Welcome to a year in the Bible with Daily Grace.

My name is Kristen and my name is Katie.

And we want to spend a few minutes a day with you walking through the New Testament, one chapter at a time.

This year we will fix our gaze upon Christ so that we may know Him, not only with our minds, but with our hearts.

Together, we will learn that who Jesus is changes everything. Welcome back to a year in

the Bible with Daily Grace. My name is Kristen, and I'm excited to walk through First John with you. We are

using the Behold studies from the Daily Grace Go, and all the info about those is in the show notes.

Let's recap for a moment. We know that John, the author of the

gospel of John and the apostle of the early church, writes First John to the churches in Asia Minor.

False teachers were planning seeds of lies within the church, hoping the destructive weeds of their

heresies would interrupt what God had grown. John writes his dear friends to help them discern light from darkness, good from evil,

and to help them cling to the gospel during these tumultuous times.

John will begin today by warning Christians not to believe every spirit that walks through their spiritual front door.

Instead, they are to test the

spirits and to hold them against scripture. John gives them one important way to discern between

teaching from God and teaching not from God, whether or not the spirit acknowledges Jesus Christ

has come in the flesh. Any spirit that does

acknowledge Jesus in the flesh is from God, but spirits that do not, John

attributes to the spirits of the Antichrist that were present in the world in John's

day and are present now. In chapter 2 we discussed three tests. One of these tests was the doctrinal test.

This test evaluated what they believe about Jesus. False teachers were planning doubt within the churches of Asia Minor about Jesus' humanity and whether or not he was actually God's son.

In chapter 4, John delineates between the beliefs of those in Christ and those of the world.

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