the lust of [the] eyes,” 1 John 2:16). This is why John warns his readers so affectionately yet directly, “Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour” (1 John 2:18). In fact, John goes on to point out that these individuals did indeed love the world too much, since “they went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have