2 JOHN 1 — TRUTH AND LOVE, THE DECEIVERS, AND THE LIMITS OF HOSPITALITY

Second John is one of the shortest books of the Bible, a brief letter that would have fit on a single sheet of papyrus. It was written by a person who calls himself simply "the elder," in the same style and with the same vocabulary as 1 John and the Gospel of John: truth, love, abiding, commandment, the beginning, and the contrast between the Father and the Son and those who deny them. The early church associated all three Johannine letters with the apostle John, and the author is probably the same elderly apostle who led the churches around Ephesus in the 80s and 90s AD, speaking as the senior and beloved leader. Another view, based on a statement from Papias about "John the Elder," distinguishes the author from the apostle, but this commentary follows the traditional view that the apostle John wrote it. The letter is addressed to "the elect lady and her children." This phrase has been understood in two ways. It may refer to a specific woman, a Christian leader in whose home a congregation met, along with her children, who are the literal or spiritual children of the household. Or it may be a figurative way of describing a local church (the "lady") and its members (the "children"), and the letter's final greeting from "the children of your elect sister" would then be from a sister congregation. The second view is common because of the church-wide concerns of the letter, the plural "you" in several places, and the fact that the Bible often speaks of the church as a bride or a woman. Either way, the letter addresses a house church or group of house churches. The occasion is the same crisis found in 1 John: false teachers who deny the incarnation of Christ were traveling from place to place, relying on the hospitality of local Christians to spread their message. John writes to commend the church's faithfulness to truth and love, and to warn about these itinerant teachers. The letter is a model of how to hold truth and love together, and it addresses an issue that every generation of the church has to face: how far is hospitality and cooperation to extend toward those who teach what is false about Christ?

Second John is a short letter, but it is a significant witness to the situation of the early church at the end of the first century. It confirms that the denial of the incarnation was already a divisive issue, and it shows that the apostolic leadership regarded the confession of Jesus Christ come in the flesh as a boundary marker of the faith. This fits with the historical evidence that Gnostic and docetic teaching arose at an early date and was opposed by the apostolic fathers. Ignatius of Antioch, around AD 110, wrote that Christ truly suffered, truly was born, and truly was raised, as opposed to those who said that He only appeared to suffer. Polycarp, a disciple of John, in his letter to the Philippians echoes the language of 1 John 4:2–3, saying that whoever does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is an antichrist. These parallels indicate that the Johannine teaching was known and used in the early second century. The practice of itinerant ministry and the church's hospitality is also known from other early sources. The Didache, a Christian manual probably from the late first or early second century, instructs churches to receive traveling apostles and prophets as the Lord, but to limit their stay to a day or two, to ensure that they do not ask for money, and to test whether their behavior matches their teaching. This shows that the early church developed practical safeguards against false teachers who took advantage of Christian generosity, and it explains why John's instruction was necessary. The fact that the letter could be written on a single sheet of papyrus is consistent with the practices of the time, since the Greek text is about 245 words, which fits the typical size of a papyrus sheet used for personal letters. Second John was slow to gain acceptance in some circles because of its brevity and the doubts about its authorship, and Eusebius lists it among the disputed books, but Irenaeus and Clement of Alexandria knew and used it, and by the fourth century it was widely recognized.