Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text
Pick a passage anywhere in the New Testament. See the customs and ideas a first reader knew without being told.
1 John 4:1-6, Test the spirits
The readers must test every spirit instead of trusting each one, since many false prophets are now abroad. A spirit that confesses Jesus Christ as truly come in the flesh is from God, and one that refuses is the spirit of the antichrist. God in them is greater than the power in the world, and this is how the Spirit of truth is told from the spirit of error.
1 John 4:1-6, in every translation this tool compares.
The writer warns that many false prophets are abroad, so believers must test every spirit rather than accept every claim to inspiration. The test is a confession that Jesus Christ has truly come in the flesh; any spirit that will not make it comes from the antichrist. The readers belong to God and have already won, because God in them is stronger than the power at work in the world. What the confession of Jesus come in the flesh was meant to rule out is read in more than one way.
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/spirit-of-prophecy\/","n":"The Spirit of prophecy","s":"Jews of Jesus' day linked God's Spirit above all with prophecy. Many believed the prophets had fallen silent long ago, and they looked for the day God would pour out his Spirit again.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/early-false-teachers\/","n":"Early false teachers and splits","s":"Late in the first century a group left the churches John wrote to, taking a different view of Jesus with them. Some may have denied that he was the Messiah; others that he truly became human, as the Docetists and Cerinthus later taught.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/light-and-darkness\/","n":"Light and darkness","s":"Jewish writers, the Dead Sea Scrolls above all, divided people into children of light and children of darkness, and pictured the present age as darkness that the coming age of light would end. John, Paul and Jesus use the same contrast.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/the-satan\/","n":"The satan, the tempter","s":"The accuser, tempter and deceiver of Jewish belief, seen as the power behind human and political evil. In the Gospels he tests Jesus and is the strong man Jesus binds, and John calls him the ruler of this world.","r":""}
Jewish tradition tied prophecy to God's Spirit and often tied false prophecy to evil spirits (1 Kings 22:22-23) (the cultural backgrounds notes); the Zondervan dictionary adds the law's sentence on a prophet who urged other gods (Deuteronomy 13:1-4). Many Jews, especially the elite, doubted that prophets still flourished, while early Christians believed prophecy renewed and, "Just as in the OT, such prophecy needed to be evaluated" (the cultural backgrounds article on prophecy). Keener writes that John does not deny the opponents were inspired: "he merely denies that the spirit working in them is God's Spirit." What come in the flesh rules out is read two ways: a Docetic denial that Jesus was truly human and truly died (Keener; the ESV and CSB Study Bibles; Wright and Bird; Carson, Moo and Morris; Wright's commentary, which hears an early branch of Gnosticism but warns the group may be unknown to us), or a view of Jesus as a mere prophet, which would let believers stay in the synagogue (the cultural backgrounds notes; Keener as an option). Irenaeus quotes 4:3 as "every spirit which separates Jesus Christ is not of God", against those who divided Jesus from the Christ.
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on 1 John 4:1, 4:2-3 and 4:4-6
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on 1 John 4:1, 4:2, 4:4 and 4:6
- ESV Study Bible, study notes on 1 John 4:1 and 4:2
- CSB Study Bible, notes on 1 John 4:2, 4:3 and 4:4
- N. T. Wright and Michael F. Bird, The New Testament in Its World, ch. 33, The Argument of 1 John, section 8
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, article Prophecy in Antiquity
- J. D. Douglas and Merrill C. Tenney, Zondervan Illustrated Bible Dictionary, entry false prophet
- Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.16.8, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1
- D. A. Carson, Douglas J. Moo and Leon Morris, An Introduction to the New Testament, ch. 21, 1, 2, 3 John, Purpose
- N. T. Wright, Early Christian Letters for Everyone, comment on 1 John 3:11-4:6
