In this series we offer brief introductions to the books of the Bible, including background, authorship, content, and application to the lives of today’s Christians.
As winter gives way to spring, the frozen earth is transformed into mud. Those with a more direct connection to the land know that the same mantra applies to the snow of winter and the mud of spring: “Don’t get bogged down.” Momentum is often the only preventative to getting stuck.
The same mantra has application to our own personal study of God’s Word. There’s an obvious balance that is necessary between a superficial reading of God’s Word and getting stuck on questions that Scripture does not answer. Although John’s Second Epistle is the second-shortest book in the Bible (about 300 words in English and about 250 words in its original Greek) there are several opportunities for the reader to get bogged down.
The first is the question of the intended recipient. To whom, in other words, was John referring when he addressed the Letter to “the elect lady and her children.” (verse 1) Unlike his First Epistle, Second John reads more like a pastoral letter than a doctrinal treatise. Since the themes of the letter (guarding against false teachers, abiding in doctrine, and walking in truth) are typically concerns that would be directed to an entire congregation, rather than just a household, and since the tone is consistent with how apostles addressed church bodies collectively, it is safe to assume “the elect lady” refers to a specific congregation and “her children” refers to the members of that congregation. Don’t get bogged down. Today, you are the intended recipient.
The second question which causes readers to get stuck involves John’s identification of “the antichrist” as one who “does not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh.” How then can the Great Antichrist be the Roman Catholic Papacy, as our Confessions maintain, since Roman Catholic doctrine does not deny the Incarnation? Don’t get bogged down. John is describing not the Great Antichrist (compare 2 Thessalonians 2) but the anti-Christian spirit that was, even then, beginning its assault against the fledgling New Testament Christian Church.
The obvious problem with getting stuck is that no further progress is possible. To get bogged down in any one part of this Second Epistle of John is to rob yourself of all else here offered by God the Holy Spirit through that “Apostle that Jesus loved.”
John’s message is one of truth, love, and harmony among fellow Christians. He reiterates part of his message in his First Epistle that true Christian faith will make itself known through works (“walk according to his commandments,” verse 6), but that this is neither a new doctrine nor something that conflicts with what the original recipients had already been taught—that we are saved by God’s grace through faith alone in Jesus Christ. Ironically, John does speak in verse 9 about going “on ahead” (the apparent opposite of getting bogged down), but in the sense of moving beyond or outside of the boundaries established by the teachings of Christ, which he then forcefully condemns. The Holy Spirit thus warns God’s people of the first wave of the devil’s unending attacks against God’s Church—the idea that what the Savior taught was incomplete and that there was therefore information that they lacked, information that the false teachers offered to supply. John’s counsel: “They are wrong. Have nothing to do with them.”
Read the Letter for yourself. It is half the length of this article, but the content is immeasurably superior. Be encouraged and strengthened by the Holy Spirit’s message, preserved for almost 2000 years and delivered intact to you so that you too might benefit. In Christ you are complete. Walk in harmony with your Savior and your fellow Christians and separate yourself from all that is false or evil.
John’s message is one of truth, love, and harmony among fellow Christians.
is pastor of Saint Paul Lutheran Church in Bismarck, North Dakota.