Testing Spirits

John continues on in Chapter 4 with various tests of true faith. He's given the churches in Asia Minor and the churches of today, here and now, moral tests of how we live our lives and social tests of how we live together in love. He now turns his attention back to a doctrinal test. There were many other teachers coming up who claimed to be from God but they had given in to the thinking of their day. John calls his readers back to the confession of God coming in the flesh in Christ. This, of course, challenged the idea of a distant god, it challenged the idea of household gods and it challenged the idea of a god who doesn't care much for the physical, bodily life. To deny the confess that Jesus came in the flesh is to miss the whole point of Christian faith.