On receiving the news of John the Baptist's arrest, Jesus begins His mission as Messiah. He moves to Capharnaum. Matthew marks the beginning of this significant period with the words "From that moment", a phrase he uses on only two other occasions (16:21 and 26:16).

Jesus begins teaching, preaching (or proclaiming) and healing, in that order - teaching first, because only He can teach authoritatively the correct moral response to the preaching, which in turn is a proclamation of what God has done to establish His rule over the world. Then He heals, because the power of the kingdom to come reaches into the present.

Large crowds followed Jesus - they were potential disciples. By the time John wrote the First Letter, these same followers had become part of the Christian community but some had become false teachers. So John's First Letter was to warn against dissenters The test is whether there is a belief in the Son of God made man and our loving one another. The dissenters lacked this. They could not accept Him as Christ Incarnate. They could not recognise God present in our material world.