The Letters
- When
- c. AD 90–100
- Written by
- John
- Chapters
- 5
The big idea
God is light and God is love: walk in the light, confess sin, love one another, and know that you have eternal life in the Son.
Themes
- God is light
- Assurance
- God is love
- Truth against error
Memory verse
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Key passages
- 1:5–10Walk in the light
- 3:1–3Children of God
- 4:7–21God is love
- 5:11–13That you may know
Links to other Scripture
- John 1:1–14The Word of life
- John 13:34–35A new commandment
- John 20:31That believing you may have life
- James 2:14–17Love in deed
Read the text
Choose a chapter to read it here in the King James Version. Verses with a dotted underline have notes from Bible scholars. Tap one to open them.
Notes from
Chapters
King James text and the commentaries of Henry, Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Gill, Clarke, Calvin, and Keil and Delitzsch are in the public domain. Tyndale Open Study Notes are used under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license, from tyndaleopenresources.com. Texts were reformatted for this site.
Journal prompts
Keep a journal or notebook for your study. Write your answers there, in your own words.
- Where do you see Christ in this book?
- John says if we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves. What is one thing you need to bring into the light?
- “God is love.” How have you experienced that, and where do you still find it hard to believe?
- John writes so that you may know you have eternal life. What gives you assurance, and what doubts remain?
- In one sentence, this book is about…