Author’s Preface

FEW WRITINGS IN THE NEW TESTAMENT fascinate us like the writings of John. Commentaries on the Fourth Gospel, like commentaries on Romans, draw surprising interest among scholars and teachers of the Scriptures. In some fashion we sense that John has probed the center of Christian belief and practice, that he is describing a depth of insight and experience unmatched by many other writers. It is not surprising that at the early church councils of Nicea and Chalcedon, theologians looked to John’s writings for guidance as they discerned the contours of Christ’s relation to the Father and the meaning of the Incarnation.

I have been intrigued with the Johannine literature from the early 1980s when I wrote a dissertation on John’s theology of the Holy Spirit (published in 1987 as The Anointed Community: The Holy Spirit in the Johannine Tradition). Since that time Johannine scholars have come to appreciate how John’s Gospel and letters spring from a living community of Christians who were working to live and express their faith in a world that was not always congenial to them. For some scholars, this means compromising the historical character of John’s Gospel; but for others, it means discovering a second depth of meaning to words and stories we have read for many years.

The letters of John have traditionally received limited attention. For some Christians, 1 John is a brief, familiar collection of favorite verses to which we turn when seeking encouragement; it is a patchwork of memorable lines that speak to us about forgiveness, truth, and particularly love. John’s other two letters, sadly, have been escorted to the periphery of the New Testament writings. Their brevity and highly personal character have given them uncertain value to the average Christian.

This commentary has unveiled to me the value of John’s letters because they disclose something of the history of early Christianity. When we reconstruct the world of John’s churches (uniting the Fourth Gospel with his letters) and begin to locate these letters in that world, an entirely new vista opens before us. This is not a church setting of leisure and calm; rather, this is a church that is struggling with the intellectual milieu of its day as well as with matters of internal leadership and thought. John is writing because problems have arisen—because certain people have either challenged his leadership or upended traditional teachings about Jesus. And these issues must be addressed.

It is reassuring to see that we can and should lay to rest the fantasy of a pristine, harmonious early Christianity. The church—John’s church and our church—is both a divine creation and a human institution. And the extent to which we can appreciate John’s struggles and victories, we will learn how to cope with and overcome the human struggles in our own Christian communities.

The Christian communities in which I live have contributed to many of the thoughts found in the commentary. Wheaton College, with its intellectual rigor and its spiritual zeal, reflects many of the high ideals that the Johannine community held dear. Its students and faculty never cease to be examples to me of men and women who passionately desire to “walk in the light” as John envisioned it (1 John 1:7). Glen Ellyn Covenant Church is another community for me that holds aloft a vision for Christian life, delicately joining together the Johannine themes of obedience and love (3:18–24). David and Judy Smith, Lee and Ken Phillips, Kaye and Wally Filkin, my wife, Carol, and I all formed our own community in a small group that studied John’s letters for one year. Our shared thoughts and experiences appear throughout the application sections of the book.

The editorial staff at Zondervan and the general editors of this series have provided invaluable help. Jack Kuhatschek gave generous advice and encouragement at critical moments, and Verlyn Verbrugge’s expert editorial skill improved the manuscript on every page. Marianne Meye Thompson and Terry Muck each read the manuscript carefully and suggested insightful, percipient improvements. And special thanks is due to Meredith Omland, who prepared the Scripture index.

Finally, a word of explanation about the dedication. In 1981 Donald Mitchell was the president of King College in Bristol, Tennessee. At what must have seemed a significant gamble, he offered a job to one freshly minted Ph.D. For his trust and confidence I will always be grateful. LeRoy King continues to serve Tennessee as a representative of Eerdmans Publishing Company, a true renaissance man with a love for literature and Christian theology. I am grateful for his efforts and encouragement to publish my first manuscript. Dr. Mitchell and Mr. King opened doors I could not open myself and became friends whom I grew to admire deeply. The writer of Hebrews may well have had such men in mind when he wrote, in Hebrews 13:7:

Gary M. Burge

Autumn 1995