OVERVIEW:
2nd JOHN: The basis of love (1-3); the behavior of love (4-6); the bounds of love (7-13).
3rd JOHN: The excellence of Gaius (1-8); the evil of Diotrephes (9-10); the elevation of Demetrius (11-14).
JUDE: The command to contend for the faith (1-4); the condemnation of the counterfeits of the faith (5-16); the call to surrender in our faith (17-25).
HIGHLIGHTS & INSIGHTS:
The book of 2nd John is a very important book of the Bible for those of us living in the last days. It seems that the heed and call in “Christian” circles today is, “Let’s drop our petty doctrines for the sake of love.” The book of 2nd John is in our Bible to tell us the exact opposite!
As John begins this book, he refers to himself as “the elder”. He is not referring to a position or office he held in the church, but rather to his age. John is an old man by the time he writes this book, probably somewhere between 80–90 years old.
He is writing to “the elect lady”. She is not mentioned by name, but is obviously someone with whom John has a very close relationship, as he affirms his love for both she and her children in the opening verses. Several things we surmise from this little book is that this lady’s husband had apparently passed away and that her children were now grown. She has a passion for ministry, compassion for people, and wanted to use her home as a tool for the Lord to use to house itinerant preachers and teachers on their journeys. She is obviously a very goodhearted and loving lady.
In John’s travels, however, he has come in contact with this “elect lady’s” nieces and nephews (vs. 13), and they’ve informed him of something that was very alarming and upsetting to him. They inform him of how their Aunt’s so called “love” was causing her to show hospitality to false prophets and teachers. (vs. 10) John immediately takes a piece of paper and ink (vs.12) and writes to instruct this extremely loving, benevolent, and hospitable lady that the Lord wanted her to be discriminate in her demonstration and expression of love.
We are able to detect the urgency of John’s message to this special lady in verse 12: “Having many things to write unto you, I would not write with paper and ink: but I trust to come unto you, and speak face to face, that our joy may be full.” We don’t know the things John spoke to her face to face. Obviously, we don’t need to know, or the Spirit of God would have inspired John to record them for us. But we do have the words of the first 11 verses, and the Spirit of God definitely wanted us to have these words so that God’s people through the centuries would understand exactly how God wants us to respond to false prophets and teachers. This little letter actually shows us how biblical love is to operate when it encounters false doctrine, prophets, and teachers.
In verses 1-3, John lets us know that the BASIS of genuine, biblical love is TRUTH. (Note that the word “truth” is repeated five times in the first four verses!) He shows us that LOVE and TRUTH are inseparably linked in Christianity, and that our love cannot be permitted to be governed by anything other than TRUTH! The whole point in verses 1-3 is that we are not to indiscriminately share love for the sake of love. Rather, we share LOVE for the sake of TRUTH! When truth is violated, love is to be redirected. Wow! You talk about going against the teaching of Laodicean Christianity! But that is the crystal-clear teaching of God’s word!
In verses 4-6, John lets us know that whereas the BASIS of love is TRUTH, the BEHAVIOR of love is OBEDIENCE. John sets the “elect lady’s” children as an example for sharing love: the fact that they were “walking in truth”. He really brings it back to the same point he had just made: Walking in LOVE is walking in TRUTH; and, walking in TRUTH is walking in LOVE! The simple fact is, love obeys! It obeys the truth. When truth is violated, love is not unleashed. The love of the truth keeps love in bounds. Yes, folks, love, true biblical love, has boundaries! That’s what John shows us in verses 7-11: the BOUNDARIES OF LOVE.
In verse 7, John gives us the reason we must walk in love AND walk in truth. He says “FOR (!) many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.” John is trying to get us to see that unless we understand the biblical connection between truth and love, and unless we are walking in truth and in love, we will never respond to these deceivers and antichrists as God intends. John shows us that our response to them is extremely important to God! So important, that a wrong response will even have a profound impact on us at the Judgment Seat of Christ!
Verse 8 says that we put ourselves in a position of losing rewards that we have already wrought, or rewards that we have already attained through our previous work!
Verse 9 actually lets us know who and when TO love, and who and when NOT TO love. He tells us specifically that truth limits the expression of our love toward those who “transgress” the “doctrine of Christ”. In other words, when dealing with those who do not teach that Jesus Christ is God in a sinless human body, we are to apply the teaching of verse 10: not letting them in our house and not telling them “God bless you.” To do otherwise, John says in verse 11, is to become a “partaker” in their “evil deeds.” (These verses are obviously in reference to someone who comes to you on a mission to propagate false doctrine, and not simply those who may have been deceived by false teachers.)
As we move into the book of 3rd John, we observe three main characters: Gaius, Diotrephes, and Demetrius. John shows us:
- The EXCELLENCE of GAIUS in verses 1-8
- The EVIL OF DIOTREPHES in verses 9-10, and
- The ELEVATION OF DEMETRIUS in verses 11-14.
As we read this little book today, perhaps a question each of us needs to consider is: “Which of these three characters am I most like: Gaius, Diotrephes, or Demetrius?
As we then make our way into the book of Jude, recognize that from an HISTORICAL standpoint, this little book was written to Jewish believers, charging them to “earnestly contend for the faith,” and to endure until the coming of the Lord Jesus, their Messiah.
From a DOCTRINAL (prophetic) standpoint, it is written to Tribulation saints to help them identify the antichrist and his “ministers”, and to “earnestly contend for the faith” as they await the Second Coming of their Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ.
From a DEVOTIONAL (practical) standpoint, the book of Jude teaches us that if we are eagerly awaiting the return of our Lord Jesus Christ, we will also be “earnestly contend[ing] for the faith.” May that be our testimony in these dark and perilous last days!