Dave's Diary

Believe it or not, we have completed the Gospel of John; and we now turn our attention to the two shortest letters written by the same apostle John; namely, 2 John (today) and 3 John (on Monday).

Daily Readings: 2 John 1 and Psalm 50

Because John wrote this letter at a time of intense persecution, he refers to himself simply as “the elder”, to the local church to which he writes as “the lady”, and to the members of the church as “her children”. It’s likely that John didn’t want to name anyone in his letter to protect them from persecution if the letter was intercepted somehow.

Reading 2 John so soon after ending John’s Gospel helps us to see how consistent the apostle was in the emphasis he placed on Jesus’ tightly interwoven trio of truth, love and obedience. Just as he did in John 14-16, John makes sure to highlight that loving Jesus means obeying Jesus, and that obeying Jesus means loving others as He has loved us. If we truly love Jesus, we will obey His command to love others, and we will do so with His unique brand of self-giving love that seeks the highest best of others. By doing that, we are actually expressing love to Jesus.

To rephrase that slightly, we love Jesus when we love others in ways that are consistent with the truth about Who He is and how He wants us to live.

The false teachers / deceivers / anti-Christs that the letter warns against were those who taught that Jesus had not really come in the flesh. He was too pure to take on a physical nature, they said, and He was only ever a spiritual being appearing to be physical. These were the super-spiritualisers of their day, and they are a warning to us in the 21st century that we can never detach and disembody our faith from the real physical world. We are called to translate our love for Jesus into actual physical obedience by actively seeking the physical highest best of other flesh-and-blood human beings. Jesus embodied God and God’s love, and now He calls us to do the same.

Life Application: Keep your eyes peeled for the physical needs of others today. Sense which needs God has given you the capacity to do something about, and then step out and do it. Love others practically in His Name!