Evidence points to the author of the three Epistles of John, as John, the son of Zebedee who is the same writer who wrote the gospel bearing his name. John’s gospel seeks to bring the reader to faith and 1 John seeks to confirm the reader in that faith. He writes to strengthen the faith of his readers and to fight against the specific threat of Gnosticism towards their beliefs. Gnosticism is a deviant form of Christianity that values knowledge as the means of salvation rather than the Cross and asserts that physical matter was evil and proof that the Son of God could not come in the flesh. These aberrant teachings targeted many of John’s students, and led him to assure them of salvation, and firmly express their beliefs as compared to the false teachings of the Gnostics.
1 John 1
1:1-4 Testimony to Christ
1:5-7 God is light
1:8-10 Sin, it’s reality and remedy
1 John 2
2:1-2 Sin, it’s reality and remedy (continued)
2:3-6 Tests of true knowledge
2:7-17 The first love
2:18-27 The danger of the antichrists
2:28-29 The children of God and righteousness
1 John 3
3:1-10 The children of God and righteousness (continued)
3:11-24 Love one another
1 John 4
4:1-6 Trying the spirits
4:7-21 God is love
1 John 5
5:1-5 God is love (continued)
5:6-12 The witness concerning the Son
5:13-21 The knowledge of eternal life
