Walking in truth and love
2 John
The concept of NT Postcards is not as far off as it might seem. Four books in the NT and one in the OT have only one chapter.
• Philemon
• 2 John
• 3 John
• Jude
Originally, these short books served a similar purpose to postcards. The author had a short message he needed to get out quickly. In 3 out of the 4 NT postcards, the author expresses a wish to personally visit the recipient soon.
These letters would have been written on a single piece of papyrus. In NT times letters were not delivered by a Post Office. Benjamin Franklin invented the Post Office as we know it. Instead letters were delivered by personal couriers. You had to find a person who was going that direction, a person you trusted with your letter, and make sure you had it ready by the time they were leaving. Sometimes you had to get the letter written quickly in order to meet their timetable. Thus, only one piece of papyrus.
So an important question to ask when approaching one of these letters is this:
What was so urgent about this subject that the writer had to get the letter out quickly?
1The elder,
To the chosen lady and her children, whom I love in the truth — and not I only, but also all who know the truth — 2because of the truth, which lives in us and will be with us forever:
3Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Father’s Son, will be with us in truth and love.
4It has given me great joy to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as the Father commanded us. 5And now, dear lady, I am not writing you a new command but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another. 6And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.
7Many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist. 8Watch out that you do not lose what you have worked for, but that you may be rewarded fully. 9Anyone who runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ does not have God; whoever continues in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. 10If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not take him into your house or welcome him. 11Anyone who welcomes him shares in his wicked work.
12I have much to write to you, but I do not want to use paper and ink. Instead, I hope to visit you and talk with you face to face, so that our joy may be complete.
13The children of your chosen sister send their greetings. 2 John 1-13 (NIV)
In 2 John, the Apostle John addresses a very important question:
What should I do about false teaching?
To answer that question John deals with two major subjects:
• Truth when it comes to teaching
• Love when it comes to his relationship with the recipient
These two concepts very clearly dominate this letter and are closely related to each other.
John is concerned that his reader remain faithful to the truth
John’s reader is someone he called "The Elect Lady."
We don’t know what this means exactly. It may be the obvious, that John is writing to a woman and her children. The other possibility is that the "lady" is a church and her "children" are other associated members. It does not matter, John is writing to Christians in this letter, Christians who have been confronted with false teachers. Whether he is writing to a family or to a community of believers, John is concerned about their relationship with the truth.
Truth is mentioned 5 times in the first four verses. It describes
• John’s love for the Elect Lady and her children
• The beliefs of Christians
• Christ in all believers
• Christ’s relationship to those He indwells
• some of the "children" about whom John writes
John appeals to these believers because he truly loves them. They know the truth as it has been taught to them from the most reliable sources. Not only that, John acknowledges that truth is not just an abstract concept or virtue.
Truth is a person and He lives in everyone who believes in Him. John is the one who clarified for us that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. An appeal to truth is an appeal to this person who lives inside his beloved friends.
Jesus’ relationship to believers is the essence of truth. His presence in us through the Holy Spirit convicts us about the actions we contemplate and do. Truth in this sense also has a connotation of "straight." Just as a wall is true if it is straight and level, we are walking true if we are consistent with the teachings and the ways of Jesus. He helps us see that way.
John is encouraged that some of his friends have not strayed from the truth. However, the point of the letter is that the danger is very present. If some are walking true, then some are not.
He is also concerned that they continue to walk in love
The first love he addresses is the "Lady’s" love for him. He wants to make sure their love is uninterrupted. In doing this he calls their mind to a commandment. He clarifies that this is nothing new, but the same commandment they have had all along. The reason this is important, is because it identifies the command as the "new" command Jesus gave
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
John 13:34-35 (NIV)
So look at the relationship between truth and love
• If you remain in Christ, you will walk in the truth
• If you remain in Christ, you will walk in love
If you cease to do either, you are no longer walking in Christ.
It is already clear that John is concerned that the Elect Lady does not love him anymore. His first encouragement to her is that they continue to love each other. He insists that he loves her and her children in truth, but does she love him?
He is also concerned that she may cease to walk in the truth. Someone is saying something that is drawing them apart.
John specifically warns her that some people are denying the humanity of Christ. It is true that loyalty to someone will cause us to defend that person unless we are convinced that we are wrong about them. Wrong about their character or wrong about their loyalty to us. When that relationship is affected, then all mutual relationships are affected too.
A friend of mine convinced me that his wife was becoming violent and unbalanced. I listened to him, and even though I advised against divorce, he left her. Only years later did I find out that there was nothing at all wrong with her. He had been cheating on her and looking for a way out of his marriage. He had pulled the wool over the eyes of his friends.
It is the same with false teachers. They are drawn away from Christ as He is presented to us by His followers in Scripture. Convinced that they are right about Christ, they come and convince another believer that she is wrong about him. Eventually she is drawn away too.
This is where we need to be careful. People can be sincere in their beliefs, but be sincerely wrong. They may be fully convinced of their belief system. But here is another fact. We do not know all the factors that led them to abandon the Scriptures they had been taught.
I have a friend who became a Mormon. Her mother, a godly Christian woman, is heart broken. An outside observer who knew nothing about the situation might think the student went away to college, was exposed to new ideas, and found that the teachings she knew had been wrong or incomplete.
What the observer would not know is that her mother had been treated badly by church members and that her father, who had also claimed to be a Christian had become a criminal when she was very young and had also mistreated her mother. The fact is that her experience with Christians who did not behave like Christ had also influenced her decision to abandon her faith.
Her decision to follow another belief system has come between her and her mother. The love they used to have is marred by her abandonment of the truth. Her new friends have fractured her old and godly relationships.
• She left the truth
• She left a godly love of others who follow the truth
The two are inextricably connected.
I can only imagine the pain that John felt, being the last apostle alive and seeing people stray from everything he had worked so hard to establish.
If you have ever watched a person close their business you know what I am talking about. There is a sadness that cannot be healed for a long time. A person sees not just the buildings and the supplies, they see the whole chain of events that brought the business to its present point.
Imagine John
• Fishing when Jesus calls him
• Loving Jesus so much he wants to sit at His side
• Wanting to call down fire upon His opponents
• At the cross when Mary is put in his care
• Stooping to enter the tomb when he finds it empty
• Watching as Jesus rises into the clouds
• Kneeling as the Holy Spirit fills him at Pentecost
• Healing a man who was crippled from birth
• Being imprisoned for the Gospel
• Seeing his brother lose his life for the Gospel
• Giving leadership to the Church at Jerusalem
• Planting or giving leadership to the 7 churches of Revelation
• Living in Ephesus and burying Jesus’ mother there
• Being exiled to Patmos after an attempt on his life
• And now, in his 90s the statesman of the church
And seeing some people who have no idea what they are talking about coming in to destroy everything he has lived through and worked for since he was a teenager.
It must have torn his heart in half. And it wasn’t just his work he was concerned about. He didn’t want other people to lose the fruit of their labor either.
How can I recognize a false teacher?
John puts it in shorthand. His statement in verse 7 deals with a major doctrinal issue of the day:
deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh
This is certainly not the only way to identify false teachers. It is just the popular form that false teaching had taken in John’s day. Notice this other definition in verse 9 that is a little more general in nature:
Anyone who runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ does not have God
Paul put it slightly differently, but much more forcefully
But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!
Galatians 1:8-9 (NIV)
In Paul’s case it was not the humanity of Christ that was under attack; it was salvation by grace apart from works. The point is that both John and Paul agreed that there was a specific group of teachings that were unassailable. They had to remain intact if a person was to be following the truth. Allow me to give you a shorthand:
• Jesus was miraculously born of a virgin and is thus truly Son of God and Son of Man- God in the flesh
• Jesus lived a sinless life, though He was tempted by Satan
• Jesus died on the cross as a sacrifice to freely extend forgiveness to all humanity
• He rose from the dead in victory over death and the grave in order to extend new life to everyone who believes
• He is returning in the flesh to redeem the bodies as well as the spirits of all His followers
• His true story is understood only through the Holy inspired Scriptures both Old and New Testaments
You will recognize many of these concepts from the the Apostles Creed. These bodies of belief are the truth as it has been understood and handed down by believers from ancient times. They can be trusted and confirmed by Scripture and by the voice of the Holy Spirit living inside you.
Trust Him
What do I do?
You will confront false teachers in a number of ways.
• If you watch religious TV or listen to religious radio, they will be on the air waves.
• In your mail, you will receive pamphlets that invite you to participate in one ministry or another
• People may come to your door, inviting you to study the Bible with them
Don’t trust everyone that says the name of Jesus or says they believe the Bible or calls themselves a Christian. I don’t want to make anyone paranoid. There are many good Christian organizations that embrace the truth, almost indistinguishable from the way we teach. These are historical traditions that do not deviate from what you have learned.
However, there are some signs to watch for
• They may question the validity or completeness of the Scriptures you read
• They may suggest that you have an incomplete understanding of Jesus from the Scriptures or from your church
• They may indicate that they or their leader has a corner on the market of spiritual truth
• They will probably want to distance you from the body of believers you know and love
• They may emphasize a single doctrine and say that others are unimportant
When you see these signs, be alert. You are probably facing a false doctrine. The person you are talking to may be quite sincere in their beliefs, but they are very likely wrong.
You may be tempted to debate them. Don’t!
They are trained for debate with Christians with traditional beliefs, and only a person who is equally trained for debate can come away feeling as if they have accomplished anything. To engage them is simply to allow them to plant seeds of doubt in your mind. If you want to study one of these false doctrines and compare it to the truth, you should by all means do so, but not in debate. The atmosphere is too clouded by competition and emotion. Instead you should discuss it with a person you consider to be a spiritual mentor ... myself or one of your Sunday School teachers.
Look at what John says. It may sound extreme, but there is wisdom here:
... do not take him into your house or welcome him. Anyone who welcomes him shares in his wicked work.
• When you receive that mail ... toss it
• When you see or hear those programs ... change the station
• When they arrive at your door ... politely but firmly say "I’m not interested" and close the door
Do not be rude or unkind ... that is not like Christ.
Simply be clear and firm and do not allow their persistence to overcome your resolve. They may address issues that are important to you like school violence or rampant immorality. It does not matter. True Christians are not the only people concerned about such things. Repeat that you are not interested and close the door.
To allow them to speak with you at length is to allow them to achieve success. Instead allow their failure to discourage them.
The deeper you go into Scripture and the longer you commune with the Holy Spirit, the more your relationship with Him will be strengthened.
• Trust the Scriptures
• Trust the gospel you have been taught
• Trust God who lives inside you
Don’t allow yourself to be drawn aside
