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1, 2, 3 John and Jude: Children of God
People interested in finding shades of gray will need to look elsewhere. Fans of relative truth will certainly be disappointed. The indecisive may find the epistles of John and Jude too challenging to stomach. These brief but powerful letters leave precious little uncertainty to the question: there is nothing tolerable about sin.
John especially emphasized the extremes of right and wrong, light and darkness, truth and lies, love and hate. Both men took aim at the hypocrisy of professing faith but living in sin. They both fought against an enemy of deceit that was corrupting the church and leading fellow believers astray.
This month in Today in the Word, we're reading through four letters written at a time when a belief known as Gnosticism was gaining a strong foothold, even among believers. The philosophy may have been complicated, but the primary application was simple—carnal sin was to be allowed, even encouraged. John (Jesus' good friend) and Jude (Jesus' half brother) disagreed.
These letters call believers to righteousness, love, and commitment to the truth. In short, they define what it means to live like children of God. Sin has no place in the life of a believer.
Thank you for studying with Today in the Word. We pray that you find it helpful for living in the light of God's Word. Thanks to your support, thousands of others can do the same.
Imagine what society would be like if people thought they were sinful. Lee Strobel, in The Case for the Real Jesus, suggests that in contemporary culture, “We may see ourselves as making mistakes, committing errors, or having a lapse of judgment, but few people envision themselves as sinners.” Our passage today addresses the consequences of claiming to be without sin.
