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Speaker: Jerry Cisar
When most believers answer the question, “What is the Gospel?” we default to Paul’s way of communicating it. Maybe this is because Paul’s letters are front-ended in our New Testaments, or that he wrote more than any other author wrote, or because more sermons are drawn from them.
This isn’t a bad thing, though it is a good thing to hear the Gospel through the eyes of another. John shows us not a different Gospel, but a different way of expressing the Gospel, a different way of showing how it applies to life. In this week’s text (1 John 1:1-4), John wants us to understand that the beginning of the Gospel has its origins in the One who Created all things in the Beginning. This is no invention of man.
In today’s way of speaking, 1 John serves as a “group study guide” to go along with his Gospel. John is summarizing the essential truths of the apostolic Gospel and its claim on our lives. John not only has born testimony to what he saw (John’s Gospel), He is bearing testimony in this written message also.