These include questions of genre and structure, the significance of the writer’s choices of verb tense, the writer’s use of mitigated exhortations, and the writer’s propensity for Trinitarian ambiguity. The fact that 1 John lacks many of the features of contemporary letters, such as a greeting from the author, a thanksgiving section, and a conclusion, has led to some debate over the years regarding its genre. Although most scholars, in the end, are content to label the work a