Amanda and I enjoy watching spy shows and films. We got into Alias a few years ago[1] and are currently banging through the dvd’s of Burn Notice. The spy genre appeals to us because she likes action and gun play and I like problems solving and moral conflict.
And a staple of spy themed fiction is the hostage scenario. From time to time in this genre, our heroes have to negotiate for or rescue a hostage. Now, I always find hostage based fiction interesting, because my job takes me to cities and counties that have required me to be receive training that trains us how to survive a hostage situation…not as a negotiator…but as a hostage. I may not be Michal Weston or James Bond or Sidney Bristow…I am not qualified to negotiate for hostages or free hostages…but I am now totally qualified to be a hostage.
Anyway, if you watch enough spy fiction you become familiar with the basic stages of a hostage negotiation. For example, I suspect many of you know the first step in a hostage negotiation. What is the first thing a hostage negotiator will ask for?
…a proof of life.
You want to make sure you are not paying money for someone who is not already dead. So you ask for a proof of life. There was even a whole movie about hostage negotiation a few years back, with Russell Crowe and Meg Ryan. And that was the title of the movie…Proof of Life.
Well this is what came to mind when I was working on 1 John 3. John is calling us to produce a ‘Proof of Life’…of our life. Look with me at the first verse of the passage:
“We know that we have passed from death to life, because…”
And then three more times in ten verses he uses the phrase “this is how we know”…look for them as we read the passage:
John 3:14 We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death. 15 Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.
16 This is how we know what love is[2]: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. 17 If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? 18 Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.
19 This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: 20 If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. 21 Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God 22 and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him. 23 And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.[3] 24 The one who keeps God’s commands lives in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.
In tonight’s passage, John asks us to produce a ‘proof of life.’ He asks us to evaluate if our Jesus following is the real deal. And here is why. One of the things that Christianity teaches is that our ability to self evaluate is compromised. We tend to give ourselves the benefit of the doubt. But John is writing to a church that has been decimated by Gnosticism, a false version of Christianity. And it produced beliefs and behaviors that do not comport with the heart of what Jesus taught and did. And so John says, it is possible to affiliate with Jesus, but not really get it.
And so he offers some definitions and criteria for these early Christians to differentiate actual Christianity from self important spirituality in Jesus’ name. He asks us to produce a proof of life.
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[1] My wife was Sidney Bristow for Halloween a couple years ago.
[2] I picture John here like Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride saying ‘You keep using that word, but I don’t think that word means what you think that word means.”
[3] This is a really remarkable verse because it undermines the dichotomy of faith and works. Faith is prior to love, but love is the proof of faith. You cannot please God without faith in the Son, but faith is not genuine if it does not lead to very practical behaviors including meeting the needs of others.
ngram Shenanigans
6 years ago
