Verse from 1 John

“这生命已经显现出来，我们见过了，现在也作见证，并且向你们宣扬这本来与父同在，又向我们显现过的永远的生命。”

‭‭约翰壹书‬ ‭1:2‬ ‭

“The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us.”

‭‭1 John‬ ‭1:2‬ ‭

In the Bible, we have a collection of letters that—thanks to the inspiration and guidance of the Holy Spirit—have made their way through time to us. As the Christian church grew, Jesus’ disciples wrote to local churches across Europe and Asia Minor to help the people understand their new life in Christ; many of those letters were collected in the Bible we read today.

What did these letter-writers want to convey to readers? John explains, in his first letter, that he’s writing about “that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched.” He’s writing about his encounter with the living Christ (1 John 1:1). 

He writes so that his readers may “have fellowship with” one another, and with “the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ” (v. 3). When we have fellowship together, he writes, our joy will be complete (v. 4). The letters in the Bible draw us into a fellowship that’s beyond time—fellowship with the eternal God.

If God wrote a letter to you today, what would it say? 

If you wrote a letter to a friend telling about how you’ve encountered the living God, what would it say?