Month: February 2020

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Malachi

Malachi | Introduction

Although the thoughts on this aren’t completely settled, it’s likely Malachi was written in the middle of the 5th century BC. Since we last met Israel/Judah in the time of Amos, Israel was exiled by the Assyrians in the 8th century BC. Although Judah was ransacked, they weren’t exiled. Subsequently, though, Judah is attacked by Babylon in the late 7th century BC and fails to keep their agreement to pay Babylon to keep them at bay. Ultimately, Babylon attacks and exiles Judah in the early 6th century BC (between 597 and 560). Eventually, the exiles from Judah (and probably some of the remnants of the tribes of Israel) are allowed to return in 537 BC, although they are reduced people coming home (not all of them decide to come back) to a smaller amount of land.

This time is the start of Second Temple Judaism, in case you’ve heard that phrase. It indicates the use of a second temple after the first one , built by Solomon, was destroyed by the Babylonians. This temple is the one that will be in use between 517 BC all the way through 70 AD.

If you’ve read any of the prophets that were talking during the exile periods, coming back home and rebuilding the temple seemed to be a time when God’s people would see prosperity and blessing and the return of God’s presence (in the rebuilt temple, yes, but as a force in their lives in general also.) However, that doesn’t really appear to be the case. In fact, the argument for this kind of under-girds the premise of Malachi, which presents a fake conversation between God and the Jewish people, who are not satisfied with their lives after returning home. It’s interesting, the exiled Jews in Babylon weren’t treated particularly poorly and most chose to stay there rather than return to Judah. In fact, Judah is the smallest contingent of Jews compared to those who stayed in Babylon (conquered by Cyrus of Persia, the dude who let them go back) and those in Samaria who were left behind from the exile and who ultimately build a temple on Mount Gerizim and claim that is the true place God said for it to be constructed.

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Bible Study Malachi

Malachi | Chapter 1

Malachi starts off with an argument. God says he loves Israel, they aren’t buying it. God responds by reminding them that they are His chosen people, descendants of Jacob, as compared to Esau and his descendants. One thing to clear up, this Jacob I loved and Esau I hated business shouldn’t be read as God’s affection toward either one, it’s an indication of choice. God chose Jacob and his children to be the light to the world and the lineage through which the Messiah would come. They would be the people who would persist and bear the example of God’s dealings with humanity. He makes no such promises to Esau and his descendants, the Edomites.

In fact, God’s response to Israel is to show them that nations rise and fall on his sovereignty. The heritage of God will continue through Israel and as a people they will persist. However, where God does not build them up or sustain them, any other nation will fall. Edom will eventually be destroyed never to return. The Lord is angry with them forever. I got stuck on that for a bit but then, if you remember how God has Amos referring to His own people, it’s less of a thing. God’s anger exists for all who spurn and reject him, it’s just that because God has chosen Israel in the way he has, they will persist through times of rejection and repentance. Edom, however, wasn’t chosen to be used in that way so as a people they will ultimately be destroyed (bearing the mark of God’s anger forever.)

Now that God has rebutted the assertion that He doesn’t love Israel, he will now call into question whether Israel actually loves God. These themes aren’t completely foreign, the notion of false or shallow worship was littered through our study of Amos. They call him father and master but give him no honor. And the priests, those who are dedicated to God service, are called onto the carpet.

The accusations and rebuttal show up again. (There’s a chiasm in here, if you have an ESV study bible they outline it for you. Any time you see repeated or parallel phrases there might be a chiasm happening). Anyway, God says the priests despise His name, they protest, and God lets them have it. The people are being shallow and ridiculous, bringing in lame, blind or otherwise worthless animals in to sacrifice and the priests are permitting it. Is that not evil? he asks (that’s a rhetorical question). Either they think God is fooled (which is dumb) or they don’t honor God and don’t mind bringing these low-rent sacrifices to him. And they entreat the favor of God? Come on. Now we start to get a glimpse of the discprency between these promises coming out of exile and what is actually going on in Judah. These people are going through the motions, phoning it in. And God is not having it.

I love the protest, here. Would not one priest, just one, shut the doors and stop this nonsense? You can’t be a man of God, especially a priest, and have no stones (that’s convicting, crapola.) God is rejecting these offerings. He re-brings in the point of view of the nations around them, almost shaming His people in that He will be acknowledged and praised beyond Judah’s borders because His name is great and feared while amongst the Jews they treat him so flippantly. Sick animals, complaints, lying (promising to bring in the prime male from the flock and instead hobbling in some elderly miscreant sheep.)

This will continue into chapter 2.

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Bible Study Malachi

Malachi | Chapter 2

In chapter 2, the discussion with the priests continues and moves into both the consequences of all of this as well as the underlying issue – the breaking of a covenant and the lack of faithfulness.

God has always made covenants with his people, they do this, he’ll do that. He will be their God, they will be His people. The Levites were the priests, the faithful ones from Deuteronomy 33:8-10 whose job it was to teach the people, make sure they know what is right and to administer the sacrifices. Even when Israel wandered, the priests were there to remind them, bring them back. And what are we finding? Even they are bailing. When the people needed them the most, they stopped caring, became derelict in their duties. Basically, if these priests will not honor God and do the work they are supposed to do, God will not bless their work. In fact, God will curse those the blessings they declare.

God’s ultimate reaction to them breaking the covenant, not keeping up their end of the deal, is to reject their sacrifices and rebuke the Levite lineage (offspring) and then…well…spread dung on their faces and send them and their dung faces out of the temple. Now, in this case, dung refers to the innards of the sacrifices that were taken outside the temple and burned. That part is rejected, and so now are the priests who wear these rejected sacrifices on their face. I mean, dang, that’s fierce.

God continues to remind them of what this covenant was that they have disregarded. It was a promise of life and peace (and God was faithful). The Levites rightly feared God, stood in awe of His name, spoke truth, walked in peace and uprightness and turned away from the wrong thing. The priests pursued knowledge and shared it with the people that they should desire the same knowledge; they spoke for God. (What a harrowing yet cool responsibility they had!) Yet, they led people astray, corrupted them, and so God gives them the just consequences of being brought low in front of those they failed to serve.

Here’s the thing, there are consequences to not keeping covenants. If there weren’t, no one would bother making them. God always told his people that he would be faithful to them and bless them but they must keep up their end of the covenant. And time and time again they did not do it and they received the consequences. What’s cool, though, is those consequences were always intended to call them back to the covenant, to have them join back with God that they may be blessed.

I think we need to be careful with v.10 onward. Although I think there are tangible, people-level things to take away from this section about marriage, I think the broad point is to use faithless marriage as a comparison to Israel’s relationship with God. What those who bring offerings to the temple have done to their wives and what the priests have done to their wives is like what Israel has done to God. Coming off of what Malachi has described so far, a few verse diversion solely to hit up the sanctity of marriage, only to dive back out of that and back into shallow, lazy worship and covenant keeping for the rest of the book doesn’t really make any sense. Again, I think the people level lessons we can learn here are still right and good, but I think it serves two purposes.

We see this theme of “faithlessness” start to show up over and over again in this section. Malachi asks why the people of God have been faithless to one another, profaning the temple with their junk sacrifices and marrying those who do not serve God. (We’ve seen similar downfalls with Solomon, yes?) By why is this described as them being faithless to one another? Because failure to keep their covenant with God has consequences that fall on everyone. It’s communal. (Interesting, saw very similar concepts in the letters of John. We love others by keeping God’s commandments.) Again, the blindness of Israel shows up here – they do this marrying outside of God’s people and still come to the altar and offer to God as if it’s not a thing. Everyone knows it’s a thing.

Then back to the priests, who seem to weeping like children do when they have been rightly accused of doing the wrong thing but they are trying to pass it off as if they are not guilty by crying to bring the point home. Pathetic. These jokers, in addition to betraying every duty they are responsible for, are discarding their wives and chasing other ladies around. That marriage is a covenant, they are joined together as one (a union that the Spirit is part of) and yet they have been faithless. They are dishonoring their covenant and not producing Godly offspring (physically, children, but on the broader sense of Israel’s unfaithfulness to God, the product or offspring is probably a growing, blessed nation that serves as a light to the world.)

God is not fooled, he hates what they’re doing, and their selfishness and unfaithfulness will have consequences. No one is quite sure what “…covers his garment with violence” means but everyone agrees that it can’t possibly be good. The way to prevent this, Malachi says, is easy – do not be faithless.

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Bible Study Malachi

Malachi | Chapter 3

I’m going to cheat on these chapters a bit because I think 2:17 is really the start of the next protest. These fellas are wearing the Lord out with their words (their arguments, their bad logic, their blind gas-bagging around, etc.). And, in the same format as the previous disputes, they rebut and ask in what ways they have wearied him (I don’t think these are good-natured, humble pleas of “oh no, we’ve mistakenly wearied the Lord, someone show us what we’ve done!” and more like snarky, incredulous protests that imply the Lord is overreacting.)

God points out that they say ridiculous things like “God thinks evil doers doing evil things is alright, in fact they make him happy” and “where is the God of justice?” In response, God pretty much ignores the first one, it needs no further argument because it’s dumb. However, he elaborates on the protest that there is justice to be done and God is not doing it. He basically acknowledges that they have a right to expect God to distribute justice so he lays out what that will look like.

First, there is a messenger who will prepare the way before Him. Some interesting things to this. First, kings do that kind of thing, send a herald out to tell everyone the king is coming so that they can do road maintenance, trim the beard, wash the kids, tear down any propaganda they may have put up against the king, etc. Also, the implication is that they need to be prepared for the justice/king to arrive (meaning that they are not prepared in the current state). The next verse will show why. Even cooler, the messenger is preparing the way for the Lord to come to His temple (it seems like God hasn’t really come back to this new temple that they built when they came back from exile.) God says it will happen and he’ll send a dude out ahead of him so that you know it when you see it.

v.2 – But who can endure the day of his coming? Ah, that’s why they need preparation. We should remember a similar thing from Amos – the people of God are tucked and ready for the justice of the Lord to come, they call for it. Yet they seem to be under the mistaken impression that it will not also come for them. Like a dude running a refinery who has to crank up the heat to get the slag and other junk off the metals, and like a soap man who manhandles the clothes while he applies the cleaning agent, they better be ready for what they’re asking for. But after the refiner and soap man are down, what comes out the other side is pure, just like the priesthood will be when the Lord returns to his temple. Then the offerings will be good and acceptable like they once were. The God of Justice will come and there will be judgment against a whole host of folks.

This section smells like Jesus because it is Jesus. God does ultimately send a messenger (John the Baptizer) to warn the people on what is coming. And it is indeed a double-edged sword, especially for the teachers and the priests of the day (who have been in view for their foolishness in much of Malachi.) And sure enough, Jesus does return to the temple (brought in by his parents to see Simeon, teaching, throwing tables around, and ultimately tearing it down – that’s some refining). Yes, it’s the same temple they built coming out of exile that Jesus interacts with during his time. Yes, King Herod did some work on it, but same place still. Also note that the NT teaches on each of those things that the Lord will be swift witness to (Jesus touches on most of them himself).

I think the “I the Lord do not change” is in reference to the fact that, even though Israel stinks at keeping the covenant, God is still honoring his end of the bargain by not bailing from the agreement. In fact, he is putting a lot of effort into calling them back into it (again, consistent calls to repentance). His people should have been consumed by now (like the un-chosen Edom will be) but still he calls them back – “Return to me and I will return to you”. But then they argue with him again about whether they are stealing from God. They are, of course, because they aren’t trusting the God with the tithe. They are keeping it or giving God junky stuff and their lack of faithfulness to bringing in the 10% for God’s purposes and promises is resulting in a curse. God says “Try me, aren’t I faithful where you are not?” Most of God’s responses in Malachi have been demonstrations that he is still faithful to them even when they aren’t faithful to him. The tithe is no different. God keeps his promises.

Again a dispute – God says they are using hard words against him, they act like nothing of the sort is happening. It’s getting worse, they are saying it’s worthless to serve God and go through all of these motions we have been going through (trying to do what he says, acting like we care he’s upset, etc.) And then they call for justice upon evildoers who they think are actually alright from a God they are placating with passive, disinterested worship.

But then the tide turns a bit – we’re introduced to a new group, those who actually fear the Lord have gotten together. And a book is kept to log those who fear him, who respond to him and serve him. And what does God do with them? He keeps his promises and takes them to be his treasured position, and he spares them (that’s part of the covenant, the blotting of transgressions). And thus we get clarity between those who serve God and those who don’t.

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Bible Study Malachi

Malachi | Chapter 4

Where the last chapter ended on a positive note, with the identification that there are indeed groups of people who do fear the Lord, the end of Malachi carries that out with a final reminder to be faithful to what God had commanded and to anticipate the justice that they are asking for (although without a timeline given as to when).

The imagery at the beginning of this chapter is one of anticipation, an oven heating up that will eventually consume the evil. Conversely, a “heat” image of the sun is also used to deal with the righteous, as this sun will risk and bring healing and God’s people will be like excited baby cows leaping out of their stall (who, whilst leaping and making merry, also trample the wicked). All this for the day when the Lord will act.

Now, the New Testament seems to imply that Malachi’s prophecies are fulfilled in Jesus, and in general that seems right. However, only if we are to accept a very figurative interpretation of the beginning of chapter 4, for example, can that be the whole story. Because although it is certain that the life, death and resurrection of Jesus created finality to the judgment situation and, by his example, all those who are not like him are not part of His kingdom, we don’t literally see evildoers turned into stubble and people in an oven. We also don’t see God’s people turned into calves, so it’s probably best to think of this as figuratively dealt with by Jesus yet likely something more physical and tangible at Christ’s final return.

Israel is reminded to remember the laws of Moses, they are good and result in good for his people. Their faithlessness to God by failing to honor these commandments is the root of their issues anyway. He also tells that Elijah the prophet will be sent prior to the great day of the Lord. In their minds, this might actually have been Elijah given that he didn’t die and was just taken up into heaven. However, Jesus says this is John the Baptizer. The next time Moses and Elijah will be paired like this is on the Mount of Transfiguration.

All seems like it will be well and good to end Malachi until the final sentence. The first half is good, father and sons will return to each other (this image likely should be extrapolated to the relationship between God and his people). But if they don’t, God will come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction. And there you have it.

One of the interesting things about reading Malachi and some of the other minor prophets while being on our side of history where Jesus has already done what He does, is that our understanding of covenant is very similar. Where previous God’s people (or his kingdom if you want to think of it that way) was governed by his commandments and his relationship with the people that serve him. We actually do the same thing, it’s just that our “law” if you will is the living example of the life of Jesus himself. And it’s our relationship with him, which is kept healthy by what Jesus has done as our High Priest, sacrificial lamb, etc. instead of what we do.

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1 John

1 John | Chapter 1

John is a bit of a meandering, fanciful character. If you’re going to read along on this one I’d recommend taking it slow and re-reading a few times.

The first part really spends time laying out the reality of Jesus coming and being among His creation. John says multiple times that they heard him, looked upon him, touched him, saw him, etc. Of course, he’s tied this earthly Jesus to the “word of life” and “that which was from the beginning”, which has a lofty, Greek feel to it. Broad point is that something, eternal, major and awesome has come into the world and John and the boys saw it and they be telling everyone.

The reasons John gives for telling everyone is so that they can have fellowship with John and the other Jesus folk which then leads to the whole party having fellowship with Jesus and God the Father. And everyone gets joy. Seems like a plan.

Also sounds a lot like following Jesus and taking someone with you, but I kind of have a thing for that phrase so pardon if I overstep the application.

In the second half of the first chapter, John relays that one of the things Jesus wanted made known is that “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” Best to think of this as God being pure and altogether good. So if someone proclaims that they have fellowship with God but that person doesn’t reflect the characteristics of God, they lie, they aren’t walking with God.

But as we walk with God, reflect his characteristics to the world, we get fellowship with one another and Jesus’ sacrifice clears up where we fall short. That’s Kingdom living. We fellowship with one another under the identity, relationship, and mission Jesus died for.

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

Just like James, John ties together our freedom with Jesus and ability to walk in his ways with confession, truth telling. It’s just a thing, fellas. Truthy truth truthburger. Gotta do it. Hiding things isn’t protecting how you live, it’s picking how to die.

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Bible Study 1 John

1 John | Chapter 2

Mercy, for a fanciful character, John cuts it to the cloth in this chapter.

He open up with “My little children…”, that sounds nice. John says we shouldn’t sin, but that if we do (and we know we will because he said in chapter 1 that anyone who says they have no sin is lying) that we have Jesus who advocates on our behalf, who has appeased the justice of the Father. This is good news (and it’s not just us, it’s available for the sins of the whole world.)

And then the hammer drops. We know that we have come to know Jesus if we keep his commandments. “Believe” must bring obedience and action, otherwise our belief is shallow (sounds like our man James, yes? Faith without works is dead.) If we say we know Jesus and we don’t keep his commandments John says we are lying (he’s quick to call out liars in this section). “Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked”. John was the last living direct apostle, he likely knew everything written before him. Apparently at the end of the 1st century they’re having issues with people saying they believe in and follow Jesus who aren’t actually following him with their lives. John is having none of it.

Remember, though, that this doesn’t mean we can live a sinless life, John already made that clear. What he’s saying is, this ain’t no show. If you say you’re going to follow Jesus, you have to be doing what he did, doing what he tells you. If not, you might be hanging around the bros and wearing the clothes and reading the books but you’re not actually submitting to Jesus, which means your life as a Christian is a lie.

Then John breaks into talking about the “new” commandment being the same as the “old” commandment. This almost has to be love God with all your heart mind and soul and love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus says that sums up the law and the prophets and that continues to guide what we do today. That’s why John says here that if you hate your brother you are still in darkness, where those who love your brothers abide in the light (again, light and dark have connotations of the characteristics of God and us faithfully living those out.)

There’s kind of a neat little poem in the middle, pretty easy to get, though.

Then he moves into some stuff that sounds a lot like Galatians and James. He says, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the father is not in him.” We have to pick who to serve, we can’t chase what the world honors because we know that Jesus didn’t chase that (in fact his life was a collection of shaming in the world’s perspective.) Ultimately, the world will pass away, but if we abide in God, He is faithful and we will be protected forever.

And then the antichrist(s) show up. That’s not capitalized because it’s not a specific person, the word basically means “those who oppose the Messiah”. Note John says there are many of them, they are around in John’s day and they are characterized as those who deny Jesus as the Messiah, or Jesus as the son and God as the father. And they apparently try to deceive others into denying those things as well (I’m looking at you, Jehovah’s Witnesses.) Even so, John says we don’t have to worry, stick with Jesus and the things we know about Him and we will be protected by the Son and the Father eternally. Stick with Jesus and it’ll be fine.

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Bible Study 1 John

1 John | Chapter 3

John is kind of erratic in this section, bouncing from idea to idea and back again. There may be some sinews that connect all of it but, at least at the moment, I’ve having trouble finding them.

We are reminded that God loves us so much that he is willing to call us children. That’s not a God who is simply pacified or tolerant that you made it into heaven, it’s a God who did whatever it took to adopt you into His family. And as children of God, we shouldn’t be surprised that the world doesn’t understand us because they didn’t get Jesus either. And beyond that, there’s even more to come, we’ve not yet fully realized what it’s like to live as God’s children, that will come to fruition when Jesus returns.

Then a digression: whoever sins acts as if there are no laws, no right way to live. But Jesus comes and sets that right and also provides an example so that we indeed may know how to live (in effect, Jesus is the law). But you can’t keep on acting as if that example didn’t exist. We must follow Jesus and do as he did. To not do so is to ignore what he has done as if it is not real or binding. That is lawlessness, and a rejection of Jesus, and comes from his opponent.

Let’s just note here that John is kind of difficult to parse at times in this section. He moves between what seems very broad (“…everyone who hopes in [Jesus] purifies himself…) and very specific and direct (…whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil…). In general, it seems safe to assume that his reaction to sinful behavior is habitual, consistent sinning since earlier in the letter we are told that anyone who thinks he doesn’t sin is a liar. Nonetheless, John continues to affirm that there is righteousness in what we do and that are deeds can indeed be righteous. (It is at least passingly curious that the two verses in 1 John so far that deal with works themselves being considered righteous pass without any verse commentary in the ESV Study Bible notes, which bend Reformed. I do wonder how Calvinism would comment on this association.)

John continues to tie this together with our understanding of the greatest commandments, loving and being obedient to God and loving others. If you aren’t practicing righteousness or you don’t love your brother, you’re not a child of God. He uses Cain as an example of someone who was murdered his brother because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s were righteous. [Squirrel!] Then he jumps to the reminder that we shouldn’t be surprised that the world hates us (just talked about that a few verses ago). I suppose the connection probably is Cain’s jealousy and worldly reaction vs. what Abel was doing.

Regardless, we know that we have passed from death to life when we love others like God has loved us. This is tough one: “But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and truth.”

Finally, we come back to loving God and keeping his commandments. Which is kind of baked into the previous thing because we are told that God commands us to believe in his Son and to love one another. And we know God abides in us because He has provided the Spirit.

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Bible Study 1 John

1 John | Chapter 4

John introduced the fact that we know God is with us because he gives us in the Spirit at the end of chapter 3, which opens the conversation about the spiritual world. He confirms that there are spirits that are not from God, those who would claim to be from God or would influence people to speak falsely as if it is on God’s behalf. They can be made known by whether they confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. Unfortunately, this keeps us from being able to label any ol’ person who we disagree with theologically as having an evil Spirit because most folk actually still claim Jesus as the Messiah who came in the flesh; it’s why we can work with folk if we can agree on Jesus.

We get a drop on the antichrist again, which retains the context of being a person or spirit who opposes the Messiah (in this case by telling lies). That said, it’s a worldly issue, and because the Spirit who is in us is greater than any other spirits that are in the world, we don’t worry about those spirits.

John then hops back to loving one another. Love is from God, it shows we love and serve God, and God is indeed love. That phrase doesn’t negate everything else John has said (meaning, yes God is love, but you still can’t be a liar who claims to love God but doesn’t obey his commands). God’s love is demonstrated through sending Jesus, the ultimate example and act of love in sacrifice. And because God loved us, we are to love one another.

Ooh, don’t miss this. “No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.” John understands that will have difficulty knowing what is is like to “love” God given that we’ve not actually seen him and our interactions with him aren’t quite the same as with our brothers. Don’t worry, God is aware of that. Love your brothers, obey God, love will show

Now back to who has the Spirit and who does not and how to know.

Now back to loving again. We love because He showed us how to love. What God has done for us is the context for our understanding of what love actually is. (Let that sink in. Mercy.)

Whoever loves God must also love his brother.

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Bible Study 1 John

1 John | Chapter 5

John now transfers that we don’t only love God but love the children of God by loving God and obeying His commandments. So we love God and love people in the same way, by obeying God. And his commandments are not burdensome (maybe we’re doing it wrong? Yes. We’re doing it wrong if it’s burdensome.) Generally, I think it’s burdensome when we don’t keep the perspective in place (it might take effort to escape from someone who has kidnapped you but I can’t imagine someone would describe that as burdensome). And John reminds us of that perspective, that we are overcoming the world by faith. But again, you gotta believe in Jesus, that’s how it’s done.

John then switches to describing what testimony exists to confirm that Jesus is able to bear the weight of this belief. Kind of answering the question, “How can we trust Jesus as the linchpin in this thing?” Well, the work of the Spirit, the validation of Jesus’ identity through baptism (“this is my son…”), and His death. God Himself validates who Jesus is, which is stronger than the testimony of the world. And because we get the Spirit, we have internally the testimony of Jesus’ ability to deliver on the Biblical promises when we have faith. You want to live, you need Jesus. (And, you know, it’s best not to call God a liar.)

We are told that he writes all this that we may be assured of our eternal life. We believe Jesus is who He says he is and keeps his promises. And because our eternity depends on Jesus, not us, we can have assurance. No reason to doubt here. Then John says scary things like, “If we ask anything according to his will he hears us and…we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.” Well dang, that seems rough. We know he doesn’t give us everything we ask for, even if we think it’s good. Question is, what is in his will? Maybe John’s next section helps with that.

“If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God will give him life.” Hmm, that kind of helps. But I have a lot more questions. Does this mean I can ask forgiveness on another’s behalf? (cough, cough, Catholic last rites, cough, cough.) What sins lead to death, don’t all sins lead to death (Paul? Like, Paul from Romans? Help?) And is this really the only thing that John was getting at when he said that if we ask anything He will hear us? This section needs more study.

Whoa! Wait, John says there is sin that leads to death and we shouldn’t bother praying for that. All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that doesn’t lead to death. Hmm, all sins are not equal. John does not care to elaborate. Helpful.

If you’re born of God, you don’t keep sinning (again, I think this is habitual sin. Not that that’s any better, really.) God protects us and the evil one does not touch him. (Difficult. Very difficult. We’ve seen many a good person tempted into their own destruction.) Even so, John reminds us that the world lies in the power of evil, even though we are from God. It’s always going to be a fight. We’re in enemy territory. That’s why we’re tempted. That’s why it’s persistent. That’s why we must resist.

“Little children, keep yourselves from idols.” It’s like John got tired with his elaboration in earlier letters and just kind of dropped an idol-bomb and left the conversation.