2 John Chapter 1
MSB Book notes:
2 and 3 John both bear John's name, and are close approximations of the "standard letter" in the NT. They contain a statement of who the sender is, and to whom he writes. These are the two shortest books in the NT - each less than 300 Greek words, each would fit on a single sheet of papyrus.
The epistle is written by John, but no precise dating is really possible. The wording, subject matter, and circumstances of 2 John closely approximate 1 John, so it was likely written at the same time or shortly after - that is, in about 90-95 AD, from Ephesus, when John was a very old man.
This book deals with the same problem as 1 John. False teachers, the beginnings of what would become full blown Gnosticism. 2 John is different from 1 John in that it is addressed to a particular group of believers in a particular house church. 1 John was more general.
In 2 John, he seems to be making the members of this little church aware that the false teachers are going around to many of the newly planted churches in the region, imposing on the Christian hospitality of the members of these little churches, and then using that as a springboard to lure them away from the true faith. John is saying that such false teachers SHOULD NOT in fact, be extended hospitality. The harshness of the warning he gives reflects the insidious danger the false teachers represented. You don't allow poisonous snakes to live in your house.
In addition to the themes of 1 John, 2 John also addresses more directly Christian hospitality. Establishes guidelines for that hospitality you might say. The basis of hospitality must be common love of or interest in the truth, and Christians must share their love within the confines of that truth. MSB says "They are not called to universal acceptance of anyone who claims to be a believer. Love must be discerning! Hospitality and kindness are for those who share this basic love of the truth. Hospitality for all may in fact give aid to those who are trying to undermine that very truth.
Under interpretive challenges, we have this:
"Second John stands in direct antithesis to the frequent cry for ecumenism and Christian unity among believers. Love and truth are inseparable in Christianity."- That is, truth must always guide love. You don't hear too much about this "prerequisite" for Christian hospitality.
Letter is from "The elder". The article is present. There is only one elder, or the sender's identity is unique as to this title. To the chosen lady and her children. MSB says this is not in a general sense. This is to a particular specific person and her children.
2022 - Well isn't that interesting. The only surviving apostle of the time writes a letter, not to the pastor of this church, but to an elect lady in this church, and her children. Why would he send such a message to the whole church through her? Why not to the pastor, or the eldest elder or a deacon? Is this letter to a church at all? Or is this lady the only one on the hospitality committee, and these "users" keep showing up at her house wanting free room and board. Seems likely she was either a widow - most likely - or her own husband was a non-believer.
2023 - Didn't I read somewhere that the church was in her house...that was in the MSB introduction, and it doesn't say "her" house, but does say it was a "house church". Not sure where he got that...BUT...if it is a house church and it is in the "elect lady's" house, then when false teachers showed up to preach there and take up a love offering, they likely would have stayed at that house - at the church - with the elect lady. She would have felt obligated to keep them, and if there were enough of these guys coming buy, it could have been a serious financial burden to her. Perhaps these guys were staying for months at a time. So she could well have written to John at the "main church", the "town church", and asked for support. Does that scenario fit with the rest of the letter?
John begins by stressing that the commandment - not a new commandment but the one they had from the beginning - is to love one another.
2023 - That is the same phrasing he used in 1 Jn 2:7. The part about not being a new commandment. He is a bit more specific here as to exactly what that commandment is. John is emphasizing again, as in 1 Jn, that the way loving one another shows up, the way we put "love one another" into practice, is to walk according to his commandments. Isn't that a switch? He says the commandment is to love one another, and then he defines that by how we love Christ, rather than how we love Christian brothers. So...the way we love one another is to behave toward each other as Christ commands us to behave. When he talked about the old commandment in 1 Jn 2, he said that you cannot hate your brother and claim to love one another. He was using this hate as a marker of the false teachers, who would have been "mean" to those who called them on their false teaching. So this seems a different angle.
2023 - It could be that John is trying to contrast what the false teachers are saying "love one another" means and what it meant when Jesus said it. The false teachers were saying that you have to extend hospitality, up to and including unlimited room and board, or else you are violating the command to love one another. John is trying to contrast that with what it really means...that we love other TRUE believers as Christ loved them. Here are some verses from John's gospel:
34 A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. [Jhn 13:34 KJV]
12 This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. ...
17 These things I command you, that ye love one another. [Jhn 15:12, 17 KJV]
Jesus called it a new commandment. So when John calls it old, he pushes it back only to Jesus' time. Note that all three of these verses, in red, were made by Jesus in the upper room the night before his arrest. He was talking ONLY to the 11 when he said it, but that does not limit the command only to those 11. In the middle of these we find the verse below:
14 Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you. [Jhn 15:14 KJV]. So....we love him if we obey his commands? As in 1 Jn, he is setting up this "test" of who constitutes "one another" and who does not. The false teachers are NOT following his command. They do not show love, and they teach against Christ in the flesh. John would almost have to be assuming that she'd read that first letter in order to pull out what he means here. If she'd asked for support, he was replying that she was helping people she ought not help, people not sent by the "town church", and who were not included in the "one another" that she was to love. This is probably it. You have to see that he was assuming she had read 1 John. These imposing on her were not "one another" because their preaching was anti-Christ, as we will see in the next verse - a clear reference to his earlier letter. After all, John seems to have coined this term, anti-Christ, in that first letter. He HAS to be referencing that information.
2022 - He emphasized this same thing in 1 John, including the part that it is not a new commandment. I wonder if the false teachers had added "Love means you have to give us free room and board" to the original commandment, and what John is trying to say is that "love one another" is not a universal command to treat everyone as family? Perhaps John is writing this letter mainly to put the original sideboards of this command back in place and stop the abuse.
2022 - Vs 6 seems to bear that out. He emphasizes that this is not some universal version of love for all mankind to the harming of our own selves and our children in order to heap love on anyone who asks. It is not that. And John says it was NEVER that. Love means following his commandments. The commandment was to love the Son, and so love the Father, and the way you love THEM is to obey the commandments, the statutes and the judgments. Jesus did say "love one another". He also said "love your neighbor".
This is firstly, love for God, because he begins a formal definition with "...this is love, that we walk according to his commandments;" Then he tells her that many deceivers are about, denying that Christ came in the flesh. He pulls no punches on what kind of people these are - deceivers, and antichrists.
2021 - This verse:
7 For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist. [2Jo 1:7 ESV] This is the fundamental heresy. This is the trait shared by all false teachers, that in some way they deny who Jesus was. Again, we are back to Christology being the key to identifying false teachers. To know and study and be certain of who Jesus was is to stay firmly and precisely grounded on the teachings of the Apostles who knew him and to recognize without doubt false teachers when we hear their words. This is so important, and I had not really seen that until now. John is not the only one saying this. Many of these letters - from Paul, Peter, and now John - address this problem. False teachers may wrap their core teaching in other concepts, but at the foundation, they must negate Christ in some way. They must weaken his perfection with their words, or there is just no room for them.
2022 - Vs 7 also seems to clarify why he is repeating this command to "love one another". The kind of over the top hospitality that this woman was providing was reserved for Christian brothers and sisters, and not for strangers who claimed to be Christian and then from inside her own house, tried to subvert her understanding of Christ, AND to re-define his teaching. John is saying these are not good people, in fact they are the worst kind of people. They are anti-Christs, in that they say the Christ taught by the apostles is incorrect. They are anti- that version, the true version, of Christ.
2025 - What we have here is the definition of "anti-Christ" as stated directly by the one and only who actually uses the term. We see it in vs 7: An anti-christ is one who does not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. "coming" in this verse is Present Middle Participle. So we see that it is a factual event occurring in actual time. We know that Jesus became flesh - wholly man - in Bethlehem. He will come again, in flesh, at the second coming. I can see where John might well be including both of these events when he uses the present. Middle...Jesus is the agent of the action and concerned with the action. Hmm....
2022-
8 Watch yourselves, so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward. [2Jo 1:8 ESV].
He is saying here, surely, that if you are swayed by these anti-Christs, and you go down the wrong road and never return to the truth, your reward suffers. Here again there is no denying that we are talking about a reward to the saved. It is not the same for all the saved. Some will have a bigger reward, some almost nothing, yet all will be saved and in heaven. The reward is maximized by rigid adherence to orthodox teaching...so long as that is correct.
The warning is against those who go on ahead and don't abide in the teaching of Christ. This verse:
9 Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. [2Jo 1:9 ESV]
These are people who claim additional revelation beyond scripture, and claim that only they possess this newly provided knowledge. This is Islam. This is Mormon. Perhaps we should NOT offer hospitality to such people - this certainly says we are not to do so in our own homes? Meeting to teach and exchange is one thing, but supporting them as they try to spread their deceit is another thing entirely. To support them with hospitality is to take part in their wicked works. Very strong statement here.
2022 - Inviting them in for a debate is not, in my view, extending them hospitality. Inviting them for a meal and a bed overnight is what is in view here, in that it directly supports their continued deceit.
2021 - This also seem to imply an adherence to orthodoxy. Older teachings - teachings from the original source - as the Apostles in the New Testament, as the Word only and not traditions or interpretations or worse, re-interpretations or worse still interpretation in light of current culture - are to be the basis of our understanding. If it conflicts with the Word, with the teachings of the Apostles, then it is just wrong. We are not to condone it, consider it, much less embrace it. In this resistance to change is a good thing. A very good thing. MSB note confirms that this is what it means. This sentence from MSB: The word ""abide" has the idea of constant adherence and warns that these fundamentals are not open to change or subject to the latest trends or philosophical fads. MSB also says that failure to be faithful to these fundamentals marks one as having never been saved at all.
2025 - Vs 9 seems to be stated as a core teaching: "If you don't abide in (live in) this of Christ (I would read it as abiding in this teaching ABOUT Christ, that is, the teaching of Jesus Christ coming in the flesh), does not have God (IS NOT SAVED!). One who does abide in this teaching has Father and Son in that he is saved under the New Covenant.
2023 - Vs 10 drives it home, and connects this letter again to the first letter. There is much assumed about her understanding of the difference between "one another" and "anti-Christs". If they don't preach "Jesus Christ came to the world in the flesh", then do not receive them, don't even greet them. We are looking specifically at people who teach a false gospel and REQUEST hospitality in our house. John says we are "giving comfort and aid to the enemy" when we do this. Test them. Know their teaching. Treat them as brothers if they are brothers, shut the door in their face if they are not.
Then a closing. The warning, the consequences of not heeding the warning, are succinct. I like that about John in his letters. I don't recall seeing that in his gospel, or in Revelation. I will pay closer attention to those two.
2022 - This lady was - must have been - a leader in her church. John would not have written to "just her", I don't believe, but wrote her because others were looking to her example of how they should react. Perhaps it is not that she was the only one on the hospitality committee, but she was the chairperson of that committee, and it was a very large committee. By writing her, John could shut down the abuse of this church - and this insidious way of infiltrating and corrupting this church - in a most efficient way. These false teachers, in it for the bucks, are not going to spend their own money saying at the local "inn" to tray and corrupt this church. That also is a telling clue as to their sincerity. If they thought they were saving you from hell, they'd pay their own way to do so. If they won't speak unless you feed them...then what is their real message?