I HAVE A disability that you might not realize when you first meet me: I’ve had mild to moderate hearing loss ever since I was a kid. The story, supposedly, is that I had the mumps as a child and the infection got into my ears. At least, that’s what I recall my mother telling me; when I asked her about it again in the months before she died, she couldn’t remember.

Growing up, I managed by learning to read lips somewhat. In my head, I would also quickly fill in the gist of what people were saying by watching their facial expressions and so on. Most of the time I got it right enough that it didn’t matter if I heard every word. Only occasionally would someone give me a confused look that said, “Did you hear what I said?”–which, of course, I hadn’t.

The condition has worsened over time. In part, it’s because I’m getting older. But I also didn’t protect my hearing when I should have. Live and learn. Now I wear hearing aids, and I have a love-hate relationship with them. On the one hand, they help me get what I would otherwise miss in a conversation. On the other hand, they also amplify every other conversation around me. When I’m in a crowded room and everyone is talking, it can feel like people are standing in a circle around me and shouting.

Still, I need these little devices, and wearing them has humbled me. The funny thing about hearing loss is that, unlike problems with vision, you may not realize how bad your hearing really is. It’s so much easier to blame other people for mumbling. But I can’t do that anymore. Hearing aids have made my handicap undeniable: when I take them off, it suddenly feels like someone just stuffed pillows in my ears.

In other words, we may not know how poor our hearing is until it’s been corrected. And until that happens, we may simply believe the problem is with everyone else.

METAPHORICALLY, IMAGINE SOMETHING like this in John’s community. The people who left — the secessionists — were unknowingly deaf to the truth. In their minds, they weren’t the problem, other people were. So they tried to push their beliefs on the rest of the community. Eventually, when they realized it was no use, they left to find a better audience elsewhere.

From the beginning of chapter four of 1 John, the apostle has been warning his readers to “test the spirits,” because not everyone who claims to be a Christian or uses Christian language actually agrees with the truth about Jesus. He’s given them a litmus test for discerning who is or isn’t teaching the truth: Do they believe that Jesus came in the flesh, that he was a real human being? If not, they’re not from God.

Now, in verse 6, the apostle gives them another litmus test: do the people in question actually listen to the truth? Can they hear it? Here’s verse 6, together with 4 and 5 for context:

You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood. (1 John 4:4-6, NIV)

Again, John relies on strong contrasts to make his point. Some people are “from God”; others are from the world. Some people speak from the “Spirit of truth”; others speak from the “spirit of falsehood.” He is reassuring his readers once more that they are from God and have the truth, while the people who left the community were from the world and their words and motivations were false.

What’s the evidence? What’s the new litmus test? If the secessionists truly knew God, indeed, if they were from God, then they would have heeded the words of others who were genuinely from God.

As arguments go, it’s a bit circular: Beloved, we are from God and they’re not. How do I know? Because we’re from God and they don’t listen to us. Try that logic the next time you have an argument with someone: I’m right and you’re wrong. How do I know you’re wrong? Because I’m right and you’re not listening to me!

Yeah. Good luck with that.

But John isn’t a prosecutor trying to make an airtight case. He’s a pastor writing to a confused group of people he loves, helping them find their footing as a community by driving theological stakes into the ground. Belief in the Incarnation, in the flesh-and-blood humanity of Jesus? Non-negotiable.

And those who have the Spirit of truth should also recognize truth when they hear it. They should believe and heed the gospel as taught by John and the apostles. When John says “whoever knows God listens to us,” he may be referring specifically to himself and the apostles, or he may be speaking more generally of the company of those who know the truth. Either way, those who faithfully remained in the community did so on the basis of the apostolic teaching that they believed from the beginning.

WHEN JOHN WROTE his letters, there was no New Testament as we know it today. In his community, in his time, John’s authority as an apostle and elder statesman was primarily conveyed by the spoken word, and only secondarily by the written word. We can say something similar for the other apostles, like Paul or Peter. Their culture was an oral culture.

For us, however, apostolic authority comes to us in print. We should never take for granted what a blessing it is to have the letters written by the apostles handed down to us through the centuries. It’s a central way we now “test the spirits.” Someone may claim to have a revelation from God — and it may be true. But that revelation must align with the truth we already have, the truth revealed in Scripture.

As John himself says in the book of Revelation: “Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches” (Rev 2:29). And the Spirit says it through John’s written word.