(62-02a)

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Study Guide

First John could be considered God’s TRIP MAP ¹ to spiritual maturity. The five chapters neatly present five phases of growth in fellowship with God:

1. Join in Fellowship with God
2. Abide in Fellowship with God
3. Love in Fellowship with God
4. Live in Fellowship with God
5. Thrive in Fellowship with God

Each chapter offers practical insights to help us understand and respond to God’s will for us as His children.

Lesson Outline.

Join in Fellowship with God (1 John 1)

• Invitation to Fellowship with God (1 John 1:1-4)
  • Focus of fellowship – Jesus (1 John 1:1-2)
  • Invitation to Join in Fellowship (1 John 1:3-4)

Read the Passage

Read verses 1-4 of the first chapter of 1 John several times from one or more of the following key translations. This, with the outline above, will help you see the boundaries, content, and flow of the study passage.

1. Your own Bible
2. Believers Standard Bible (BSB with audio and transcript)
3. New Living Translation (NLT)
4. Translation for Translators (T4T)

Study the Passage

Use the following suggested resources to answer the three key questions of Bible study:

1. What does the passage say? (God’s eternal word)
2. What did the passage mean to the people of its day? (to them then)
3. What is the message for people today? (for us now)

Suggested resources:

• Your own Study Bible’s notes and articles
• BibleRef.com Commentary *
• Bible Hub Study Bible *
• You may want to consider some of the study tools and resources listed HERE.

If you have any questions not answered by the above resources:

1. Go to https://www.gotquestions.org/
2. Type the Bible reference or your question in the search box at the top of the web page.
3. Click on any of the related questions listed and explore the results.

Memory Verse

1 John 1:3 (NLT)
“We proclaim to you what we ourselves have actually seen and heard
so that you may have fellowship with us.
And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.”

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Footnotes:

* Use the right and left arrows to move between verses.

1. TRIP: Transformational, Relational, Intentional, Personal
   MAP: Ministry Action Plan ↩︎