2 John

1-4 | False teachers, whom John calls deceivers and antichrists, were spreading error. To keep walking in the truth (1 John 2:18-19; 4:1-6; 3 John 3-4) was how John’s readers would defend against such teaching. Some people think that only the sincerity of one’s beliefs is important, but the truth of those beliefs is what matters. All truth is found in Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God (John 14:6).

1 | John describes himself and his position with one word: Elder. By this time, he was an older man with authority over several congregations in Asia Minor. He was also an eyewitness to the life and teaching of Jesus.

2 | This truth that Christ is both God and man, Lord and Savior, is more than a set of propositions – it is living, and it abides forever.

3 | John explicitly identifies Jesus as the Son of the Father to counter the claims of the false teachers, who denied that Christ had come in the flesh. The mention of truth and love anticipates two important themes in the rest of this letter. Truth and love are intimately connected, not just in hospitality but in the Christian’s everyday life, habits, and choices.

5-6 | The phrase love one another occurs 13 times in the NT. Jesus used it four times (John 13:34-35; 15:12-17) and said that believers’ love for each other would show that they were His disciples (John 13:35). The apostles Paul (Rom. 13:8; 1 Thess. 4:9), Peter (1 Pet. 1:22), and John (1 John 3:11, 23; 4:7-12) reinforce this nine more times in their letters.

6 | Genuine love for God is shown through obedience (walk according to His commandments). Love and obedience are the result of the Holy Spirit’s work in the life of a believer (John 14:15-17; Gal. 5:22-23).

7 | John writes here of an antichrist – one of several false teachers who were trying to convert John’s readers to their false beliefs – not THE Antichrist. These deceivers did not confess the incarnation of Christ, a fundamental heresy.

8-11 | The key to opposing false teaching is for God’s people to abide in the doctrine of Christ – the truth that Jesus was fully divine and fully human. All who teach something different should not be welcomed in a Christian’s home or church; in fact, they should be shunned (do not receive nor greet him). The church should be a place of grace, but it must never tolerate the undermining of the faith.

8 | The full reward is for loyal service. Every believer will receive salvation, but those who live for selfish gain will lose those things they worked for, not receiving their full heavenly reward (Matt. 7:21-23; Phil. 3:14; 4:1; Heb. 10:35).

9 | The doctrine of Christ refers to the teaching that Jesus was the Son of God who came in the flesh. Those who hold to this have true fellowship with both the Father and the Son. The Holy Spirit goes unmentioned here, simply because the Spirit was not the issue with the false teachers; Christ’s identity was.

10-11 | Although Christians should open their homes to nonbelievers for the sake of evangelism, Christians should not support false teachers in any way. In John’s day, traveling teachers needed a place to stay and people to teach. To open one’s home or church to a false teacher constituted an endorsement of his or her teaching (Rom. 16:17; Gal. 1:8-9; 2 Thess. 3:6-14; Titus 3:10) and perpetuated his or her deception (shares in his evil deeds). The only correct response for Christians is to reject false teachers.

12 | John expresses a similar sentiment to Gaius in 3 John 13-14.