Why are 2 and 3 John in the Bible?

Two small books, two highly relevant issues

2 and 3 John are the two shortest books in the Bible, so short that one might ask why are they in the Bible at all? One could try to answer that question from a historical perspective, but I am not going to address that aspect here. Instead I am going to look at the issues addressed in these two letters. The Bible is God breathed, it was put together by God, walking through men, but God put it together through the Holy Spirit.

These two letters deal with two highly relevant issues. 2 John deals with how the church should handle false teachers. At the time there were many travelling teachers and preachers. Some of these preached heretical and dangerous nonsense. Throughout history, and especially today, there have been false teachers. John tells the church that they are not to welcome these false teachers at all, for if they did they would be sharing in their wicked works. Now consider how so much of the church deals (or rather fails to deal) with false teachers. Consider how some Christian radio programmes/podcasts/magazines deal with false teachers. So often they are treated as having a viewpoint that is worthy of equal consideration. If we do this then we need to be aware that we are sharing in "their evil work".  In 2 John (as in 1 John) we find a very different approach. False teaching is called out for what it is, dangerous and poisonous evil. Of course we have to be aware of going to the other extreme, but that is not much of a danger for most of the church at present. We see in the Church of Scotland and some other churches how they have completely collapsed on LGBT issues. There are many good Christians in the Church of Scotland and some good churches, but as an institution the Church of Scotland no longer has anything worthwhile to say on matters relating to human sexuality.

Then what do we find in 3 John? We find John addressing the issue of dealing with a self-centered and self-aggrandising leader. This leader, Diotrephes, was refusing to welcome good travelling disciples, and moreover if anyone did dare to welcome the good brother Diotrephes would cast them out of the church! He was a controlling individual. Sound familiar? There have been individuals like this in every branch of the church throughout history, and such individuals are certainly around today, and are equally destructive. What does John do? Well he names the individual and deals with it directly.

So both these letters deal with issues that are just as relevant today as they were two thousand years ago. And in both letters the matters are dealt with in a direct and firm manner. Evil is called evil. God put these letters in the Bible for a very good reason, for our instruction. We would do well to consider the lessons of these two letters, and to pay heed to them.
There are times when we can wonder why we are having to deal with all sorts of "stuff" in churches. Well, we can know that New Testament church had to deal with just as many issues as we did, and the nature of the issues was much the same as we have to deal with, and God has made provision for us to deal with them.