Today, I am reading and commenting on  2 John, 3 John, and Jude.

Often times when I comment on passages from different books of the Bible I will separate my blog entry into different sections on each.  I have done that in the past for today’s passages.  However, today I want to comment on the theme which runs through all three.  All three warn us against those who claim to be Believers but preach untruths.  In his second letter (the first of the two we read today), John reminds us that the root of Gospel teaching tells us to live lives filled with love, to allow love to guide all of our actions.  He then warns us against false teachers who refuse to acknowledge that Jesus actually came in the flesh.  If Jesus did not live at the time and place which the Bible proclaims, then nothing in the New Testament is of any value.  In his third letter, John warns against those who spread malicious falsehoods about others in order to keep those over whom they hold sway from being influenced by the thoughts of others.  Then we have the letter from Jude.  Jude warns against those who pervert God’s grace as an excuse for immorality.  He warns us that these people reject authority and heap abuse on celestial beings in ways that even the archangel Michael would not do against the devil.  We can recognize those that these writers warn against because they cause division, boast about their own accomplishments, and flatter others (an important point about flattery is that it is designed to make you feel that you are better than others and can look down on them).  Throughout these letters the writers remind us of the importance of God’s love: these false teachers do not practice love towards others and by practicing love towards others we can thwart their false teachings.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Merry Christmas!

Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 John, 3 John, and Jude.

John’s two letters which we are reading today and Jude’s letter were written to different people.  Yet, all three letters have much the same theme.  The writer in each of these letters emphasizes the importance of loving our fellow believers and not following false teachers.  In fact, I read them as saying that loving our fellow believers will aid us in resisting the teachings of false teachers.  The writers also seem to suggest that following these false teachers leads us to not love our fellow believers.  Each letter also gives us guidance about the sorts of things which false teachers will teach.  In the first letter, John warns us against those who teach that Jesus did not have a physical body, that it is the teachings which are attributed to Jesus which matter, not His actual existence.  In the second letter, John tells us that false teachers will discourage us from listening to anyone but them.  They try to silence all opinions which might run counter to their own.   In the third letter we are reading today, Jude gives us a series of behaviors, each of which provides a warning that someone may be a false teacher..  First, they live immoral lives.  Any one who claims to teach the Gospel, but lives an immoral life is a false teacher.  The other behaviors, while not individually decisive indicators, give us warning signs that a teacher may be teaching false doctrine.  They grumble and complain, they brag loudly about themselves, they flatter others to get what they want from them.  We should also take Jude’s letter as a warning against allowing such behaviors in ourselves.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Merry Christmas!

Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 John, 3 John, and Jude

Reading these three short letters today I was struck by how well they fit together, despite Jude being written by a different writer and intended for a different audience.  In the first of them, John’s second letter, he connects loving one another with truth.  Right there is a point worth an entire post about.  We do not know the truth if we do not love one another and we cannot love one another if we do not know the truth.  We know that John is making this point because he says that he wrote to remind us to love one another and then a few sentences later he writes that this needs to be said because of those who were teaching that the truth was incorrect.

In John’s third letter he commends the one to whom he writes for providing loving support for traveling preachers, despite the opposition of a Church leader local to that person.  He clearly suggests that that person is both a false teacher and someone who does not love others.  Which neatly transitions us to Jude’s letter.  Jude writes of those who claim to be followers of Christ, but teach that God’s grace allows us to live immoral lives.  I do not think I would see it if I did not read Jude’s letter together with these two from John, but Jude tells us that those who teach that we can live immorally because of God’s grace do so out of a selfish failure to love others.  They teach that we must be accepting of immoral behavior because we loves and should even indulge in immoral behavior as an expression of love.  Many of them even claim that calling people to live moral lives is divisive.  Jude writes that the divisive ones are those promoting immorality. 

I want to add one comment about my title.  You cannot know the truth if you do not love others and you will not love others if you do not know the truth.  As you learn to know the truth you will come to love others and if you genuinely love others you will come to know the truth.  However, many people start out seeking the truth and fail to truly learn it because they are unwilling to love at least some other people and many other people seek to love others but stumble because they are unwilling to accept the truth.