2 John
I find it interesting that this is addressed to “the elect lady” since often the Bible is considered “sexist”. Verse 4 talks about her children:
I rejoiced greatly to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as we were commanded by the Father.
I hope today I can say the same thing about our children. Veronica has just graduated UGA and Devon is riding X-Games, both have achieved their near term goals. They are both doing well and working on their relationship with God. One of the most important things we do in life is to raise our offspring well. Unfortunately the culture is more about me now, just as Satan wants, and the children often take second place to our professional or personal desires. Sacrifice is not only for brief mission trips, but also long term projects.
Verse 9 gets into the absolutes of the Christian faith:
Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son.
John does not hold any punches when it comes to how we should act. The concern I have is the number of churches teach half the story. Many teach about the love and salvation side, but go no further. If they receive salvation and abide by the teachings of the church is this ok, even if it’s incomplete? I pray that these churches will become enlightened soon on the truth so not to possibly jeopardize their congregation’s salvation.
This is why it is important to read the Bible daily! You will come across these verses and learn the truth. Think about the dangers of this, in 600AD there was only on version of the Bible in Latin. The priests disseminated the Gospel to the people and put their perspective on it. This is where the “reformers” like Martin Luther, John Calvin and Myles Coverdale focuses on ensuring the Bible was translated so all could read. Today we have so many interpretations in English alone so we can understand the truth without a filter.
One thing to be clear with the “interpretations” of the Bible there are a few notes to consider. First they are interpreted off the original texts and not each other. This is key to ensure you are not getting a “second hand” interpretation where something may be missed. The only one I know of that did not consider the original text was the English version of the Catholic Bible which was interpreted from the Latin. Second is find one that you can read and become a hermeneutics nerd. Ironically the KJV is considered the only English translation by many Baptist and Protestant churches, which was developed by the Anglican Church of England who persecuted these faiths.
Verse 12 makes me wish I could have been there:
Though I have much to write to you, I would rather not use paper and ink. Instead I hope to come to you and talk face to face, so that our joy may be complete.
I wonder how much was lost in face to face conversations that were not recorded. This is why I have an interest in the apocryphal and the gnostic gospels. I want to see what else has been said, these documents were either incomplete, redundant or deemed irrelevant when the Bible was canonized. So that may be my next study and “thought”. I would love to hear these conversations and find out if we are “missing” something important.