1 John 2:15-17

Bible Study Notes - “Do Not Love the World” 

1 John 2:15-17

• John shifts his attention from the necessary internal spiritual resources of the believer to a consideration of the disciple’s relationship with the world.
• In keeping “The Great Commandment” (Matthew 22:34-40, God becomes our ultimate concern in the words of Paul Tillich.
• For a committed disciple, the world should not hold any allure.
• It is important to note John’s use of the word, love, means agape.  He does not mean eros (love of physicality and sensuality), phileo (love of brothers, sisters and friends in the world) or storge (love of mother, father, siblings and extended members of your family).
• Most regrettably, we use the same word in the English language to express our love for pizza that we utilize to share our heartfelt affections for our spouses and children.
• In his use of agape, John directs his fellow disciples in the “Beloved Community” in the necessity of making God their highest priority. 
• Agape is the most supreme form of love – sacrificial, unfailing, unending, illimitable, gracious, just, respectful, empowering and redemptive.
• God expects the same devotion from disciples that He shares with us.
• Gratitude for God’s most excellent expression of love in Christ Jesus motivates our reciprocation.
• God describes Himself as a jealous God who will have no other gods before Him.  Accordingly, He will not accept second place as it relates to our love and devotion toward anyone or anything else.
• The apostle John eliminates any possibility of harboring love for the world and its temptations and delights while professing love of Almighty God.
• As a practice of spiritual discipline, disciples periodically take an internal and personal inventory of assets and liabilities.
• When we examine the use of our finances and time, do we find excesses as it relates to the world?
• Let’s consider our love of food, clothes, cars, houses, television, internet, electronics, vacations, trips, gossip, comedy, music, etc.
• Love of the world and love of God cannot exist simultaneously just as darkness and light cannot share the same space at the same time.
• In the sixteenth verse, John graphically defines love of the world – “cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes, and the boasting of what he has and does.”
• Self-centered desires to satisfy physical instincts, lust for finances and material acquisitions and pride because of personal ownership and activities are the attributes of love for the world.
• These characteristics emerge from the world and not from God.
• John offers disciples a fundamental choice.  Either they chose definitively, proactively or irrevocably to live as disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ or they will digress to living in the world.
• The apostle of love concludes this portion of his letter with the stern statement of the unavoidable reality that the world will pass away but the will of Almighty God lives forevermore.
• Elsewhere, the Lord Jesus Christ teaches heaven and earth will pass away but the Word and will of Almighty God shall be done throughout eternity.