, 1982.
- Metzger, Bruce M. A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament. 2nd ed. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1994.
- Westcott, B. F. The Epistles of St. John. Cambridge: Macmillan, 1883.