Commentaries:
Robertson's Word Pictures (NT)
What manner of love (potaphn agaphn). Qualitative interrogative as in II Peter 3:11; Matthew 8:27. Only here in John's writings. Originally of what country or race.
Hath bestowed (dedwken). Perfect active indicative of didwmi, state of completion, "the endowment of the receiver" (Vincent).
That we should be called (ina klhqwmen). Sub-final use of ina with the first aorist passive subjunctive of kalew, to call or name, as in Matthew 2:23.
Children (tekna). As in John 1:12 and with an allusion to gegennhtai in I John 2:29 in an effort "to restore the waning enthusiasm of his readers, and to recall them to their first love" (Brooke).
And such we are (kai esmen). "And we are." A parenthetical reflection characteristic of John (kai nun estin in John 5:25 and kai ouk eisin in Revelation 2:2; Revelation 3:9) omitted by Textus Receptus, though, in the old MSS.
Because it knew him not (oti ouk egnw auton). Second aorist active indicative of ginwskw, precisely the argument in John 15:18 f.
Other Robertson's Word Pictures (NT) entries containing 1 John 3:1:
John 3:16
John 5:42
1 John 5:11
Revelation 2:2
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