2 John1chapter 1

2 John 1:1-3

The elder writes to the elect lady and her children, and the readings are old: a local church personified with her members, the majority line, or a literal Christian household, each with its holders. Love in the truth is the letter's signature phrase, and the truth dwelleth in us, and shall be with us for ever makes truth a resident rather than a possession. The greeting alone in the epistles adds in truth and love to grace, mercy, and peace, the letter's two watchwords planted in its salutation.

2 John 1:4-6

The elder's joy is pastoral and particular, I found of thy children walking in truth, the found suggesting members met on his travels. The request is deliberately old, not a new commandment, but that which we had from the beginning, that we love one another, the letter quoting the first letter as the first letter quoted the Lord. The definition then runs in a circle on purpose, this is love, that we walk after his commandments, and this is the commandment, that ye should walk in it, love and obedience each defined by the other, inseparable as the letter's two watchwords.

2 John 1:7-9

The occasion is the same secession the first letter fought: many deceivers, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, the present participle guarding the abiding incarnation, and this is a deceiver and an antichrist, the definite article of a class. Look to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive a full reward moves the stake to the workers' harvest, loss of reward distinguished from loss of life by most teachers here. Verse 9 cuts the claim of progress beyond the apostolic teaching, whosoever transgresseth, literally goeth onward, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God; advance beyond Christ is departure from God, while he that abideth hath both the Father and the Son.

2 John 1:10-11

The rule is written for a missionary age: traveling teachers lived on the churches' hospitality, and the house in view is the meeting house and the support that platformed a teacher, so if there come any and bring not this doctrine, receive him not, neither bid him God speed, the formal blessing that endorsed a mission. The partaker clause gives the reason, he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds, sponsorship as participation. The teachers guard the rule's edges as the exposition does: it denies the church's platform to the denier of the incarnation, and it commands nothing against courtesy, kin, or the compassion the gospel owes every person.

2 John 1:12-13

paper and ink: Having many things to write, the elder declines the paper and ink, chartes, the papyrus sheet, one of the New Testament's two mentions of the writer's own materials, and trusts to come and speak face to face, mouth to mouth in the Greek, that our joy may be full, the first letter's purpose phrase returning. The children of thy elect sister greet thee closes the letter with the sister church's greeting, the personification holding to the last line. The shortest books of the canon still end on presence over parchment.