Light, love, and assurance — how to know that you know Him.
"He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is ______."
'God is love' appears exactly twice in the Bible — both times in 1 John 4. One book holds the whole phrase.
John wrote this letter so believers could 'know that ye have eternal life' — the word 'know' appears over thirty times in five chapters. Assurance is the theme.
The aged apostle calls his readers 'little children' again and again — tradition says in his final years his whole sermon had become 'Little children, love one another.'
1 John opens with an eyewitness claim: 'that which we have seen with our eyes... and our hands have handled.' The man had leaned on Jesus at supper — and never got over it.