Something that strikes me as I read I John is the emphasis that John places on obedience to God. To him, that is one of the core features of being a Christian. If you don't believe me, just read verses 3-6.
So what does this life of obedience look like? One component is that a Christian ought to love his "brother" (or, as I believe the NET translation correctly extrapolates it "fellow Christian"). Hating ones brother is akin to walking in darkness, which we know from the first chapter is a reference to being out of fellowship with God. In other words, you cannot be in fellowship with God if you are not in Fellowship with his other followers.
What else does it mean to live a life of obedience? Verses 15-17 talk about not loving the world. What is meant by "the world"? "...the desire of the flesh and the desire of the eyes and the arrogance produced by material possessions..." (verse 16, NET). We aren't to love these things if we are to have fellowship with God. These things take away our attention from God and God's family.
I tend to think of these as new problems in Western culture. They aren't new. John is talking about them in the 1st century, apparently because there were false teachers (verses 18-27) presenting these things as being the true way to God. We still have these false teachers today, but I'm not sure there was ever a point in Church history where we didn't have them. The problems are old, but the are still relevant and we need to keep our focus on continued fellowship with God to counteract these false desires.
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