Take Two: 2 John, Proverbs 25

2 John is a letter written from John the Apostle to a church. The language is a bit encoded. Some scholars through the years have proposed that John was actually writing to a "matriarch" of a household and is writing about her family. Nothing about the structure of this letter supports this. He is writing with apostolic authority to a church to instruct them and warn them about a danger they need to consider.

vv.1-3 is a greeting, not unlike other letters of the day. The elder is John and the chosen (elect) lady is a church. Her children are the people of the church and the "Truth" is Christ Himself. Now that you have your "batman decoder ring," Let's look at the occasion.

In v.4, John begins by commending the church that he knows of some walking in the truth. In other words, they have love for one another (v.5). He then reminds them that loving one another means walking according to the commandments of God (v.6).

In v.7-11 he points out the reality (and probably the reason for his letter), that some who had previosly acknowledged Christ...had walked away from the faith and had strayed into some false teaching...namely, that Christ did not come in the flesh. The way this "heresy" goes, they taught that Christ appeared as a man to the eye, but that He was never a man, since man is made of "matter" and "matter" is bad. (This is a heresy that came from the influence of Greek Philosophy). Here is a point of application for us today:

Diversity in thinking was not a problem. People have differing opinions and speculations all the time. The church is full of them. However, there is a line a person can "drift" across that becomes error and requires correction. I say "drift", because no one I know ever sets out to create a heresy. They drift there by accepting one speculation after another...until they are so far down the path that they cannot get back. John says we must stop them before it becomes too late (v.8). We have an obligation to Christ to stop the drift before we lose everything.

In v.10, we see that part of our obligation as a church is to not promote/acknowledge people who are involved in false teaching. We apply this pretty broadly. It is why I am "jealous" over the pulpit and screen people very closely. Some may get through...but I will not allow someone to share what I am certain is false teaching just because he is a family member to a church member, to keep the peace, or because he has degrees. If we don't act this way, we stand to lose fundamentals that Christ established (v.8) and we share in the sin preached by the false teacher (v.11). This does not just apply to the pulpit, but penetrates to every level of teaching in our church.

If I were applying this to the home...I would say that I would use the same principle in discerning who my kids hung out with, who I had over influencing my family, and what books and music were on the shelf. Even with textbooks in school. I am not an isolationist who believes that you isolate children from all outside contact. I am however and "insulationist" who says that I need to know what they are hearing and need to temper that with my influence so they can interpret these other ideas correctly. It is my responsibility to insulate my kids from the world. They will still experience it, but I need to help protect them so that they are not harmed by the contact.

Proverbs 25:28 is my takeaway today. "Like a city that is broken into and without walls is a man who has no control over his spirit."

A man without self-discipline (spirit) is a man who is unsafe, unfruitful, and without honor. We are all guilty at times of yielding to temptation and lacking self-discipline. That is not the issue here. The writer speaks here of the one who lives a life of pleasure, without direction and boundaries...in a free spirit sort of life. This man is a ship without a rudder, a field without a purpose, and a man with a reason to be. We are called to be free in Christ...and that freedom requires that we live disciplined lives that seek to fulfill our purpose, accomplish that for which we have been commissioned, and glorify God in the process.

Grace,