1 John 3:13

I love First John, the Johns (The Gospel of John, 1,2,3 John) are probably my favorite books in the whole of the Bible (I think that I would through Jude in there too). These book don't make up a lot of the Bible but they are very important books, when you read through them you realize that you are working through very different things from what Paul and many of the other Epistles work through. Even the Gospel of John is very different from the others, in fact it is so different that theologians have divided them in to two categories, the Synoptic Gospels and John.
Over the past few days I have been read some of First John and one verse in particular stuck out to me, "1 John 3:13 Do not be surprised, brethren, if the world hates you (NASB)". There are two words that stick out to me in this passage, first "surprised" and second "if" (You'll notice both of those are direct quotes from the verse).

"Surprised" caught my attention because of how many times people are surprised when the world push back against them, when the world seems in direct conflict with, what seems to be, Gods will, but in this verse it is telling us specifically not to be surprised. When we feel God pulling us in a direction we should move with caution preparing for a backlash to come from the world (hope for the best and prepare for the worst so to speak).

The second word "if" caught my attention because if people aren't surprised when the world fights back against them it seems like that is how they measure the success of their projects. I use to hear this all the time, if the slightest thing went wrong at any program it was Satan trying to stop us, it didn't matter if it was the wind picking up or the speakers not working simply because someone didn't plug them in (which is something that I forgot to do one more then one occasion). But this verse says that the world isn't always going to push back, we aren't always going to be fighting an uphill battle, it is ok to put the hope in front of hope for the best.

One other thought on this verse, one of the cross references that is given by Bible Gateway is The Gospel of John 15:18 which says "If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you". This verse leaves it in God's capable hands, the world may hate us, it may hate the truth (not that we shouldn't also recognize that there is a part in all of us that also hates what we teach) but in the end it always comes back to them choosing or rejecting God. This verse gives me great comfort because in the end this verse takes everything away from me and puts it on God hand, the world doesn't hate me it really hates God and on a superficial that gives me relief. But on a deeper level I wonder how anyone can look at God and say no, and he fact that people do it everyday saddens me, but I realize that my sadness doesn't hold a candle to the sadness that God must feel.

1 John 3:13 is a small verse but there is a lot in there once you start to unpack it.