Walking in the Truth
"The most usual interpretation put on the three epistles is that they were written in the sequence 1, 2, and 3 and came after the Gospel. ... The present writer has great respect for proponents of this theory but does not espouse it or indeed any other on the circumstances of composition. The attempt here is simply to explore what the three epistles may be saying when their meaning is obscure and to make accessible their mesage to the church of the present when it is not.There are so many echoes of biblical passages from both Testaments in this brief body of literature that it would be tedious to cite them all. A selection has been made. The remarkable thing is how much of it from the Newer Testament is extra-Johannine. ... In all, the field is so richly planted that it is an exercise in arrogance to attempt to harvest an additional yield. The present writer's comfort must be the ancient tag line, Non nova sed nove. There is nothing new in what follows but one thing or another may be expressed, without novelty, in a new way."--Introduction to the letters, pages 3-6.