"If Anyone Does Sin"—Why John Said We Can Face Christ Confidently

First John is short enough to read out loud in about twenty minutes. Inside it, twenty-seven verses apart, the same man wrote both of these sentences: "if anyone does sin" — and "so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink away from him at his coming." Not two letters. Not two kinds of Christian. One letter, one sitting, one group of readers. This study follows a single Greek word through that letter. Parrhesia. Most English Bibles print it as "confidence," but it is not a devotional word. Thayer's lexicon gives it as freedom in speaking, unreservedness in speech, and Strong's puts it more bluntly still: frankness, bluntness, publicity. It is a word about a mouth that is not editing itself. John uses that word exactly four times, and you can count them yourself in about two minutes with any concordance that lists the Greek numbers. Two of the four sit in the last places anyone would put them: the day of judgment, and the far side of a heart that has been accusing you for years. We look at the perfect passive verb in 4:17, at the one preposition the English translations cannot agree on — with us, among us, in us — and at the clause in 3:20 that never tells you the charge against yourself is false, but says something else entirely. If the question underneath all of it is the one people ask at two in the morning, which of those two sentences is the one about me, this letter has an answer. It is not built out of your record. Of those four places, which is the one you needed this week? Chapters: 00:00 Two sentences, twenty-seven verses apart 01:56 The verdict you handed down on yourself 03:49 The reaction John names, and the one he rules out 05:49 Not a devotional word: what parrhesia actually meant 07:29 Four times in one letter, and you can count them 09:01 The last place anyone would put that word 10:59 The preposition the translations cannot agree on 13:23 Perfect love casts out fear, and the half nobody prints 15:19 When your own heart is the one passing sentence 17:46 A condition at the start, or a destination at the end? 19:31 The clause written for the person who keeps coming back 21:22 What that confidence is actually made of Scripture referenced: 1 John 2:1; 2:28; 3:19-21; 4:17-18; 5:14 (English wording follows the ESV and NASB; Greek forms from the Nestle-Aland interlinear). Greek: parrhesia (Strong's 3954) - aischunthomen (153) - parousia (3952) - teteleiotai (5048) - meth' hemon - kolasin (2851) - kataginoske (2607) - meizon (3173) - ean tis hamarte (264) - parakleton (3875). Lexicons: Thayer's Greek Lexicon and Strong's Exhaustive Concordance, entry 3954. Background on parrhesia in Greek public life: Euripides, Ion, lines 670-675 (Perseus Digital Library, trans. Robert Potter) - not quoted in this video, consulted for the claim that the word belonged to ordinary public speech. #Parrhesia #1John #BibleStudy #1John320 #1John418 #1John228 #PerfectLoveCastsOutFear #GreekWordStudy #SecondComing #ChristianEncouragement #BibleTeaching #TheBuriedVerse