Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
Parallel translations
- WEB Don’t love the world or the things that are in the world. If anyone loves the world, the Father’s love isn’t in him.
- KJV Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
- BSB Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
- NASB Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
- NLT Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Believers must not love the world or its values, for love of the world crowds out love for the Father. The heart cannot serve both.
Overview
The 'world' here means the sinful system organized against God, not creation or people as such. To love it is incompatible with the Father's love dwelling in us. John calls for undivided devotion, warning that worldly affections and love for God are mutually exclusive. This guards the heart's true allegiance.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 13
- Jas 4:4You adulterers and adulteresses, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
- Rom 12:2Don’t be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what is the good, well-pleasing, and perfect will of God.
- Matt 6:24“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You can’t serve both God and Mammon.
- Col 3:1–2If then you were raised together with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God.
- Luke 16:13No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to one, and despise the other. You aren’t able to serve God and Mammon.”
- 1 Jn 5:4–5For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world: your faith.
- John 15:19If you were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of the world, since I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
- 1 Jn 3:17But whoever has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and closes his heart of compassion against him, how does God’s love remain in him?
- 1 Tim 6:10For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some have been led astray from the faith in their greed, and have pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
- Gal 1:10For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? For if I were still pleasing men, I wouldn’t be a servant of Christ.
- 1 Jn 4:5They are of the world. Therefore they speak of the world, and the world hears them.
- Eph 2:2in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the children of disobedience;
- 1 Jn 5:10He who believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. He who doesn’t believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has given concerning his Son.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Jesus is the Word of life made manifest, the propitiation for our sins, the Son in whom is eternal life — 'that you may know that you have eternal life.'
How 1 John 2:15 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Greek word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.