The letters (or “epistles”) of John are different from most of the other letters included in the canon of the New Testament.  These letters lack the typical introduction that opens other New Testament letters which followed the common practice of the time:

• Paul and Peter and James and Jude begin with their own identification, and often their credentials, such as “Paul, a bond-servant of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God…” (Romans 1:1; this introduction in Romans takes up six verses!).
• Then the opening of the letters typically contain a salutation identifying the recipients: “to all who are beloved of God in Rome, called as saints” (Romans 1:7a).
• Usually, but not always, this is followed by a greeting or even a blessing: “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 1:7b).

Even these “introductory” sections are often theologically rich (such as Romans 1:2-7) and merit considerable study in most of the New Testament letters.

Not so for John’s letters.  First John starts right into his message.  The second and third letters have a brief mention of the writer identified only as “the elder” and some indication of the recipients.  The longest introduction is in 2 John where he offers a short blessing.

When we begin studying 1 John, there is no explicit “internal evidence” about the author or the recipients or the circumstances of the letter.[1]  In order to have a framework for the study of John’s letters, we can consider other possible sources of that information.

Author

One of the most helpful external sources of information about any of the New Testament writings is the record of the early church Fathers.  Second-century writers such as Irenaeus, Clement, and Tertullian explicitly name the Apostle John as the author of the letters.[2]  Irenaeus was a “second-generation” disciple of John (Irenaeus was a disciple of Polycarp, and Polycarp was a disciple of John).  He had first-hand accounts from Polycarp about what John did and said and wrote.[3]

It should be noted that some respected, conservative scholars[4] suggest the letters (and perhaps the Gospel account) may have been composed “by a disciple of the apostle John, who wrote as a pastor and friend of the churches in Asia Minor which had come under his care and instruction….  Whoever the author was, he obviously held a position of authority in the church and writes as one who had known Jesus by actual bodily experience (I John 1:1-3).”[5]  Paul sometimes used a “secretary” or amanuensis.  Most scholars believe that Mark reported the Gospel account he received from the Apostle Peter.[6]  It is possible that one or more others were involved in the final formulation of John’s writing.  The contribution of other eyewitnesses, as well as their affirmation of the Apostle’s authority, might be a reason behind the statement in John 21:24, “We know that his witness is true.”

The early dating (see below) and circulation of all of the writings attributed to John attest to his influence and probably his direct authorship.  It may be easy to forge a document under a famous name hundreds of years after the supposed author is dead.  When those who knew the author and his teachings well are still living, such a deception is much less likely.

The Apostle John is the source of the teaching in the letters as well as the eyewitness author of the Gospel associated with his name and of the Apocalypse, aka the book of Revelation.  His authorship and the authority of his letters were recognized in the earliest years of the post-Apostolic age.

Date

The dating of John’s letters is usually based on direct evidence (copies of the letter, or at least fragments that survive) and indirect evidence (references to the letters and their teaching in other ancient writers).  John’s letters are mentioned in other writings as early as A.D. 120,[7] and an early list of authoritative books (the “Muratorian Fragment,” from the late second century) includes John’s letters.[8]  The existence of copies of John’s letters circulating and recognized as authoritative early in the second century would indicate an origin in the late first century.  One writer even suggests that the letters were in wide use before the end of the first century:  “Since there were copies of this letter [1 John] in so many churches late in the first century, the authorship and the authority of this letter were at the very beginning placed beyond question.”[9]  As mentioned above, the early dating and acceptance of John’s letters provide strong support to their apostolic authority.

The relationship between the three parts of the New Testament canon ascribed to John may not be absolutely certain (“a topic of continuing scholarly interest”[10] is a polite way of saying disagreement).  Some (e.g., Lenski) would suggest that the letters were written before the Gospel.  However, the majority opinion (in my admittedly limited research) indicates the sequence as Revelation (c. A.D. 70), followed by the Gospel according to John (c. A.D. 80), and then the letters (c. A.D. 90).[11]  The dating and sequence of the three parts of John’s contributions to the New Testament affect our understanding of both the audience he addressed and the setting that prompted his writing.

Audience

The sequence of John’s writing has possible implications for the audience and purpose of his writing.  One of the characteristics of John’s account of the ministry of Jesus in the Gospel is a “balanced Christology” that clearly demonstrates both the humanity and the deity of Jesus.  The Incarnation, the “hypostatic union” of the eternal infinite Creator as a real flesh and blood human being continues to be a baffling concept even to Christians.  That mystery was at least as much of a puzzle to first-century readers.  Some tended to exaggerate the humanity of Jesus; others emphasized the divinity of Christ.[12]  When these two groups (and various degrees between the extremes) were part of the same church or churches, problems were inevitable.  It would seem that a decade or so after his Gospel circulated, those problems were beginning in congregations that had grown from reading that Gospel.  John’s letters (especially 1 John) provide doctrinal correctives as well as ethical correctives.  The misunderstandings had theological as well as moral consequences.

Smalley[13] provides an interesting list of possible links between 1 John and Jesus’ Farewell Discourse (John 14-17):

	1 John	Gospel of John
1. The Godhead and the Christian
The love of the Father	4:16	14:21
The abiding of the Son	3:24	15:4
The gift of the Spirit	4:13	14:16-17
2. The Christian and the Godhead
Mutual indwelling	3:24	14:20
Forgiveness	1:9	15:3 (13:8)
Eternal life	2:25	17:2
Righteousness	2:29	16:10
3. Conditions for Christian Discipleship
Renounce sin	1:8; 3:4	16:8
Be obedient	2:3; 3:10	14:15
Reject worldliness	2:12; 4:1	15:19
Keep the faith	2:18; 5:5	17:8

 

The relationships among the Persons of the Holy Trinity, the fellowship between believers and the Triune God, and the ethical outworking of God’s grace in our lives are still areas that can puzzle us today.  Like any writer who may have been misunderstood, John wanted to clarify the life-giving teaching.  His clarifications will be just as helpful to us twenty centuries later.

Setting

Like the exact date and audience, the setting of John’s writing (especially his letters) is not a certainty.  Smalley offers plausible reasons behind the Apostle’s three very different canonical contributions.  The following is a synopsis of Smalley’s detailed suggestion [interspersed with some of my comments]:

John the Apostle moved to Ephesus with his followers in the 50s of the first century AD.  The reason for the move was doubtless persecution from the Jews….  [The oral tradition of John’s story of Jesus would be well established after twenty years of repetition.]  The apostle was exiled to Patmos some time during the early 60s….  In the late 60s, John was released from prison….  He wrote [Revelation] in the middle months of AD 70.  [He must have been eager to record the amazing experience with the risen and glorified Lord!][14]  After Revelation had been written, in AD 70, the Gospel of John continued to take shape…  In the 80’s … the Fourth Gospel was edited and published [Smalley speculates that others may have contributed to John’s work, as mentioned above].  Its appearance became the means of undergirding historically the vision of Christ which had been transmitted by John the apostle.  [The Gospel presented a more systematic view of the earthly ministry of Jesus that was probably a bit more comprehensible than the apocalyptic images and symbols in Revelation.]  It also provided a vehicle through which the faithful could be exhorted to go on believing, in an ‘orthodox’ manner, that Jesus was both Christ and Son of God (John 20:31).  [Jesus as man and Jesus as God was, and is, a difficult concept to fit into our human thinking.  Cults (then and now) find it easier to emphasize one or the other, resulting in beliefs that deny part of the dual nature of Jesus.]  When the Letters of John were composed (say, in the 90s), the situation had become much worse.  Friction seems to have increased, and an identifiable polarisation of Christological views was in progress.[15]

The idea that John was clarifying the nature of Christ and the ethical implication for our lives is an exciting framework.  I am looking forward to our discussions and any blog comments that come from our study together.

Hopefully this sketch of the background of the letters of John will provide a good starting point for our study.  For more details, I encourage you to look into any of the references, especially the works by Smalley.

 

[1] This study will follow the canonical order, starting with 1 John, on the assumption that the order in the canon is the order in which the letters were written.  The order in the Bible is not always the order of the writing (e.g., Paul’s letters to the Thessalonian church).

[2] Donald W. Burdick, The Epistles of John (Chicago:  Moody Press, 1970), 12.

[3] F. F. Bruce, The New Testament Documents:  Are They Reliable (Chicago:  Inter-Varsity Press, 1968), 51.

[4] e.g., Stephen S. Smalley, 1,2,3 John, Word Biblical Commentary, v 51 (Waco, Texas:  Word Books, 1984), xxii.  (This commentary, and Smalley’s related works on the Gospel according to John and on the Revelation to John, are the most helpful references I have found.)
Also:
cf. Bruce Metzger, The New Testament:  its background, growth, and content (Nashville:  Abingdon Press, 1986), 260.

[5] Bruce Metzger, The New Testament:  its background, growth, and content (Nashville:  Abingdon Press, 1986), 260.

[6] R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark, The New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, Michigan:  William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2002), 7-8.

[7] F. F. Bruce, The New Testament Documents:  Are They Reliable (Chicago:  Inter-Varsity Press, 1968), 18.

[8] F. F. Bruce, The New Testament Documents:  Are They Reliable (Chicago:  Inter-Varsity Press, 1968), 22.

[9] R. C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of I and II Epistles of Peter, the three Epistles of John, and the Epistle of Jude (Minneapolis:  Augsburg Publishing House, 1966), 365.

[10] Stephen S. Smalley, 1,2,3 John, Word Biblical Commentary, v 51 (Waco, Texas:  Word Books, 1984), xxii.

[11] Stephen S. Smalley, John:  Evangelist & Interpreter (Downers Grove, Illinois:  InterVarsity Press, 1998), 93.

[12] Stephen S. Smalley, 1,2,3 John, Word Biblical Commentary, v 51 (Waco, Texas:  Word Books, 1984), xxvi.

[13] Stephen S. Smalley, 1,2,3 John, Word Biblical Commentary, v 51 (Waco, Texas:  Word Books, 1984), xxx.

[14] Stephen S. Smalley, THUNDER and Love:  John’s Revelation and John’s Community (Eugene, Oregon:  Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2012), 68-69.

[15] Stephen S. Smalley, THUNDER and Love:  John’s Revelation and John’s Community (Eugene, Oregon:  Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2012), 135-136.