Steps of Christian maturity (1John 2:12-14)

These verses come as John is speaking about the light, and if you live in the light you don't cause one another to stumble.   John uses the dark and light analogy quite a bit in his writings, not only in 1 John, but also the book of John.

In these verses we see John writing to all Christians:

• because your sins were forgiven
• because you know the father

To young believers in the faith:

• who have won their battle with the evil one
• because you are strong
• God's word lives in your hearts

To mature believers:

• Because you know Christ, who existed from the beginning (repeated 2x)

Some people have a tendency to right away expect new Christians to know and accept everything right away.   I remember when I was running a youth center, on of the board members wanted me to teach on Creationism because it was so important.   But the thing was, the teens I was speaking too didn't even have a faith in Christ, or if they did, it was a very basic level faith.   We need to make sure we don't through new Christians into the pool, without having them first learn how to swim.

Here John is speaking the message of light, and of Christ to all types of believers.  Notice that the young believers have knowledge of the basics of the Christian faith -- their sins are forgiven, they know the father, God's word lives in their hearts, and they have won their battle against evil .. they have seen the victory against the evil one.. they know that they are 'saved'.    

Only when we grow into maturity (not age, in faith), is there a knowledge of more theological issues ... like John pointed out .. Christ existed from the beginning.  That's actually quite the statement, because that's all part of the 'trinity' which is hard enough to wrap our heads around.

Now some have become Christians by wrestling with theological issues eg. C.S. Lewis came into faith by having debates and talks with J.R.R. Tolkien, but in most cases that approach won't work, and Lewis and Tolkien were friends long before their theological talks.      

But I think we in the Church need to recognize where people are in their spiritual growth, and what type of 'food' they need in order to nurture that growth, and I think it's important to be conscious of this when we speak to unbelievers for the first time and as we cultivate friendships with them.