IMAGINE THIS SCENARIO: a patient lies in his hospital bed, finally and mercifully asleep. It’s been difficult for him to drift off peacefully the way he’s used to at home, in his own bed. Light streams into his room at all hours of the night, as does the noise from any activity on the ward. Monitors beep incessantly. When he does drop off, a nurse soon wakes him up to take his medication. He can’t seem to string together more than a few hours of sleep at best.

And, of course, he’s a bit grumpy about it.

Shortly after dawn, a nurse comes in to bring him his pills and check his vitals. She tries to rouse him gently, but he wakes with a start instead. She sees the scowl on his face and thinks to herself, Hey, it’s been a long night for me, too! Still, she tries to lighten the mood. With the most chipper voice she can muster, she asks, “So, how are we feeling this morning?”

He glares at her, resenting the question. “Well, I feel like garbage,” he growls, emphasizing the pronoun. “How do you feel?” It’s as if to say, There’s no “we” here, sister. There’s you, and there’s me. And I would like you to go away and let me go back to sleep!

The nurse was not, of course, asking about her own well-being, just his. But she was doing so in a way that made a stereotypical attempt at sympathy. To people in a sour mood, unfortunately, it can feel patronizing, especially if they think the person asking doesn’t really care how they feel.

But that’s the ambiguity of how pronouns can be used rhetorically, and it’s not just English. It’s also the Greek in which the apostle John writes his letter.

AS WE’VE SEEN, John’s first letter doesn’t follow the usual letter-writing conventions: he names neither himself nor his intended audience. But his opening lines are littered with pronouns that are left ambiguous. Here again are the first four verses:

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete. (1 John 1:1-4, NIV)

We might read those words and automatically insert our own meanings without even thinking about it. But to whom do the pronouns “we,” “us,” and “you” refer? In general, the “you,” of course, is John’s audience (whoever they might be). There are several possibilities, though, for the meaning of “we.”

For example, John (or whoever the unnamed author might be) may be speaking for both himself and a group of people who are associated with him in some way. Think of a senior pastor writing on behalf of the entire staff of a church; the letter is written in his or her words, but representing the thoughts of a whole group. In John’s case, the group might be the other apostles, or at least people who can give direct testimony to what they witnessed in the life of Jesus.

A writer can also use “we” in an inclusive sense, as the nurse tried to do with her patient. Writers sometimes use “we” to identify with their readers and say something about the human condition they all share. That seems to be the sense of “we” just a few verses later:

If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. (1 John 1:6-7)

Here, there’s no distinction between writer and reader. The phrase, “But if we walk in the light,” means if I walk in the light, if you walk in the light, if anybody walks in the light. And note that this inclusive use of “we” doesn’t require that there be more than one author of the letter. John can use “we” to say, “Here’s the truth about anyone who walks in the light” even if he’s writing by himself.

Still, that’s probably not the sense of “we” in the opening four verses of the letter, where the point is not to erase the distinction between writer and reader, but to make one. The thrust of those verses seems to be, You’re at risk of being led astray by people who are getting the gospel twisted, so you need to hear what we have to say; that’s why we are writing to you.

Confused yet? Again, that’s the ambiguity of language.

So what can we say? (And yes, please note how I just used “we” — it’s not because there’s someone else writing with me, but because I want you to think about this with me and come to a conclusion that we can share.) Note that there are several places in the letter where John says “I write” or “I am writing” (e.g., 2:12-14, 26; 5:13), which suggests that he is in fact writing the letter by himself.

He does so, however, with a sense of representing those who have been eyewitnesses to the life of Jesus himself. If, as tradition teaches, the author of the letter is the apostle John, then the “we” may mean himself and the other apostles. But even if, as some hold, the author is merely a close associate of John, perhaps a leader in the churches under John’s direction, the intent is still similar: to make common cause with the apostles and other eyewitnesses to Jesus in order to establish the authority of what the letter will say.

And just as importantly, John wants to make common cause with his readers. Even if the “we” doesn’t include the readers, John’s intent is to embrace them in Christian community: “We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.” Indeed, it’s possible that when John says “our fellowship” in that last sentence, he is including his readers: our fellowship, all of us, together, with both the Father and Son.

Hopefully, his readers won’t be grumpy about it.