1 John 3: Think, Say, Do

What is sin? As simple as that question may be, I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of Christians wouldn’t have a good answer for it. Some might be left speech, while others might give a long and complicated answer, while others might just go off naming as many examples possible. When I worked for Child Evangelism Fellowship, they taught their summer missionaries an easy way to teach children what sin is. The definition would always start, “Sin is anything you think, say or do…” and it would end with a few variations, like, “…that does not please God” or “…makes God sad” or “…breaks God’s law.” I always liked the definition’s beginning because it was holistic with our thoughts, speech and actions. Now think about the opposite. What is righteousness? What is holiness? Once again, I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot Christians would be unable to produce a good answer for question. They would either be speechless or give me an answer that is long and more complicated than it needs to be. What if we were to take that definition for sin, turn it around and make it the opposite? What do that do the trick? I think it would. Righteous and holiness is when we think, say and do things that please God, that make God happy and that keep God’s law. I think this does work, and my proof is 1 John 3.

I always like to say our identity defines our actions, or who we are defines what we do. John might be thinking the same thing because he starts of chapter 3 by describing Christians with a title. The title John uses is “children of God.” It means Christians are born of God the Father and they are a part of his family. In the second half of the verse, John puts use to the title to explain why Christians aren’t accepted by the world. Christians, the children of God, are born of God. Those of the world are not born of God. Therefore, they do not recognize God. Thus, anyone who acknowledges God will be rejected by them. In verse 2, John further explains that since God has not been fully revealed, Christians, in a way are not fully revealed yet either. When God does fully reveal Himself, Christians will be revealed fully too. This truth is so strong that when God does fully reveal Himself, and when God fully reveals Christians, we will find out we are so similar to God. John says that Christians should live on the hope of this.

Now we have defined who we are, we can now describe what we do. Since we are children of God, we will not sin. John breaks this down nicely for us. God is righteous and holy, or perfectly sinless. The Devil is evil and sinful, as he was since the beginning of the creation. Those who choose to live righteous life are the children of God, for God is sinless and the children of God are like God. Those who chose to live a sinful life are the children of the Devil because the Devil is an evil sinner and those who sin live the same life the Devil does. Anyone who lives a sinful life is not a child of God, and anyone who lives a righteous life is not a child of the Devil. Well, what is the dividing life? What separates the righteous life from the sinful life? The answer is simple: the Law. The Law defines what righteousness is. Those who live by the Law are living a righteous life. Those who do not live by the Law are living a sinful life.

Actually, it’s interesting that John uses the Greek term anomia, which translates to “lawlessness.” The word only appears 9 times in the Greek New Testament, and the Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) only uses it once. The word appears the most in 2 Thessalonians 2, a total of 4 times. In 2 Thessalonians 2, Paul uses anomia in a bigger phrase: “the man of lawlessness” or “the lawless one.” Both titles Paul gives the Antichrist (with a Capital A), who will appear during the end times. It’s interesting because John talks about antichrists, but he talks about antichrists (with a lowercase a) just as much, if not more, than the Antichrist (with a Capital A). I think John is linking two ideas here. The antichrists, or those false teachers who are teaching wrongs things about Christ are just as bad as the evil man who will come at the end of time. And those who do not follow the Law are as bad as both the lowercase a antichrists and the Capital A Antichrist. All of them are children of the devil and have nothing to do with God or His people.

Once again, we must be careful not to use this passage to develop a doctrine that makes Christians legalistically follow the Law. John is not saying that once a person becomes a Christian, he or she will never sin again. Not only would a doctrine like that make Christians quickly become legalistic about salvation, but that kind of doctrine would also lead Christians to suffer from lack of assurance in their salvation, as well as give Christians a great increase in guilt. Skim through 1 John 3:4-10. Notice every time John uses the verb “sin,” he also throws in helping verbs before it, like “keeps on,” “continues to” or “goes on,” to keep it in context. These type of help verbs show an action that is on-going, continual or habitual. John is declaring that those who regularly sin, or make sinning a lifestyle, are the ones who are not children of God, but children of the Devil. By declaring this, John is also reducing sin in Christians to just merely accidental or a mistake. When a Christian sins, it is a mistake, or an accident. Those “mistakes” and “accidents” are nothing to fret about, John says in 1 John 3:5. Once again, John reminds his Christian reader that when they do slip up and make a mistake, the death of Jesus atones for it.

In the second half of the chapter, John gives an example of the difference between following the Law and lawlessness. Of course, John uses his favorite example: loving your brother. First, John gives the example of lawlessness in 1 John 3:11-15. The bad example from the Old Testament is Cain. John reveals an important truth to be learned from the famous story found in Genesis 4. Cain’s disobedience to God’s Law on sacrifices led Cain to be jealous of his brother Abel. Cain’s jealousy led to anger, his anger to led to hatred, and his hatred led him to kill his brother Abel. John uses this tension between 2 brothers to show the tension between the Christians, the children of God, and those of the world, the children of the Devil. Those of the world will feel the same feelings toward Christians as the evil Cain felt toward his brother Abel: anger and hatred. This is expected to be of the worldly, but it is not the expectations to Christians, not towards the non-Christian, but especially not towards the fellow Christian. Christians are always supposed to be loving, especially towards other Christians. Those who don’t are just as guilty of murder as Cain is. John is reinforcing what Jesus taught on the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:21,22.

John then gives the good example of following the Law in 1 John 3:16-20. Of course, the good example has to be the only one who was able to follow the Law perfectly on this earth. That is, of course, Jesus Christ. Well how did Jesus Christ love His people, His followers, His brothers? He laid down his life for the people who followed Him, so they could be forgiven of their sins. Therefore, just as Jesus laid down His life for people who believe in Him, so His believers must lay down their lives for fellow believers. John is reinforcing what Jesus taught His disciples in the Upper Room in John 15:13. If Jesus laid down his life for people, so Christians must follow the same lifestyle. Now while John does intend for Christians to take this as literally as possible, John also wants Christians to take this metaphorically, too, for the metaphorical meaning is just as important. The best way to put the metaphorical meaning is to use a term Paul used in Romans 12:1. Christians are called to be living sacrifices. But how do Christians go about doing that? John gives an answer for that in 1 John 3:18. I’m going to put up the verse because I believe the verse is an essential theme to the chapter.

1 John 3:18-
Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.

Let’s make sure we are clear on what John is saying. John is not saying to stop loving people in what we say. John is saying, “Don’t just love in what we say.” I think the context might even say, “I know you got loving in speech down, but you need to know more.” Actually, within the phrase, “words or tongue” might have more meaning than you think. In the Greek, John writes, “logō mede glossē,” which literally translate into “word nor tongue.” Now, it is possible that John is simply using two synonyms to add emphasis, but maybe John means more than that. Perhaps John kept in mind that Greek philosophers sometimes thought of logos as a philosophy, or a way of thinking. If that’s the case, John is saying, “Don’t love just in your thoughts and your words, but also love in your actions.” Maybe John is paralleling words and tongue with action and truth. In that context, “tongue” moreso means lying or hypocrisy. If that’s the case, John is saying, “Don’t just love by saying the right thing to do, but actually do it! And when you do it, do it with the right heart and the right attitude, not in hypocrisy.”

You’ve all been in that kind of Sunday School or Bible Study. The leader of the class or the group has presented a Bible passage in a thoughtful and meaningful manner, making lots of observations and interpretations. And now that the lesson has come near its close, the leader announces, “Let’s go around the group and discuss ways we can apply this Biblical message to our lives.” Now I’m going to skip over my usual rant about that being a sign that the leader hasn’t really thought of his own applications, and I’m going to get to the point of what it has to do with 1 John 3:18. Plenty of times, we have all participated in these circles. We’ll listen to many ideas on how to apply Biblical truths, and we might throw in a few of our own ideas, too. But those ideas are never acted on, either by the self or by the others in our group. The minute we walk out the door, those ideas walk out of our mind, and we go back to our normal lives. John tells his readers that it’s good their thinking about those good, loving things to do, and it’s also good that they are discussing among themselves about what is good, what is right and what is loving. But now John wants his readers to take it a step further and act out what they are thinking and what they are discussing. For if they don’t, the results can be nasty. But if they do, the results will be pleasing to God, and maybe even pleasing to other people.

I’ll give you a bad example, an example of how things can go wrong if actions are never carried out. After moving into the city, my friend started looking for churches that he could connect with. On one particular week, my friend went to the nearby Baptist church. First, they had church service. During the church service, he learned that the church’s pastor was on sabbatical for half the year, so they elders had pretty much taken charge, rotating the responsibility of pastor every week. Despite the pastor not speaking, the elder speaking gave a good, meaningful message. Following church was the Sunday school, in which one of the elders led in a small group discussion on how to live out what was preached in the sermon. Once again, the discussion was very thoughtful, and the elder did a good job mediating the discussion. During the fellowship time that followed Sunday school, my friend observed a man talking to an elder. The man was telling the elder that it was discovered that bugs and rodents had infested his apartment complex. All the tenants in the apartment complex had been temporarily evicted in order to bring in exterminators to exterminate all bugs and rodents and to clean the place up, but if the place was damaged beyond repair, the building would be condemned and the tenants would be permanently evicted. The man, with nowhere to go, had checked himself into the nearby homeless shelter because he could not afford to stay in a hotel. After the man explained his situation, the elder simply replied, “Well, I’ll definitely pray for you. I wish I could do more, but since our pastor is on sabbatical, I really can’t do anything about it, but I’ll definitely pray for you.” Of course my friend was furious, so furious that he never returned to the church again. Now he was more furious that the church could operate properly with a pastor, but when he told me this story, I was furious, too, but for different reasons. This church could sit around all day and think and talk about good things to do for the community and for the kingdom of God, yet when it came to living them out, they were unable to! This is what John is trying to end!

Don’t fear, for this is not the case for every Christian fellowship. I have a good example, an example of how Christians can carry out actions. This example may not be a church, but it is a Christian fellowship in the form of a Bible study, and I believe whenever you have a group of Christians coming together in a spiritual manner, you have church, so this is still a good example. The good example comes from a Wednesday night mens’ Bible study I attended when I was in undergrad at Lancaster Bible College. There was an overall leader, but the overall leader wasn’t the one doing all the leadership jobs. He would assign people to assist in leadership roles, and this includes being the speaker. So just like the church in the bad example, speakers would rotate, but all the speakers knew the importance of living out what was being preached, and they even led in doing so. I’ll give a few examples. One week, one of the speakers in the group talked about how fortunate and wealthy American Christians are in comparison to the rest of the world. So right then and there, the leader “adopted” an overseas African child and started passing around a collection plate to pay for this African child’s education. He would continue doing this every week, and every week, people gave. In another week, another leader got up and spoke about how Christian fellowship can be the salt of the earth and a light to the world. Ever since giving that message, he would get together a weekly trip to fellowship at a restaurant off campus in order to shine that light to the nearby community. In yet another week, a third leader got up and talked about serving other people. For every following week, he would get a bunch of guys to do the dorm duties for a whole dorm section once a week. This Bible study didn’t just talk about it, but they acted upon it. This is especially important for a Bible college campus. I will admit that in Bible college, it is easy to talk about what the right doctrine is and what the right application is in class. But when students leave the classroom, students don’t know how to do anything with it except talk about it. This small Bible study was able to get the men of the college to take what they learned in the classroom, to share it to their fellow classmates, and then to join their classmates in acting it out. This is what John is talking about.

Christians have it down pat to think about good, right, loving things, and Christians got it down to discuss good, right, loving things. But to actually do, that takes the extra step. Some fail, but others succeed. Might you be stuck in this “thinking and saying” stage, but unable to move into the “doing stage”? Here’s a good hint that might be the sign you’re stuck in that “thinking and saying” stage, but unable to get into the “doing” stage. I’m taking the hint right from the bad example. How many times has your solution to a problem simply been just praying for it? Now don’t get me wrong, praying is a very important part. It confesses to God that we as human beings are weak, and we need an all-powerful God to help us do anything. Yet, at the same time, Christians have allowed prayer to be their excuse to adopt good ol’ American laziness. When Christians say, “I’ll pray for it,” that’s all they want to do, and they hope that God will divinely drop down the answer from heaven which will perfectly solve everything. I really think part of the reason Paul describes the church as the Body of Christ in 1 Corinthians and Ephesians is to make the point that the church, the fellowship of Christians, can be the answer and the solution to the prayer requests. In American society, being called “a tool” is a bad thing, but the truth is that Christians are supposed to be a tool of God. God is omnipotent and all-powerful, and He can do all things, but his preferred method of choice may not always be divine, heavenly or supernatural. It may be done through his people.

So next time you hear someone has lost their job, don’t merely pray for it, but help the person look for a job. If you come upon a person who is going to be evicted from their apartment or house, don’t just pray for the person, but take the person in, and if you can’t, find someone who can. If someone’s car has broken down, don’t only pray for the person, but help find a way to fix it, and in the meantime, help the person commute to where he or she needs to go. It’s true that for severely sick people we do need to solely pray for the person to get better, for we are not all expert doctors. But that doesn’t mean we can’t cook their meals, clean their house and watch their children. These are just a few examples, and I bet there’s a bunch more to go to, but they all have a similar formula. They are all active, and none of them are passive. They take our beliefs and they act them out in our applications. Proverbs, a God-inspired book of the Bible, frowns upon laziness. I bet God makes an even bigger frown when Christians use prayer as their excuse to let laziness slip under the radar.

Both John and I are going to conclude on the same note, and that is the results. 1 John 3:23 says, “And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.” I believe this is John once again summing up the 2 greatest commandments: Love God and love others. How do we love God and love others? In thought, in words and in action. By doing so, we prove we live in the truth of the 2 greatest commandments and we also please God.