Summaries
Summary One: Knowing Love Proves Their Birth (1-3)
John explained his logic: whoever believed was born of God; whoever was born of God loved the Father; whoever loved the Father loved everyone born of God (1). They could know they had love in their hearts when they kept His commands, not by demand, threat, or obligation, but willingly and eagerly, wanting to believe and love (2-3).
Summary Two: Knowing They Are Victorious (4-5)
John saw life as a coin with two sides: love being one side and faith being the other. John stated those who overcame lust (the world) by faith were God-born and had a different nature, a faith-nature that gave them the power to overcome the world (4-5).
Summary Three: Knowing Their Faith Originates in God (6-12)
John already explained that their love did not originate with them, so he wanted them to understand their faith did not originate with them either. It was Jesus who was not only baptized (“water”) but also crucified (“blood”)—the Holy Spirit giving witness to who Jesus was (6). In the waters of baptism, the Holy Spirit announced (Matthew 3:17), “This is My Son …” After the cross, the Holy Spirit raised Christ to life: “The Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead …” (7-8) (Romans 8:11).
John next put the witness of the apostles in perspective, with the witness of God being greater (9). His obvious point was that whoever believed had the testimony, not only of the apostles but of the Holy Spirit. It was the Holy Spirit who gave witness to Jesus at the river and at the cross through His death (10). This same Spirit gave witness to them by changing their nature from lust-driven to love-driven; they could also know they had eternal life (11). The witness was clear: God gave them eternal, overcoming, lust-killing, and love-establishing life through Jesus. If they had Jesus, they had life (12).
Summary Four: Knowing God Hears Their Prayers (13-17)
John then stated the overarching purpose for writing this letter—to give them assurance of the eternal God-life within them (13). This assurance was to give them great confidence as they prayed God's will, for when they prayed God’s will, God was listening (14). If God was listening, they could be certain He would eventually fill their requests (15).
John then got into a difficult subject. They were to pray for a brother they saw sinning, but on the other hand, there was a sin leading to death they were not to pray for. If they prayed for the sinning brother who had not committed the sin leading to death, then he would be restored to life—understood. The difficulty is, what is the sin that leads to death? It is likely when a former believer becomes so hardened that he has reached the point of no return (16-17). Hard to know when that is, but John seemed to think the Ephesians knew what he was referring to. As we consider the rest of the chapter, that sin likely had something to do with refusing to give up some habit of sin involving (greed) idolatry (18, 21).
Summary Five: Knowing They Are Beyond Evil’s Control (18-21)
Those born of God didn’t make a habit of sin; this left no place for the devil to get a foothold in their lives (18). Although the whole world was under the power of the evil one, who empowered them to fulfill lusts, John reminded them that they knew Jesus so intimately and were in Him so deeply that their lives were not fulfilled by gratifying their lusts but in Christ (19-20). John left them with his final thought: flee idolatry, which was defined in the early church as wanting more and more (Colossians 3:5) or covetousness (21).
Piecemeal Proverbs (22:17-31:9)
We come now to the last chapter of Proverbs attributed to the author King Lemuel (1). Little is known of him, but he was likely a foreign king with a godly mother whose advice he honored enough to write down that it might be remembered. A king's mother was often respected more than a king's wives, likely due to a king having only one mother, which was not necessarily true of his wives.
He opens his proverbs with a call to refrain from immoral behavior and sexual impulses (2-3). Next, he calls his son to conquer an addiction to alcohol. This appeal applies to any leader, not to give him/herself to alcohol yet to practice sensitivity in relationship to those who perish, for their need to drink is obvious (4-7). Lastly, he calls for him to be a defender of the poor and helpless, to make sure they are not taken advantage of (8-9).
Principled Wife Proverb (31:10-31)
After giving a great deal of attention to unfaithful women, Proverbs ends with what a faithful wife looks like. This portion of the book is 22 verses in length, each verse beginning with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet; thus it is in an acrostic form lost to the English reader.
Some consider this section to be a handbook for a husband on finding a good wife or for a wife on becoming a good wife, while still others consider the wife here to be a metaphor for wisdom.
While there are many ways to look at this portion of Proverbs, let me simply arrange it in a chiasmus for easy contrast and comparison, for certainly the subjects are repeated in the first and bottom half of this acrostic.
A) A good wife is of great value (10)
B) A husband is enriched by a good wife (11-12)
C) A virtuous wife is industrious and works hard (13-19)
D) A virtuous wife is kind to the poor (20)
E) She has no fear of present difficulties (21)
F) She dresses herself with beauty (22)
G) Her husband is respected (23)
F) She dresses others for profit (24)
E) She has no fear of future unpredictability (25)
D) A virtuous wife is kind with her words (20)
C) A virtuous wife suffers nothing due to laziness (27)
B) A husband praises her (28-29)
A) A good wife should be greatly rewarded (30-31)