2 & 3 JOHN
Since 2 and 3 John are so short I’ll survey each in this 1 blog entry.
2 John is the 2nd shortest text of the NT (3 John is the shortest). As we’re about to see, 2 John largely reinforces the teaching of 1 John. Some of the more common words in 2 John include “love”, “truth”, “abide”, and “commandment”—words which should sound familiar since they appear frequently in 1 John.
Unlike 1 John, which has no self-ID, the author of 2 John identifies himself as the “elder”; and he addresses the “chosen lady and her children” (v. 1)—in other words, likely a sister congregation to the one addressed in 1 John (cf. 2 John 13).
John is pleased that, despite the schism described in 1 John, these believers continue to follow Jesus faithfully. Therefore, he urges them to love each other (2 John 5-6), for love flows naturally from obedience b/c loving others is part of what it means to be obedient to Christ. By loving each other the believers will distinguish themselves from the spirit of deception at work in the world—a spirit that denies the person of Jesus Christ (2 John 7). Deceivers and false teachers distinguish themselves by “going too far” in their teaching (2 John 9). In other words, they might begin well, but they finish badly; and it’s how you finish that counts (cf. 1 Cor 9:24-27; Phil 3:12-14; Jas 1:12)! John admonishes the believers not to allow such people into their “house”—“house” here means church (remember: early Christians often met in homes, e.g., Rom 16:5). So, having someone like this over to your home for the purpose of evangelizing/debating them would be OK; but in no way should they ever be allowed to preach/teach in a small group or church setting. Question: Why not?
Now for 3 John. Unlike 1 & 2 John, which are addressed to groups of people, 3 John is addressed to a single person: Gaius (somewhat similar to Paul’s shortest letter, Philemon, which IDs specific recipients). Now, I’ve heard many a “prosperity” teacher (aka “health & wealth,” “name it and claim it”, “blab it and grab it”) use 3 John 2 as “proof” that it’s God’s will that Christians should always be rich and healthy. Unfortunately, (but predictably), these folks ignore (N.B. “ignore”, the verb form of “ignorant”) the historical background to the NT and to Graeco-Roman letter writing in particular, b/c if they didn’t, they would never arrive at such a cock-&-bull interpretation of the verse (that’s 1 of the reasons why I did so many blog entries on the social-historical background of the NT [e.g., “NT Origins”]). The wishful greeting of v. 2 is exactly that: a wishful greeting—a completely common place feature of Graeco-Roman letter writing, especially when writing letters to individuals.
Similar to 2 John, John is glad to hear that Gaius continues to walk faithfully according to the truth (3 John 3-5). He has also been faithful to support missionaries in their evangelistic ventures—something, John says, everyone should do (vv. 6-8). But unlike Gaius, who faithfully receives missionaries, Diotrephes not only rejects them, he actually tries to kick them out of the church (3 John 9-10)! Clearly, Diotrephes “has not seen God” (v. 11), meaning, his actions betray a heart of unbelief: he is not a Christian! By way of contrast, Demetrius is committed to doing good and is therefore “of God” (vv. 11-12), i.e., he belongs to God/is true follower of Christ. Demetrius, then, is worthy of emulation, while Diotrephes—who obviously would love to be imitated and followed—is not. I find it interesting that John publicly names names. Question: Is there a place today for publicly naming names from the pulpit?
Next up: the next to last book of the bible.