1Jo 4 | OEBc | STEP | Dear friends, do not trust every inspiration, but test each inspiration, to see whether it proceeds from God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

‏ 1 John 4

True and False Inspiration

1 Dear friends, do not trust every inspiration, but test each inspiration, to see whether it proceeds from God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 This is the way by which to know the inspiration of God — All inspiration that acknowledges Jesus Christ as come in our human nature is from God; 3 while all inspiration that does not acknowledge Jesus is not inspiration from God. It is the inspiration of the Antichrist; you have heard that it was to come, and it is now already in the world.

4 You, my children, come from God, and you have successfully resisted such people as these, because he who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. 5 Those people belong to the world; and therefore they speak as the world speaks, and the world listens to them. 6 We come from God. He who knows God listens to us; the person who does not come from God does not listen to us. By that we may know the true inspiration from the false.

Love of God and Love of People

7 Dear friends, let us love one another, because love comes from God; and everyone who loves has received the new life from God and knows God. 8 The person who does not love has not learned to know God; for God is love. 9 The love of God was revealed to us by his sending his only Son into the world, so that we might find life through him. 10 His love is seen in this — not in our having loved God, but in his loving us and sending his Son to be an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God loved us in this way, we, surely, ought to love one another. 12 No human eyes have ever seen God, yet, if we love one another, God remains in union with us, and his love attains its perfection in us. 13 We know that we remain in union with him, and he with us, by this — by his having given us some measure of his Spirit. 14 Moreover, our eyes have seen — and we are testifying to the fact — that the Father has sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. 15 Whoever acknowledges that Jesus Christ is the Son of God — God remains in union with that man, and he with God. 16 And, moreover, we have learned to know, and have accepted as a fact, the love which God has for us.

God is love; and whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. 17 It is through this that love has attained its perfection in us, so that we may have confidence on the day of judgment, because what Christ is that we also are in this world. 18 There is no fear in love. No! Love, when perfect, drives out fear, because fear implies punishment, and the person who feels fear has not attained to perfect love. 19 We love, because God first loved us. 20 If someone says ‘I love God,’ and yet hates another person, they are a liar; for the person who does not love their fellow, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. 21 Indeed, we have this command from God — ‘Those who love God must also love each other.’