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2 John

2 Johnchapter 1

13 verses · BSB2 John book hub →

Speaks with:1 John 2×61 John 3×21 John 4×23 John 1×2Ephesians 5×2John 15×2

Summary

Chapter summary

Thirteen verses on a single sheet: 'The elder unto the elect lady and her children, whom I love in truth', a church addressed as a household. Truth and love are wound together from the first line and never separated, and John rejoices to find her children walking in truth. The request is nothing new, but that which we had from the beginning, that we love one another. The urgency is the danger: 'many deceivers are gone forth into the world, even they that confess not that Jesus Christ cometh in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist' (v7). Since the itinerant teacher lodges in your house, the order is stark: receive him not, neither give him greeting. John hopes rather to speak face to face, 'that your joy may be made full.'

Context

Epistle · John — 2 John overview

  • A. 1–3 The Elder Writes to the Elect Lady
  • B. 4–6 Walking in Truth, Walking in Love
  • C. 7–11 Deceivers Who Deny the Flesh: Do Not Take Them In
  • D. 12–13 Paper and Ink Are Not Enough

The outline

  1. A.The Elder Writes to the Elect Ladyvv. 1 to 3

    Read vv. 1 to 3 →

  2. B.Walking in Truth, Walking in Lovevv. 4 to 6

    Read vv. 4 to 6 →

  3. C.Deceivers Who Deny the Flesh: Do Not Take Them Invv. 7 to 11

    Read vv. 7 to 11 →

  4. D.Paper and Ink Are Not Enoughvv. 12 to 13

    Read vv. 12 to 13 →

Threads

Each of these runs on past this chapter. The passage you have just read is marked.

Come in the flesh

Pattern

Against teachers who denied that the Son had truly come as a man, John gives the church a confession test: every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God. The test names the denial antichrist and repeats across two letters.

The first great heresy the church faced denied not the deity of Christ but his flesh. John's test guards both ends: the Word made flesh is confessed, or the spirit speaking is not of God. Trying the spirits is commanded practice, because real spirits speak.

  1. 1 John 2:18

    Many antichrists already

    Ye have heard that antichrist shall come; even now are there many antichrists.

  2. 1 John 2:22

    The denial named

    Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ?

  3. 1 John 4:2-3

    The confession test

    Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that confesseth not is the spirit of antichrist.

  4. 2 John 1:7 you are here

    The test repeated

    Many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.

The world behind this chapter

2 John 1
When
The last decades of the first century · c. AD 85–95
Where
A short note from the elder at Ephesus to a congregation addressed as a chosen lady and her children
Who first heard it
A house church deciding whether to take in traveling teachers

The history

The letter is short because the sheet was. A standard papyrus sheet held roughly what this letter contains, and the closing line — much to write, but I would rather not use paper and ink — is the ordinary way ancient letter writers signed off when they intended to come in person.

Whether the chosen lady is a woman or a congregation has been debated since antiquity. The plural commands through most of the letter, and the greeting from 'the children of your chosen sister' at the end, point toward a church, with a sister church sending greetings.

Hospitality was the church's transport system. Traveling teachers moved from town to town living on the hospitality of believers, and a household that received a man fed him, housed him, and often supplied him for the next leg. That support was, in effect, funding his mission.

That is why the sharp instruction at the end is not about rudeness. Not receiving a man into the house and not greeting him meant declining to host and declining to endorse — because in a house-church world, the guest room was the pulpit.

What it meant to them

The hearers were generous people being warned that generosity has a direction. Welcoming a teacher who denied that Jesus came in the flesh made them partners in the work he was doing.

The letter balances the warning by leading with love — the command they had from the beginning — so the caution arrives inside an instruction to love one another, not instead of it.

Sources cited

  • Adolf Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East
  • Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament

Every work MannaFest builds on →

The text of this chapter

This page carries no textual note on 2 John 1. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →

This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the New Testament; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.

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