Abide in Love - I John 4:7-21
Throughout the season of Easter we have the opportunity during worship to hear a series of lessons from the letter of I John. In many ways I feel that these readings and this letter is very timely. Whenever I read I John I feel like it is speaking to our own time and place. So what is going on? Well, this community of faith is in crisis. The issue is over the question of the humanity versus the divinity of Jesus. This is an issue that was eventually resolved by the early church. But what is particularly important to us I think is not so much who was right and who was wrong about this particular issue but rather the behavior of the members of this community and how they chose to relate to others during this conflict. Especially how they related to other Christians who disagreed with them. And what we see does not look good. This community was divided over the issue and one group took the position that anyone who disagreed with th...