EPISODE 164 2nd JOHN "True or False

Welcome to Share the Word. In this podcast, we are once again excited to have Margie Biasado behind the microphone, bringing out the big idea of John's second epistle. The apostle whom Jesus loved is focused on the truth and love, and speaks about that love for the chosen lady and her children. What does that mean? Well, keep listening and find out that and so much more. Hi, I'm Margie, and this is Share the Word.

Today's lesson is 2 John, and it is titled True or False. Have you ever been fooled by anything fake? With today's AI technology, people can change the appearance of almost anything. Hey, I get fooled by Snapchat, but maybe that's just me. My friend Linda Sweeney tells a story about a woman who fooled everyone, even her own husband, with her appearance. One night, as she was readying for bed, she decided to let him in on the illusion.

She stood before the mirror and began putting pieces of herself into the drawer. First, she removed her hair extensions. Then she removed her long dark eyelashes. Then she removed her baby blue contacts from her brown eyes. Then she removed all of her makeup, including her beauty mark. Then she removed the dental piece that hid the gap in her teeth.

Next, she removed all of her, well, shall we say, body-enhancing equipment, some that added and some that subtracted. And what did she finally see, looking back at her in the mirror? Truth. After watching all of this dismantling, her unsuspecting husband said, Wow, I'm not sure if I should crawl into bed with you or that drawer. Well, of course, the apostle John in Second John is not discussing makeup, but he is discussing truth versus untruth and real versus counterfeit. John identifies himself in verse 1 as the elder, most likely because he functioned as an elder leader in the young church, but also because he's quite elderly.

Scholars put his age somewhere between 90 and 95 years old at the time. Even though the earliest Christian writers did not quote extensively from this book, they did no doubt know who had written it. Additionally, the language and the style bear significant similarities to the Gospel of John and the letter First John. Apart from the apostle Paul, the apostle John wrote more individual books that eventually became part of the New Testament than any other writer. He wrote five books: the Gospel of John, First John, Second John, Third John, and the Book of Revelation. Because he is not only one of the key authors of the New Testament, but is also part of the inner circle of Jesus's disciples, these books are held in high esteem.

Second John undoubtedly experienced a limited circulation in comparison with the other books of the New Testament. Due to its brevity and the fact that most of what it teaches can also be found in First John, it was not widely referenced in the writings of the early church fathers. John spent a great part of his last days in the city of Ephesus, just prior to the outbreak of persecution under Domitian, A.D. 95. So, like 1 John, this letter was probably written from Ephesus close to A.D. 90.

The recipients of this letter are described in a rather unique and confusing manner as the chosen lady and her children. There are two points of view that dominate the discussion. The first assumption is that the language indicates an actual unnamed woman designated as a chosen lady. The second point of view argues that John was addressing an individual church, pictured in the feminine gender as chosen by God and having many members referred to as her children. Now, if the second view is correct, then the words in verse 13, the children of your chosen sister, would refer to the members of another church, a sister church, so to speak. The evidence is inconclusive on both sides.

But what is clear is that John knew these people to whom he was writing, and there was great love between them. The first thing that John does in this little letter is commend his readers for their consistent walk in truth. To walk in fellowship with God is to walk in the truth of God, and they were doing it very well. But truth as a lifestyle does not stand alone. Love must be added. In fact, John's opening statement says, To the chosen lady and her children, whom I love in truth.

Love is so important that he mentions it five times in six verses. Loving one another is not just good for human relationships, but it is a command from God. Tradition says that John lived in Ephesus to such an old age that he could not walk to the church on his own strength, but had to be carried by his disciples. He also had difficulty speaking, so he very rarely spoke at the meetings. And when he did say something, he would simply say, Little children, love one another. Apparently, the disciples and the church fathers grew tired of hearing the same repeated words and asked, Master, why do you always say this?

It is the Lord's command, was his reply. And if this be done, it is enough. However, this type of love must be discerning. False teachers roamed around the countryside in the early days of the church. Many of them were quite persuasive and easily infiltrated the church with error. Not only were the recipients of this letter told to keep an eye out for false teachers, but they were also told not to allow them to even enter their homes.

Hospitality extends just so far, and the teachers of untruth were beyond the reach of hospitality. So the sub-theme of Second John would be to shun false teachers. Unfortunately, there are people in our time that do the same thing. Many of them are members of Christian cults. They look good. They may even sound sweet, but they peddle lies.

Some even travel door to door misrepresenting the truth. They give partial truth mixed with their brand of church teaching. And remember that a partial truth is a whole lie. Do not entertain them or their notions, encourages John. John warned them in verse seven that these false teachers were deceivers working for the Antichrist. Now this seems like strong language, because it is strong language.

John loved and cared about these children of faith, and he loved and cared about the truth. These counterfeiters were dangerous and intimidating. John warns not to even greet them, let alone invite them into your home. Hey, the same goes for us. These folks are convincing and practiced in the art of deception and manipulation. It is so important to know the truth so that you can recognize the lie.

Because of John's great love, he was cautioning them strongly to avoid the false teachers, which points to the importance of watching out for false doctrine. It is said that John held to this belief so strongly that once, while he was in the public baths, he saw a man who was the head of a heretical sect in the bathhouse. So he jumped up and ran from the building, partially clothed, just to avoid being in the guy's presence. In other words, John practiced what he preached. Scholar William Barclay presents a very accurate picture of what was happening at the time in the early churches. He says, These teachers could easily pass themselves off as prophets, because prophets, both legitimate and illegitimate, were wandering teachers, rather than teachers who settled within a community.

So as wanderers, these false teachers could roam until they found a locale that gave them just a hint of an open door reception. As skilled as they were at worming their way in, they were soon not only teaching heresy, but teaching heresy from the comfort and support of some unsuspecting person's home. Barclay recalls that even the pagan writers recognized this pattern. Greek writer Lucian and his Peregrinus tells of just such a character. Lucian describes this false teacher as an itinerant charlatan who lived on the fat of the land by traveling around to various communities of the Christians, settling down wherever he liked, and living luxuriously at their expense. The Didache, a Greek handbook of instructions on morals and church order, which was most likely written in the first century A.D., records lengthy and strict instructions on how to deal with this kind of a person.

Sadly, because it was so common. And it reads, If a person such as this was not willing to labor and to work as well as teach, the church was to have nothing to do with him. In fact, the Didache invented a word to describe such a person. They called him a Christmonger, that is a trafficker in Christ. False teaching and false doctrine were most likely the biggest problems facing these little churches when John wrote this book. It is said that the FBI do not study false bills, but instead they study the real thing so that they can recognize a counterfeit.

The same is true with Scripture. Knowing the real thing helps you to recognize the fake. Knowing the truth helps you to recognize the lie and those who walk in lies. Walking in truth is such an important issue for John that he used the word truth five times in the first four verses. And it's not just that John finds truth important or worth knowing. I mean, geniuses of every generation seem to debate and discuss truth: playwrights, novelists, poets, moralists, journalists, philosophers.

Aristotle is quoted as saying, Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is the truth. But what John is referring to is knowing the truth, and it is the Bible that gives us God's insight on the truth. Psalm 119:60, David says, The sum of your word is truth. And in John 8:32, Jesus says, You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free. That is the truth that brings the Apostle John such joy in verse 4. He says, I was overjoyed to find some of your children walking in truth.

Recently, I met with a very godly gal who had two children who walked away from truth and two children that held fast to truth. As brokenhearted as she was regarding the two kids that had been deceived and led astray, she was equally overjoyed with the two kids who knew the truth, loved the truth, and served the truth. Whether it's physical kids or spiritual kids, it does a parent's heart good to know that the truth has set their kiddos free, rather than hearing that they have become enslaved with destructive lies and false doctrine. Like with the FBI, we must know the truth to recognize the counterfeit. Not long ago, a beautiful young lady from our area disengaged from a very legalistic so-called Christian church. They claim to know the truth, but there is very little love, joy, fruit, or freedom evident in its members.

They bind their parishioners with laws and rules, with shame and guilt. The compulsory discipleship costs the recruits time, money, dignity, and peace. The false teacher's lies are detrimental and bring devastating consequences, which lead to death, not life abundant, as promised by Jesus. As previously mentioned, the Apostle John's other focus in 2 John was the command to love one another, which is found in verse 5. Now I ask you, lady, not as though I were writing to you a new commandment, but the one which we have from the beginning, that we love one another. And again in verse 6, he says, And this is love, that we walk according to His commands.

To John, this was not a new commandment, as Jesus had made it very clear that His mission was to save and to love. Jesus reminded His followers that they will know you are My disciples if you love one another. He declared, with the first and the second commandment, Love your God with all your heart, your soul, your strength, and your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. His parting plea to the disciples was, Love one another as I have loved you. To love is not always easy. Fortunately, Jesus left us the Holy Spirit to enable and empower us to love as He loved.

And He set the example for us to follow. He did not love us because of our goodness, or our kindness, faithfulness, our sinlessness, our generosity, or our perfection. No. He loves us in spite of the fact that we fall short in every one of those areas. He loves us even though we do not love Him back. We cannot do anything to make Him love us more, and we cannot do anything to make Him love us less.

He just simply chooses to love us, and that is why He commands us to love one another. Robert Munch's book, I'll Love You Forever, I'll Like You for Always, features a mother who faithfully and lovingly serenades her son throughout his life. Despite her son's mistakes, rudeness, unkindness, and neglect, she continues to love him. Regardless of his distance, emotionally or geographically, she continues to choose to pursue him and serenades him with this love song: I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always, as long as I'm living, my baby you will be. When he becomes a grown-up man, she still carries on singing to him until finally the roles are reversed, and the son lifts his dying mother and begins to sing: I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always, as long as I'm living, my mommy you will be.

The aged apostle was urgent and steadfast in his spiritual parental role, pursuing and loving these spiritual children in the same way that Mama loved her son. Perhaps it's similar to the way God pursued John as a young man through His Son, Jesus the Christ. John even referred to himself as the disciple whom Jesus loved. And it's the same way John is asking that little old church to pursue one another in truth and in love. Though it is the second smallest book of the Bible, Second John packs an important and eternal punch. Just like the wife laid bare the truth before her husband, John lays bare the truth before his beloved children.

And it is a truth no less timely. We need to be discerning, to be on guard against false teaching, and to be loving towards one another. This is Share the Word. I'm Margie, and thank you for listening. Thank you, Margie. Have you noticed that whether we talk about the Apostle Paul or John, they were constantly challenged by false teachers who not only challenged their authority, but more importantly, they challenged the teachings of Jesus.

They used the apostles' absence to their benefit, and the truth was subjective, and they twisted it just enough that it sounded right. But these false teachers counted on these young Christians to not know any better. They were manipulating the truth to achieve their goal. And John was so right. He was right about if you could simply love one another, our lives would not be wasted. There are false teachers today, and I challenge you, no, I implore you, to make sure you're able to recognize them.

How do you do that? Know the truth of God's Word emphatically and imprint it on your heart. From all of us at Share the Word, our blessings and prayers go out to all of you.