2 John 1:7-13 Do not welcome false teachers

2:7-11

John is now about to give what might appear to be rather harsh instruction, this is why he has stressed the importance of love in obeying Christ. As well as christian preachers there were “many deceivers”, these deceivers denied the humanity of Christ, the importance of this was stressed in 1 John. If they welcomed such false teachers  then they were sharing in the "wicked work” of such people. We might think that we should be “nice” and “kind” to everyone, and definitely not judgemental, this is an attitude that finds much traction in the church, but it is unbiblical nonsense. False teachers spread poison, this dishonours Christ and harms people, to support such work is not “loving”.

2:12,13

John had more to say, but preferred to visit them in person. Face to face teaching is more effective than written, video or podcast teaching. “You sister “ is probably a related church, and they sent their greetings.

2 John 1:1-6 - Walk in love

2:1-3

John refers to himself as “the elder”, and his recipients as “the lady chosen by God”. If we are saved we are “chosen by God”. Jesus said to His disciples that they did not choose Him, but He chose them (John 15:16). John also tells them that they live in the truth. One of the tactics of the enemy is to make us feel uncertain, so John assures them that they are in the truth. And this is not a temporary thing, but “will be with us forever”.

The “Grace, mercy and peace from God” will be with us in truth and love. This comes from God.

2:4-6

The letter was addressed to the lady and her children, those who believe as a result of her walking with Christ. So John is delighted that some of her children are also walking in the truth. John urges them to continue to “love one another" In these first few verses we have already seen a number of similarities to 1 John. And this love is not a sentimental thing, but means walking “in obedience to His commands”. We are to walk in love.

2 John - Introduction

2 John - Introduction

This short letter says it comes from “the Elder” John  is believed to have functioned as an elder in the Ephesian church. The recipients are referred to as “the lady chosen by God”. The author is John the apostle, there are a number of similarities to 1 John, so it is reasonable to assume the same author. It was probably written about the same time.

At the time there were travelling preachers and teachers, both Christian and gnostic types. The natural instinct was to be hospitable, but John urges them to show some discernment. Jesus told His disciples to be “innocent as doves, but as shrewd as serpents” (Matt 10:16), we are not meant to be naive fools!

2 John 1:11-13 - I have much to write to you

1:11

The attitude today is that if we did not welcome these false teachers then that would be unChristlike and unloving. John’s teaching (and remember that he is sometimes known as the “apostle of love”) is completely different. If they were to welcome these false teachers then they would be sharing in their wicked work. Note two things here. First, the work of the false teachers is described as “wicked”, they were having a destructive effect on people’s lives. Secondly the direct approach of John, rather than beating about the bush. Today some Christian radio programmes (or podcasts), or magazines (websites) sometimes treat heretical teachers on an equal footing to Biblical teachers. This is all done in the name of balance and respect, but in reality it is a completely unbiblical approach.

1:12,13

John had a lot more he wanted to say to them, but he preferred to say this on a face to face basis. This would imply that he was not that far away from them, and that he had a personal relationship with the church. It also shows that he considered the matter raised in this letter as of great importance. We should treat it with the same seriousness today. John then talks about “our joy being complete”, a phrase also found in 1 John 1:4. “The children of your sister” is presumably a nearby or related church.

2 John 1:9,10 - Do not receive him

1:9

Just as we find in 1 John, John is very clear and direct about the nature of false teachings and false teachers. If only we could have the same clarity from church leaders today! If someone does not continue in the teaching of Christ, then they do not have God. Conversely if someone does continue in the teaching of Christ then they have the Father and the Son. If we deny Christ or deny His word, the Bible, then we are denying God. It is not an interesting point of view, it is not something worth considering, it is harmful nonsense that has nothing to do with God. But if we remain faithful to Christ and His word then we have Father and the Son. There really is no option.

1:10

So we now get the clear practical warning, and the primary purpose of the letter. There were many travelling teachers and preachers, and not all of them were good. So if someone came who was not faithfully proclaiming Christ then they were not to be welcomed nor taken in to their homes. There are wolves out there, some dressed in sheep's clothing and we need to be wise to this.

2 John 1:7,8 - Many deceivers have gone out

1:7

John now explains why he is giving these warnings, and it is because of false teachers. Indeed, there are “many deceivers”. It seems that their false teachings were similar to those that John dealt with in 1 John, for they do not acknowledge that Jesus Christ “came in the flesh”. It is interesting that most of the heresies encountered by the early church rejected the humanity of Jesus, whereas nowadays it is the divinity of Jesus that is the problem. As in 1 John, John is quite direct about these false teachers. They are deceivers and the antichrist. They are opposed to Jesus, whatever else they may claim about themselves. When we think of the term antichrist we tend to immediately think about the end times and the beast and such like. The term antichrist is hardly used in the Bible, and when it is it is in a very mundane way, ie referring to false teachers. This makes it both less and more “scary”. It is less scary in that we are not talking about some demonic monster of the horror movie genre, but it is far more scary in that it shows the seriousness with which false teachers should be dealt with, and is indicative of the damage that they can cause.

1:8

John’s hearers need to pay attention. Otherwise there is a risk that they will lose “what we have worked for”. John and the church had worked so that the people could enter in to God’s salvation in Christ. If they accepted the false teachings and the false teachers they risked losing all that. False teachings matter, they are not interesting ideas to be entertained, but poison to be rejected.

2 John 1:5,6 - And this is love

1:5

This is right out of 1 John 2:7,8. It is interesting that today so much wrong teaching claims to be based on love. “Love is love” is one of the slogans of the LGBT supporters, those in the sin-affirming churches claim that they are acting in love. In the next verse we will see the error in the “love is love” brigades teaching, but why does John talk about it in this context? Sadly we don’t know the exact nature of the false teachings he was countering, or the sort of arguments that the false teachers were using. Maybe they claimed to be acting in love, but who knows? There are several times in the Bible when we wish we knew more about the details. Perhaps the answer lies in the fact that while John wrote this letter (or Paul or Peter etc, depending on what we are looking at), Scripture is God-breathed, and at times God does not want us to get hooked up on the precise historical details of a particular incident. When there is false teaching it is easy for us to get angry, but one of the first things we need to remember is that we are to act in love, and we are to love one another.

1:6

Having agreed to love one another we now get one in the eye for the “love is love” brigade, exposing the vacuity of such statements. “This is love, that we walk according to His commandments”. This too is right out of 1 John. Loving God involves obeying His commands. Indeed, Jesus said exactly the same about loving Him in John 14:15. So any talk of love that involves disobeying God’s commands is just so much nonsense. We are to walk in obedience to God, not disobedience.

2 John 1:3,4 - Grace, mercy and peace

1:3

Grace and peace feature in the introductions of Paul’s letters, but there it is usually “Grace and peace to you”. Here John says “Grace, mercy and peace will be with us”. He is asking them to take action in the way they responded to travelling false teachers. This might not have been an easy thing to do, but John is assuring them that if they do this the grace, mercy and peace of God will be with them. This is so important. We often shy away from difficult decisions, difficult courses of action out of fear and out of an awareness of our own weakness and unworthiness. But in Christ we succeed not because of our own goodness or ability, but because of the Christ’s goodness. It is because of the grace of God that we will succeed, that our actions will be fruitful. It also almost certain that we will get things wrong, or are in a difficult position at least partly because of our own failings and mistakes. We receive mercy from God. And while the decisions we have to make might be difficult, we will receive peace from God. The gospel leads us to be active.

And this grace, mercy and peace comes from God the Father and the Son (more evidence, if more was needed, that the early church always saw Christ as being God) in truth and love. This is grace, mercy and peace is no impersonal thing, but a personal gift of love to us from God. Truth and love are two of John’s great themes, see 1 John.

1:4

John then commends them, though it is only a partial commendation. He is pleased that some of them are walking in truth. John does not simply mean that they were honest, but that some of them were walking in the light of the gospel. However, the implication is that some of them were not. We should note that it was true even in New Testament times for churches to be a mixed bag, with some walking in truth, and others either lukewarm or walking in falsehood. And walking in truth is not an optional extra. Indeed, the very phrase “walking in truth” should indicate that it is the only way we should live, but it is also a command from God.

2 John 1:1,2 - The truth that abides in us

1:1

“The elder” is the term that John uses to refer to himself. He was quite old at this stage, and it is interesting that he does not refer to himself as an apostle. “The lady and her children” is taken as John referring to the church he is writing to (we don’t know which church). He reminds the church that they were chosen by God, and that is indeed the status of us all. He then says that he loves the church “in truth”, and goes on to add that all who know the truth love the church. He says this because he is going to be warning them against travelling false teachers.

1:2

John lays a great emphasis on the truth, as he did in his gospel and in his first letter. The truth lives in us and will be with us forever. This is a very different approach to life than that taken by many today, even, indeed especially, in the church. Jesus is the truth, the gospel is truth and is true. Yet so often people in the church seek to subvert the truth, or talk about “your truth” and “my truth”. God’s truth is the only truth that matters, the only truth that there is.

2 and 3 John - Introduction

Introduction

2 and 3 John are the two shortest books in the New Testament, both having the form of letters. The language and teaching bears a lot of similarities to that found in 1 John, and common authorship is a reasonable assumption. Despite their shortness, there is attestation or allusion to the letters from very early on in church history. Ireneus links 2 John with 1 John, and Clement of Alexandria knows of more than one Johannine letter. No one ever attributed the letters to anyone other than John the son of Zebedee.

The date of the letters is tied up with whether one takes them as being written before John’s gospel, or being written after the gospel. Most take the latter view, and that gives them a date of roughty 80-85 AD.

The letters do not state their specific destination, though 3 John does state the recipient, who is probably not one of the various Gaius’s mentioned in the New Testament. The region of Ephesus is taken as the most likely destination. 2 John seems to have the purpose of warning the church against travelling preachers who were not preaching the gospel. This is also timely today, when people have access to so much in the way of YouTube and podcasts. Some is good, but not all of it, and some is dangerous nonsense. 3 John was warning against a specific individual who seemed to be accruing power for himself. That is also very timely for our day as there are numerous instances of this sort of thing happening.

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.

2 John 4-13 - Truth, love and communication

John found that some of her children live in the truth. Notice that he says some, so presumably not all did. Yet John is still happy. The New Testament does not demonstrate any perfect churches. A New Testament church will be highly imperfect. So when you look at your church you can say at least we have got that right!

John goes on to urge them all to live in love, and then stresses that this means obedience to God’s commands. We really do have far too soppy a view of love. Love is tough and down to earth, and obedience to Gods commands is the litmus test of true love. Anything else is a lie.

Next John speaks of those who had gone out and were spreading false teachings, in this case that Jesus was not truly human. Note the similarities in this letter with 1 John, a clear indication of their common authorship.

They were to be on their guard against false teachers. Observe the juxtaposition of love and a firm attitude to the truth and correct teaching. The two are not in conflict.

“Anyone who does not stay with the teaching of Christ…” John now warns of those who go beyond the teaching Christ. We must not take away any of the truth, but neither must we add to it. Jesus is all that we need.  If people come who are not keeping to the truth we are not to welcome them. John even goes so far as to say if we do this then we are partnering with the devil! We really need to take this seriously.

How does all this fit with the teaching on love? It means that our approach is to confront errors in the church. We seek to put things right. This will require patience and wisdom, and will involve a cost.

There are times when it is right to leave a church, but we must not be quick to do so.

John had more to say, but wanted to do it in person. Today we have many more methods of communication, and all this is very valuable and useful, and should be used to the full. However, there is no substitute to personal contact. Online broadcasting of churches is good, but it is vital to actually be at a church. Personal communication gives so much more than e-mail, texting or any other means. We were created as people who need to be with each other.

2 John 1-3 - Loving the Church

To the dear Lady and to her children. This is probably a reference to a particular local church, though it could be taken as a reference to the whole church.  A feature of truly knowing the truth is loving the church. This is a crucial factor. We cannot treat church like a make of car, changing from one to another as we find fault with one church or another. We need to love the church. This does not mean being blind to its faults (and it is useful to remember that one of the faults in your church is you! Hopefully you are also one of the blessings in the church as well), but we need a deep commitment to the church.  We are here to make it work, and to see the grace of God work in the church, and so to reach the world. You see our church will not “succeed” because it is so wonderful, but because of the grace of God.  In verse three John talks about grace,  mercy, truth and love.