The NT uses the Greek word aggelia twice, both in 1 John (1:5; 3:11). The noun comes from the same root as euaggelion , good news, and Raymond Brown suggests that aggelia is the Johannine equivalent – meaning “good news” or “gospel.
If this is true, 1 John’s two uses are intriguing. 1:5 announces the good news that God is light, without shadow or darkness. That is genuinely good news. But 3:11 says that the “good news” takes the form of an exhortation: “that we should love one another,” a message that John elsewhere describes as a “commandment” (2:7-11).
For John, the good news is about God; but the good news also comes with a demand that we walk as He walks.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
A Catholic Approach to Immigration
In the USCCB’s recent Special Pastoral Message, the bishops of the United States highlight the suffering inflicted…
The Classroom Heals the Wounds of Generations
“Hope,” wrote the German-American polymath Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, “is the deity of youth.” Wholly dependent on adults, children…
Still Life, Still Sacred
Renaissance painters would use life-sized wooden dolls called manichini to study how drapery folds on the human…
