First Epistle of John
new Testament epistle attributed to John
The First Epistle of John is the first of the Johannine epistles of the New Testament, and the fourth of the catholic epistles. There is no scholarly consensus as to the authorship of the Johannine works. Most scholars believe the three Johannine epistles have the same author, but there is no consensus if this was also the author of the Gospel of John.
This epistle was probably written in Ephesus between 95 and 110 AD. The author advises Christians on how to discern true teachers: by their ethics, their proclamation of Jesus in the flesh, and by their love. The original text was written in Koine Greek. The epistle is divided into five chapters.
Content
The main themes of the epistle are love and fellowship with God. The author describes various tests by which readers may ascertain whether or not their communion with God is genuine, and teaches that the proof of spiritual regeneration is a life of active righteousness. It also distinguishes between the world (which is full of evil and under the dominion of Satan) and the children of God (who are set apart from the world).
Style
The epistle is not written in the same form as the other biblical epistles, as it lacks an epistolary opening or conclusion.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q131101. VIAF identifies the subject as 615154387441230970009. The Library of Congress control number is n97113082. 1 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “First Epistle of John” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.