1 John 1:1 -- how do we know the truth and the false

"That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life."

Some facts about the background. When 1 John was written by John, Christianity had already been around for more than a generation. At that time Jerusalem had been destroyed and Christian was indeed persecuted.

The main reason of John to write 1 John is to remind us to keep back to the right track as he has personally seen or heard of Jesus' teaching, yet Christians were starting to fall to the world's standard with increasing error teachings.

It is interesting to know when false teachers were already plentiful at church even within a generation from Jesus Christ, and to imagine how many more false teachers now in this generation even within in our church. It could be possible that whatever I have learnt from the paster or my Christian friends in the past was all false.

Q: I wonder how can we know the truth and false?

Maybe I can find out more in this in depth study of 1 John....