Dear Lady of 2nd John
By Rev. Robert P. Elkins
All Scripture verse taken from the NIV Bible unless otherwise noted
2 John 1
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.
It is not often that I start a teaching by reading the entire epistle from which the teaching comes from. But in this case, because the epistle is so short I think it is well and proper to do so. This letter takes almost no time to read and I have no doubt that it was surly directed to each of us personally. I feel I’m safe in saying to each of you the believer in Jesus Christ that we are much like the dear lady the Apostle John was writing to so many years ago. And I pray that what I am about to present to you will be a blessing and you will as I do feel that this is from the Holy Spirit. From reading this very short epistle, there is so very much to found with-in, it’s a literal gold mine of beautiful thoughts and a wonderful collection of words.
To begin with the lady in John’s thoughts who for so many centuries has remained nameless, we have no idea who she was, nor will we ever know and I guess it’s really not all that important. There are some who feel that it wasn’t a person at all but a church that John was writing to but that isn’t my personal belief. I think John was indeed writing to a person, a lady that he knew and that she was just a friend that John was concerned with and his letter was recorded for all mankind as a letter from God for all of us to learn from. As I said, she has no name, but we can see that she was a believer in our Lord Jesus. That’s the important thing, at some point in eternity, should the Lord tarry in his return; each of us will become nameless. We’ll have letters found in a dusty attic and someone will read them and say; “I wonder who this was? It says it’s to Robert but I don’t know who Robert was”. And they may keep those letters or they may toss them away and all memory of this long forgotten Robert will be gone. But that’s going to be here on earth and if I’m the Robert they are reading about I’ll be in glory with my Lord in his heaven and any memory of me on earth won’t matter any more. I’ll be like this lady.
Now, about this letter, John is writing to this dear lady without a name and he is telling her that he is giving her a teaching that she most likely already knew. That is found in verse 5 and 6. “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.” He states that it’s not a new teaching but that his letter is a reinforcement to a teaching that she had already learned and is embedded deep in her heart and the heart of her family as well.
Sometimes in reading the Scriptures we have to look at what is not there as well as what is. We have to read between the lines so to speak, but not to the point that we start to add things in our human efforts to assist God with his duties of telling us how to live. But by looking at what is not said we can draw conclusions that are as revealing as what is said.
So what is today’s lesson to be learned from this short epistle? Notice John’s letter is to the dear lady and her children. Here is our first example of something that is found in reading between the lines. We can assume that this lady had more than one child, how many we don’t know because there is nothing stated. But it does say “children” so we know that she had more than one child, she had multiple children. Our dear lady has children just like many of us have children. And I’m sure this dear lady loved her children just as we love our children. We can also see that she had shared the Gospel message with her children as we have hopefully shared it with our children. That’s a lesson to be learned. How I come to this conclusion will be explained in the following paragraph. And now continuing, from this letter we can surmise that she has known a measure of sorrow as well over her children. I’m sure her heart has been broken more that once in worry over her children, much like many of us. I’m sure our dear lady has suffered the pain of watching some of her children follow after the ways of the world and its hurt her because she has had to watch her children follow a way that is contrary to her faith in our Lord.
You may wonder how I can know this? Because John tells us without actually saying it. Look at verse 4. John says; “It has given me great joy to find some of your children walking in the truth.” (emphasis mine) Those simple words “some of your children” speaks volumes. I doubt our lady taught only one child the ways of her faith and didn’t teach the others the same thing. I am sure she sat each of her children down on a regular basis and instructed them, all of them, in the way of her faith in Christ Jesus. Each child received the same instruction each child was made aware of the Lord and yet only “some” of her children were walking in the truth. And so without saying a thing on the subject, John acknowledges that if some were walking in the truth, some were not. Beloved… learn from this epistle today the message of hope that was present at the time of its writing.
You can do all the right things, you can raise your children in the faith, and you can raise your children in the church. You can have them in every program, in Sunday school, Royal Rangers or Missionettes (the youth ministries of the Assemblies of God denomination) or the church youth groups. You can do every thing you want but once they reach an age of accountability and are old enough to make decisions on their own they may wander into things you have always warned them to avoid. You may have shared with them from your personal life experiences all the errors that you made along the way and try as you may to save them from repeating these same errors. But you know what? They are going to have to test the water for themselves. You may have been the drill sergeant parent who went through the learning years with the attitude of: “I’m the parent, you’re the child and you are going to as I say or else.” Or you may have been the ever loving, ever kind and gentle parent, always taking time to explain and reason with your child or children, never loosing your temper and always showing love and concern. But either way we are never sure just what our children are going to do.
To be sure, children are always full of surprises. And that’s not to say that these surprises are always unpleasant. But sometimes the outcome of a child’s behavior is anything but pleasant to the parent. My friend this is where your faith in the word of God comes into play. The Scriptures tell us that we are to raise up our children in the ways of our Lord and in time that little light is going to come on in their head and they will see the error of their ways. They may have to fall flat on their faces a few times and in the process pick up a few bumps and bruises; there may even be a few permanent scars left in their lives, things that just will not go away. But God’s word never lies and by faith we have to believe that they will become the men and women God wants them to be. It may happen today, or it may happen tomorrow or at some time in our life, or it may not happen until after we have gone on to glory, but by faith we have to believe … it will happen! We have to have the attitude that if God said it was going to happen then it will happen no matter what. And on faith we have to stand on that promise. It’s a promise from God and his promises always come to be. Mixing in a little constant intercessory prayer isn’t a bad idea either. Prayer works. I’m a living example of that and have a testimony to prove it. My Aunt Florence prayed for me for 40 years without stopping and she lived to see her prayers come to reality. She prayed that I’d respond to God’s call and become a pastor because she knew that that call had been placed on my life when I was very young. She prayed through my wild years in the Navy. She prayed continually through my many ups and downs and she didn’t stop. My aunt was on her knees in prayer until she saw her prayers answered before she went to her grave. I have no doubt that the prayers flooding the throne room of God from this saintly lady greatly affected the direction I took which eventually lead me to enter the clergy.
This little epistle also speaks to a segment of believers who may not have noticed or realized their connection to this dear lady but I’d like to call it to your attention now. Our dear lady loved her Lord, she trusted in him, and she raised her children as best she could regardless of the outcome. One more thing I think it’s safe to surmise from this epistle. I think our dear lady was a single mom. There’s nothing in John’s salutation or in the body of the letter that makes any reference to her having a husband. We don’t know if she was widowed, divorced or if she had ever been married, the last is least likely in light of the social order that was in force during that time frame of history.
The stigma of a child born out of wedlock has only been seen as an acceptable practice over the past few years. Children born out of wedlock have always been a reality but it hasn’t always been so acceptable in society to the degree it is now nor should it be. It’s sad to say that we as a society have lost the shame factor in our acceptance of responsibility that comes from sinful behavior. We have children born outside the covenant of marriage as established by God with little or no shame by the parents, and the fault lies with both the man and the woman because it does take two to tango. We turn a blind eye to sin and think nothing of it any longer because our present society finds no shame in sin. It started with “If it feels good, do it” and we have now reached a plateau that now finds almost anything acceptable. And worse yet is the fact that we as a society now kill thousands of children as a matter of convenience by both married and unmarried mothers under the name of Abortion, and this also with little or no shame.
We have forgotten or have chosen to ignore the importance God has placed upon the blessing of having children. Psalm 127:3 says; “Sons are a heritage for the Lord, children are a reward from him.” In Proverb 23 it says; “May your father and mother be glad; may she who gave you birth rejoice.” Jesus in his years of recorded ministry often admonished us to pay special attention to children. An example of this is found in Mark 10. “People were bringing little children to Jesus to have him touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” And he took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them.” And before returning to our main topic let me finalize this wandering of mine by stating emphatically that there is not now nor has there ever been an illegitimate child. The child played no role in the circumstances of their birth. There are illegitimate parents and that’s where the responsibility lies. And even then it is their responsibility to seek the Lord’s forgiveness and not ours to pass judgment on them. I don’t know about anyone else but I’m not qualified to cast the first stone at anyone. Should circumstance be placed in front of me I’ll explain what needs to be explained to a parent or parents of a child born out of wedlock, and then I’ll love them and love the child without question or explanation, period.
Now back to where we were going in the first place before I got sidetracked. Going back to our letter from John. John is instructing our dear lady to walk in love. “And 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.”
Notice John doesn’t place any restrictions on the dear ladies love walk. He doesn’t say love only those who are most like her, he doesn’t say love only those who will return that love. He doesn’t place any restrictions in his instructions at all, nothing other than to love … even the unlovable.
We need to pay special attention to this portion of the letter, verses 5 and 6. Because if we look with a discerning eye we’ll notice an anomaly here from the way many present the Gospel to another person. John makes no demands, the word command is used but John is quick to point out that the command is from God and not from him. At the end of verse 5 John places his request. “I ask that we love one another.” What gentle language John uses. “I ask that we”, I’m asking your permission, I’m including myself because we are both equal, there is no male and female role playing in John’s letter. John’s wording is so simple and undemanding and yet through his close association with Jesus he was held in high stature in the Christian community. But he doesn’t hold this over the dear ladies head as his badge of authority. He makes no mention of any rank or authority other than in his salutation and then he uses only the title of “The Elder”.
How many fellow brothers and sisters in the Lord have been deeply hurt by other Christians who pile on demands and insistence on the head of the person they should be witnessing to? How many times has a new Christian been hurt by the one who should be witnessing in love when they come on with their “I’m telling you that you should do this or that” and they say it as if they were one in authority. I’m sure that I am not the only one who has had a fellow Christian come to them and say that the Lord had given them a word of knowledge for me, and when it is delivered it isn’t very nice to hear and you question just who the author of that word was.
In my studies once I came across a statement of rebuke to just such an attack. And to be honest I can’t remember if it was John Wesley the founder of the
John is much gentler in his approach. “I ask that we, you and I, as ones on equal terms, love one another. No questions asked; no boundaries or limits set.” [1st Peter 4:8] says, “Above all love each other deeply, because lover covers over a multitude of sins”. And John carries this point even further, by saying that this isn’t a new command, there’s nothing new to this. It’s what our Lord Jesus repeated over and over. It was the driving force in his earthly ministry. Love as your heavenly Father loves you, no hidden agenda. No coded words, no cost or payment required. Just open arms and an equally open heart.
In John’s gentle way he is instructing the dear lady in obedience to her God. I would pray that each of us would have a mentor such as this mentor, John the Elder in our lives. What a blessing that would be.
Beginning in verse 7 John changes the entire nature of his letter to our dear lady. He goes from gentle instruction about love to a matter of fact terminology in regards to the antichrist. John just jumps into his discourse with instruction about false teachers and the ever-present false Christian.
Do these false teachers live still today? We all know they do. Today we have placed labels on them and they have gathered into distinct groups. Some of these groups deny Jesus as God having come in the flesh. The Jews fall into this category. They don’t deny that Jesus the man was here on earth but they do deny his Kingship as God. But look at John’s language and you’ll see a key word. “Many 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.” Although they acknowledge Jesus as the man, John says that they deny Jesus Christ. That key word is Christ, the Messiah. This is what the false teachers deny, not the man but the Messiah factor. This is what the Jews deny although they are not the only ones; there are others like the Jehovah’s Witnesses or the Mormons, which we will look at later. Another group that denies the Lordship of Jesus is the Muslim. They don’t discredit his coming as a man but they do deny his deity. The Muslim considers Jesus as nothing more than a prophet, and then a lesser prophet than Mohammed. John goes on to say that such a person is a deceiver and the antichrist.
For generations the mere word “Antichrist” has conjured up a vast diversity of images as to what or who the antichrist is. In the past we looked at the book of Revelation and the numerical 666 for the antichrist. For a while many tried to say it was the late president Ronald Reagan and a host of others. Adolph Hitler was another. But does John ever say who the antichrist really is? Of course he does. If you were to go back to his 1st letter in chapter 2 he states; “Dear children, this is the last hour; as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth. Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a man is the antichrist, he denies the Father and the Son.” And so in light of this we ask again, who is the antichrist?
Would not the Jehovah Witness’s qualify as the antichrist? They deny that Jesus is God and the Christ. The Jehovah Witness’ are polytheistic in belief, they believe in a multitude of gods and that Jesus is just one of the many. We are monotheistic in as much as we believe in one God with three distinct personalities of Father Son and Holy Spirit. The Mormons are polytheistic in belief, their thoughts run the same as the Jehovah Witness’ with Jesus being one of many gods. As before mentioned the Jew and the Muslim deny Jesus as Deity but they are monotheistic with a belief in one God but that God is singular in his godhead. One God in one nature. The Hindu is definitely polytheistic in thought. They have thousands of gods. They have a god for every occasion. I personally find it much easier to have just one God who covers all my needs rather than trying to remember which god I need to call upon. The Buddhist are atheist in belief, they don’t acknowledge God at all. They don’t look at Buddha as a god but as the “Enlightened One” who was fully human, a man who figured out the entire plan of peace and tranquility. They believe in reincarnation and Karma. When you die your karma passes on to another living thing, not just a person. I have a friend who is Buddhist, while talking one day he was explaining that it is their belief that their karma is transferred to another form of living thing when they die. My friend’s karma at the time of his death could go on to a fish or an ant and remain there until that creature died and it would then pass on to another living thing. The karma may move about many times until it returns to another human, I personally find this harder to grasp than the concept of one God in three persons.
All of these as diverse as they are could be called the antichrist. Each denies Jesus as the Christ and in doing so denies the Father and the Spirit as well. The triune godhead can’t be divided with one deity holding a higher position over the others. You can do that with Neapolitan ice cream but not with God. Can you believe that I can get to the vanilla and strawberry ice cream without touching the chocolate? It works with ice cream but it doesn’t work with God. It would be easier to separate the milk and sugar from a cup of tea than it would to separate the Father from the Son or the Holy Spirit. It’s impossible.
I really like the NIV over the KJV for verse 9. The KJV says; “ Whosoever transgresseth and abide not in the doctrine of Christ hath not God.” The NIV says it so much more clearly. “Anyone who runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ does not have God”.
I had a pretty good idea what transgression was but just for my own curiosity I went to the dictionary just to see how these two translations of the same word came to be so different. And much to my surprise they aren’t that different at all. One of the meanings of the word “transgression” is to “go beyond a limit”. So John is telling our dear lady “Don’t get ahead of yourself and forget where you came from. Keep all things in perspective and remember your roots”. John’s gone back to the same logic he used when he was talking about love. Keep it simple and keep it basic.
John is telling our dear lady to continue in her studies, continue in her learning and never; never, abandon her belief in what she first learned. This is a powerful lesson for us as well. Remember the words of Jesus in the book of Revelation? He was addressing the church at Ephesis. “You have forgotten your first love. Repent and do the things you first did.” Beloved these words of Jesus and John ring as true today as they did the first day when the pen was put to the paper. God is the same today and yesterday and tomorrow. The same holds true to his words. Hold fast to your first love, hold fast to your Lord Jesus and always keep him first in your life.
John is saying something here dear friend that is so true it’s scary. Watch out that you do not lose what you have worked for, but that you may be rewarded fully. Anyone 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. If we don’t practice our religion, if we don’t stay in the word, continue in our study of the Bible we are in danger of loosing that fire that burned so hot at the time we first came to the Lord. John is saying to this lady and to us that if we don’t keep after the things that got us hooked on Jesus in the first place we could loose that burning desire for him and his word. God will never leave us but we are in danger of slipping away if we aren’t holding on to what we had in the beginning. If your Bible is gathering dust, chances are so is you faith. If you have food in the house but don’t eat you get hungry and eventually sick, and eventually even death comes, the same holds true for God’s word. If it’s there in your house and you don’t feed from it every once in a while you’re going to wither away from the source of your nourishment in the Lord. Just as we feed the body we need to feed the spirit as well.
John then goes on to instruct the dear lady in how she needs to surround herself in the fellowship of the believers. And how she is to not open her house to the false teachers and false belief they carry with them. I doubt that John is telling her that she is to have no connection with the world. If this were the case John would be in direct confrontation with what he heard Jesus say about the great commission. But there is a huge difference in being a witness to the world and bringing the worldly ways of false doctrine into her home. And of course this applies to our homes as well. Our mission is to witness in the name of Jesus Christ and point the world to the cross and the work of Jesus on that cross. We are to call them into the light; we are not to follow them into the darkness.
And then just as abruptly as he changed courses once before, he does so again and ends his letter with a little note of hope in seeing this dear lady rather that writing her with pen and paper. This is my personal thought as well. And just as abruptly this teaching ends. May the grace of God go with you now and forever more. Amen.
Grace and peace.
