Paragraph 2:7–11
Read 2:7–11 in both Berean Standard Bible and Good News Translation. Compare the two versions.
Paragraph Theme: These verses show which of God’s commands John particularly wanted his readers to obey, namely the command to love our fellow Christians. If we obey that command we are living according to the truth and purity of God’s nature, which John calls “the light”.
2:7a
Beloved: (Text) King James Version, Living Bible and Phillips’ New Testament in Modern English have “brothers,” which comes from an inferior Greek text.
Beloved: (Meaning) John shows his loving attitude by addressing his readers as “dear ones” or “you whom I love.” The Greek word he uses is closely related to that for “love,” which is his theme in this paragraph. It does not mean “friends” in the sense of companions or partners.
not writing to you a new commandment: (Focus) John’s theme here is that Christians should love one another. This follows from the importance of behaving as Christ behaved (2:6). In 2:7–8 he is showing that God has commanded us to love one another. He says this command is not new to his readers because Jesus gave it many years before (John 13:34). Yet Jesus called it a “new command.” John goes on to say that it is “new” in the sense that Jesus’ life and death showed for the first time what true love is, and it is also “new” in how it affects Christians’ lives.
2:7b
an old one: (Meaning) John means that the command to love was one of the main points of the Christian instruction his readers had received in the past.
from the beginning: (Meaning) This refers to the time when they first became Christians. This is different from the meaning of the same phrase in 1:1.
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All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible. BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.