I JOHN 3:10-18

 When one encounters the writings of the apostle John, it is like entering a different world from the rest of the New Testament. Of course, the Revelation is set apart by its apocalyptic genre, with its many bizarre symbols. But John's Gospel and his three epistles are also like nothing else in the Bible in terms of the words he uses and his unique writing style. Interestingly, John's Greek vocabulary is quite limited in comparison with the other NT authors, which makes it an ideal example to serve as an initial primer for seminary students taking beginning Greek. But that same fact works against exegetes of John's writings, who (along with lay many readers of the English translations) have a great deal of trouble following John's logic as he takes his limited number of words / concepts and repeats them over and over again in various combinations.

For example, one of the usual first steps in attempting to understand any passage of Scripture is to break it up into its individual paragraphs. And in this endeavor we can't just look at the divisions in the earliest Greek manuscripts since, for the most part, they contain no paragraph breaks at all. So the next best thing is to consult the various English translations and scholarly commentators to see if there is a reasonable consensus as to the proper limits to each portion of the Scripture. For the case of I John 3, we encounter the following opinions:

Orr             1-24

Phillips              4-13;                          14-18

TEV                         9-10;     11-12; 13-18

NEB                         9-12; 13-17

Living Bible                  10-11; 12-13; 14-16; 17-20

NRSV                             10-17

JB                                    10-24

Hodges                              10b-15,                  16-18

The Message                         11-13;     14-15; 16-17; 18-20

NIV                                       11-15;                 16-18

Thompson                             11-17

RSV, Akin, Bruce, Marshall 11-18

AB                                         11-24

As you can see above, it would be hard to imagine any other small portion of Scripture in which there was such disagreement. One reason for such confusion is pointed out by R.E. Brown who notes John's

prevalent use of “hinge” verses (most notably at 2:27-29; 3:22-24 and 5:12-13) which serve as transitions from one literary unit to the next and make it nearly impossible to define exact limits to each.

And another literary technique practiced by John, especially well developed in his Gospel, is what is called progressive, or stair-step, parallelism in which the end of one sentence is picked up at the start of the following thought. But then in addition, the idea circles back to the start. This is seen, for example, throughout the prelude to John's Gospel as the two following examples demonstrate:

verses 1-2      In the beginning was the Word

                                                        the Word was with God

                                                        the Word was        God

                     in the beginning                             with God

verses 7-8      he came for testimony

                                to bear witness to the light

                                           he was not the light

                but came to bear witness to the light

Turning next to I John 3, we can see the same phenomenon on a larger scale in our verses of current interest diagrammed in Figure 1. The words and phrases in this arrangement are given in the order found in the Greek text.

                                            Figure 1: Flow of thought in I John 3:10-18

children of God                                                             verse 10

        not do right

                hate

                    brothers

               love                                                                         verse 11

                            murdered                                                 verse 12

                    brother

                            murdered

        deeds

                    brother

                    brother                                                                     verse 13

                hates

                                world

                                        we know                                                                 verse 14

                                                death

                                                life

                love

                     brothers

                hate

                    (brother)

                                                        abides

                                                death

                hating                                                                                             verse 15

                      brother

                                                                murderer

                                        you know

                                                                murderers

                                                no life

                                                        abides

                                        we know                                                  verse 16

                love

                                                life

                        brothers

                                                life

                                world verse 17

                        brother

                love

                                                        abides

                love                                                                                     verse 18

little children

        deeds

One thing we can say with some certainty is that this overall “love” passage encompasses the verses 10-18a. This is clearly seen in the “bookending” device formed by references to the audience as children followed closely by an allusion to their deeds found in both verses 10 and 18a.

As to any possible subdivisions within this general envelope, you can easily see how much that would quite difficult to pin down with any certainty. And the same could well be said for any attempt to look for the peak center of this broadly chiastic (i.e. mirror-image) arrangement. For example, it is tempting to see in the above figure separate center points of emphasis between the two references to “murderer” in v. 12, as well as between the next two “murderer” references found in v. 15. However, there is much too much overlap of themes to be sure of any such value judgment.

The overall effect of John's style in this letter has thus been variously described:

    After reviewing a number of proposed logical schemes attempting to explain the structure of this letter, Marshall concludes that “it seems to be preferable to regard the Epistle as being composed of a series of connected paragraphs whose relation to one another is governed by association of ideas rather than by a logical plan.”

    Grayston: “The repetitions which every reader notices are deliberate. Nothing is acceptable until it has been said, and repeated, and confirmed.”

    And in his understated manner, Bruce says, “Attempts to trace a consecutive argument throughout I John have never succeeded.”

    R.E. Brown states, “The author's logic is so obscure that one could move around units almost at will and still I John would read just as well as it does now.”

    But I think that D.G. Miller does the best job of describing the effect John had in mind in writing this epistle. “Though, in a broad sense, there is order and progression in the letter, yet the various themes are frequently reintroduced, and often blend in to one another, like the leading refrains of a great musical composition.”