present time they possess a knowledge that they are actualizing in accord with the new situation. This is established by the indicative γινώσκετε (“you know”). Believers have at all times an ability to distinguish spirits and to recognize what rightly presents itself as the Spirit of God.15 The connection to what has gone before has been deliberately created by the author. The congregation, as a community of those who have been born of God, have the Spirit of God, and the Spirit in turn has the function