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2 John 1:6b

Published on October 9, 2001 in 2 John. 1 Comment
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“This is love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the commandment, that as you have heard from the beginning, you should walk in it.”
 
This is the commandment,
God’s command is a statement of His will.  Love for other Christians is doing the will of God.  All of God’s commands issue out of love and actions that manifest love.  We see love for each other in applying truth to experience.  God’s truth opens up the nature of true love. 
that as you have heard from the beginning,
God gives the content of love by revelation.  He states the nature of love in propositions in His Word; therefore, love is more than sentimental relationship. 
PRINCIPLE:  Love is more than sentiment for it also involves content. 
APPLICATION:  Man cannot artificially produce divine love by keeping the law.  This is not true love for God.  Self-justification is not love.  A truly regenerate person loves God and seeks to please Him.
  • Facts that are not frankly faced have a way of stabbing us in the back.
  • It is twice as hard to crush a half-truth as a whole lie.
  • Truth is what God says about a thing.
  • Beware of half-truths; you may get hold of the wrong half.
  • Nothing is more harmful to a new truth than an old error.
All of God’s principles have intrinsic value since they come from an absolute being.  Any violation of them constitutes sin. 
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2 John 1:6

Published on October 8, 2001 in 2 John. 0 Comments
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“This is love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the commandment, that as you have heard from the beginning, you should walk in it.”
 
The blessed circular logic of verses 5 and 6 shows how love and the application of truth to experience are vitally tied together.  
 
·   Applying God’s principle to experience produces love (v. 5)
·   Love in turn produces application of truth to experience (v. 6a)
·   Application of God’s Word to experience produces love (v. 6b)
This is love,
To allay any doubt about the nature of Christian love, John declares that love is in essence applying God’s Word to experience.  Love consists in appropriating God’s Word to experience.  Love finds its manifestation in responding to God’s will. 
1 Jn 5: 2 “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments. 3 For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.”
that we walk according to His commandments.
We love other Christians the best when we do God’s will.  John interprets love and application of truth to experience in terms of their reciprocal relationship between each other. 
Jn 14: 15 “If you love Me, keep My commandments…. 21 “He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.”
Jn 15: 10 “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. 11 “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. 12 “This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”
PRINCIPLE: Incomplete response to God’s will is derived from incomplete love for God. 
 
APPLICATION: Love outside the standards of God’s will and Word can sink into sentimentality.  A believer who truly loves God walks “in the truth” (v. 4). Conformity to truth is proof that we love the Lord. 
 
Joshua 1: 8 “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.”
 
Jn 13: 17 “If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.”
Ja 1: 22 “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.”
Don’t believe in love at first sight – at least take a second glance!  Shakespeare said, “Love reasons without reason.”  That is the opposite of what God says.  God says that love always contains content. 
Love makes obedience light.  Divine love on the part of the believer bestows benefit on the object of his redemption – the Lord Jesus.  Keeping God’s will out of a sense of duty and with little love for God is not true love.  True love is response to God from the heart. 
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2 John 1:5

Published on October 7, 2001 in 2 John. 0 Comments
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“And now I plead with you, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment to you, but that which we have had from the beginning: that we love one another.”
 
The thrust of John’s argument is that Christians should be wary with their hospitality.  False teachers were roaming the territory, and people committed to truth should not give hospitality to them.  Before he sounds a warning about this, he challenges Christians to practice divine love. 
John reasons in a circle in verses 5 and 6.  Application of truth to experience results in love toward other Christians (v. 5).  Love also lives according to God’s principles (v. 6).  God tightly weaves together love with living according to the principles of His Word. 
And now
With the word “now,” John turns to the main thrust of the letter – the relationship between truth and love.  The church in Ephesus stood in peril of false teaching, and love without truth puts the church in danger. 
I plead with you, lady,
“Plead” is more authoritative than “beseech.”  It is directly personal and not an exhortation.  It is a request among equals.  John requests that this influential lady manifests genuine biblical love, not phony or sentimental love toward the false teachers. 
not as though I wrote a new commandment to you,
The content of the “new commandment” is to “love one another.”  This is not a “new” commandment in that it did not originate with the apostle John.  It originated with the Lord Jesus
Mt 22: 37 “Jesus said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 ‘This is the first and great commandment. 39 ‘And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 “On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.’”
Jn 13: 34 “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. 35 “By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Ro 13: 10 “Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.”
1 Jn 2: 7 “Brethren, I write no new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which you heard from the beginning.”
but that which we have had from the beginning:
John identifies himself with the lady and her children by “we have had.” The commandment they had was from the beginning of Jesus’ earthly ministry.
that we love one another
The words “one another” indicate reciprocity.  True believers reciprocate love shown to them by fellow Christians. 
1 Jn 3: 11 “For this is the message that you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another…”
John exhorts his readers no less than ten times in his writings to love each other.  He places great emphasis on this subject because of its importance to the integrity of Christianity. 
PRINCIPLE:  We measure the integrity of our Christianity by our love for one another. 
APPLICATION:  It appears that we are very slow to learn how to love one another.  It seems that if we do disagree, then we cannot agree on the spirit in which to disagree.  True love seeks a way to be constructive in a negative situation.  This love does not seek to possess or control the other person. 
The most difficult thing God calls upon believers to do is to love one another.  We can trace most relationship problems among Christians to lack of love.  Some of us do truly love but we do not know how to show it.  Some men love their wives but do not know how to declare it.  It is always crucial for lovers to express their love and demonstrate their love.  We violate biblical love if we take it for granted.  “Well, she knows that I love her.”  If that is so, then tell her how.  Does she have to guess that you love her? 
Jn 15: 17 “These things I command you, that you love one another.”
1 Co 13: 1 “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.”
1 Pe 4: 8 “And above all things have fervent love for one another, for ‘love will cover a multitude of sins.’”
Love presents the patent test of the genuineness of belief.  Love is hard to counterfeit.  We can tell whether our belief is genuine by the nature of our love. 
True love does not lie beyond the sphere of action.  Love as an emotion or sentiment has no accountability.  Faith applies truth to experience.  It is a response to the grace of God in Christ.  Love does not come by a resolve to obey God but from trust in Him and acting on that trust. 
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2 John 1:4c

Published on October 6, 2001 in 2 John. 0 Comments
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“I rejoiced greatly that I have found some of your children walking in truth, as we received commandment from the Father.”
 
as we received commandment from the Father
 
Faithfulness to God’s commandment is the foundation of true Christian living. The lady’s children of 2nd John made a close correspondence between how they lived their lives and God’s commandment or His Word. 
 
True Christianity cannot separate truth, love and application of truth to experience. Love without truth is mere sentiment. Application of truth to experience without love is simply ceremony. Truth must always direct our love. 
 
Ga 2: 5 “…to whom we did not yield submission even for an hour, that the truth of the gospel might continue with you.”
 
Ga 3: 1 O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified?”
 
Ga 5: 7 “You ran well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth?”
 
Ep 6: 14 “Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness…”
 
2 Th 2: 10 “…and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved.”
 
2 Ti 2: 15 “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”
 
1 Pe 1: 22 “Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart, 23 having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever…”
 
PRINCIPLE:  Faithfulness to God’s Word is the foundation of Christian living. 
APPLICATION:  Love without application of truth to experience is mere sentiment.  It is deficient of reality.  Service without love is servility.  True Christianity harmonizes doctrinal orientation to truth and living truth out in experience. 
Continuance is proof of conversion.  The evidence of divine life is when people live out what they believe. 
Jn 8: 31 “Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, ‘If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. 32 ‘And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.’”
Jn 15: 9 “As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love.”
Co 1: 23 “…if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which was preached to every creature under heaven, of which I, Paul, became a minister.”
1 Jn 2: 19 “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us.”
There is a point when children are too old for parents to do anything about their lifestyles.  All they can do then is to hold them up before the Lord. 
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2 John 1:4b

Published on October 5, 2001 in 2 John. 0 Comments
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“I rejoiced greatly that I have found some of your children walking in truth, as we received commandment from the Father.”

 

walking in truth,
 
Fidelity to truth is a core Christian value.  John discovered on his travels that the lady’s children of 2nd John lived out their Christianity.  They went on with the Lord.  Nothing delights the hearts of parents more than to know that their children walk with the Lord. 
 
Walking is a figure of speech for living.  Walking in the truth is living in the truth.  Walking in the truth is more than obtaining a corpus of doctrine. Christianity is more than an intellectual exercise.  It should be something that shapes our attitudes and behavior.  Truth shapes total conduct by internalizing its principles.
1 Jn 1: 6 “If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.”
Ro 10: 2 “For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. 3 For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God.”
PRINCIPLE: Fidelity to truth is a core Christian value. 
 
APPLICATION:  The Word of God directs and molds our values and attitudes toward life.  If we apply the Word to our experience daily, it will change us and make us more like the Lord Jesus.  God gives us divine life that He might mold us into the image of Christ. God will reproduce the life of Christ in us. 
 
Ga 1: 15 “But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, 16 to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood…”
 
Ga 4: 19 “My little children, for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you…”
The Word of God will also cast light on the dark places where God calls us to walk. 
2 Co 4: 2 “But we have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.”
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2 John 1:4

Published on October 4, 2001 in 2 John. 0 Comments
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“I rejoiced greatly that I have found some of your children walking in truth, as we received commandment from the Father.”
 
I rejoiced greatly
 
John’s joy comes from the fact that the woman’s children, to whom he wrote 2nd John, walked in the truth. 
 
that I have found some of your children
False teachers made inroads into the Christian community but some believers walked according to the truth of God’s revelation, His Word.  Second generation Christians often wane from the faithful passion of their parents. 
Ephesus was a great center for learning.  It was the seat of philosophy, science and medicine.  Some children of Christian parents may have fallen from the faith because of this schooling.  Others came to Ephesus for business because it was a prosperous seaport. There was active nightlife, and crime was rampant throughout the city.  Pagan religions dominated the landscape.  There were many reasons why some children fell from the faith in Ephesus. 
PRINCIPLE:  Children, even in their adulthood, generally do not rise above the level of their parents spiritually. 
 
APPLICATION:  Parental responsibility goes beyond intellectual, social and physical care of children.  Children need moral and spiritual direction.  It is no excuse to say that my children do not like church or the youth group.  God commands parents to guide their children responsibly while they are under their care. Children may not like the fact that you require them to come home at a reasonable hour but you make that standard anyway.  They may not want to go to school but you send them anyway. You say, “If I place high standards for my children, they may rebel against me.”  That is a possibility but there is a much greater possibility that if you do not provide high standards for them they will rebel against you and the Lord.
 
Pr 22: 6 “Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it.”
We can claim the promise that “he will not depart from it.”  That means that if we inculcate
Christian values in our children, those values will never leave them.  All of the excursions in the world will not eradicate that training.  They may rebel against the Lord but they will always carry Christian values with them.
You may ask, “Where did I make my mistake with my children?  Why did they go astray?”  In some cases, there may be no answers to that question.  In other cases, there are.  Some parents set the values of their children by living out their own values. If their primary value is acquiring possessions, their children will pick that up.  If the Lord is second, then their children will put God second or third in their lives. 
Your daughter will be just like you, mother.  Your son will be just like you, father.  They will hold the same attitudes as you do toward the Bible, toward God, toward values in life.  They will talk like you and they will walk like you.  If you become inebriated, they will become drunkards as well.  If you don’t read the Bible and apply it to your life, they will not do so, either.  Water seldom rises higher than its source.  There are exceptions to this but we are presenting the general pattern here. 
It breaks the hearts of some parents to find that their children no longer walk in the truth.  The Lord is secondary and trivialized in their lives. 
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2 John 1:3e

Published on October 3, 2001 in 2 John. 0 Comments
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“Grace, mercy, and peace will be with you from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love.”
 
in truth and love
We experience grace, mercy and peace in the sphere of truth and love.  Truth and love are the conditions for grace, mercy and peace.  The Christian walk rests on truth and is demonstrated in love. 
Truth makes love discerning so love never undermines truth.  Love moderates truth so that truth does not show itself in harshness.  Fellowship always revolves around both truth and love.  Truth is the sphere of principle and love is the sphere of attitude and action.  Truth makes genuine love viable. 
PRINCIPLE:  God always conditions love by truth. 
APPLICATION:  We can emphasize love at the expense of truth and we can emphasize truth at the expense of love.  Love must always be predicated on truth.  Giving material aid without the context of truth is not a Christian act.  Propagation of error in the name of love is not truth!  That is simply sentimentality. 
In an attempt to unite religions into an ecumenical movement, some religionists try to reduce the things they believe to almost zero.  They cannot tolerate truth.  The Bible repudiates such ideas. 
Ep 4: 15 “…but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ…”
Jesus is truth personified.  He is the love of God wrapped up as one incredible gift of God. 
Jn 14: 6 “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.’”
Ep 4: 20 “But you have not so learned Christ, 21 if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus…”
Jesus is also the personification of love.
2 Co 9: 15 “Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!”
1 Ti 1: 5 “Now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith…”
2 Ti 2: 15 “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”
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2 John 1:3d

Published on October 2, 2001 in 2 John. 0 Comments
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“Grace, mercy, and peace will be with you from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love.”
 
from God the Father
John assures his readers of the source of their grace, mercy and peace.  Note the two occurrences of the word “from.”  We do not get the three spiritual commodities of grace, mercy and peace from the natural world.  They do not originate down here.  The Father is one of two fountainheads of grace, mercy and peace. 
The New Testament regularly uses the formula “God the Father.”  There is no confusion on this issue.  God is the Creator of everyone but the Father of few. 
Mt 7: 21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.”
Jn 1: 12 “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: 13 who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”
and from the Lord Jesus Christ,
The two givers (the Father and the Son) are equal givers – “from” (immediate personal source). 
the Son of the Father,
This unique statement is the only occurrence of the phrase “the Son of the Father” in the New Testament.  John designates this title here to put stress on the Incarnation of Christ.  The Father and Son are coeternal and coequal.  There never was nor ever will be anyone like God the Son. 
PRINCIPLE:  God is the only source of grace, mercy and peace. 
APPLICATION:  We do not get grace, mercy and peace in college or university.  Professors there know nothing about these things.  The tools they chose for arriving at truth will not allow them to discover these wonderful spiritual commodities.  The only source of these spiritual commodities is found in God. 
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2 John 1:3c

Published on October 1, 2001 in 2 John. 0 Comments
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“Grace, mercy, and peace will be with you from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love.”
 
and peace
 
“Peace” is the internal tranquility that God gives to those who fellowship with Him.  Peace brings harmony to the soul.  There is no mercy until first God extends His grace.  There is no peace until first God extends His mercy.  Peace always follows grace and mercy. 
 
will be with you
It is the believer’s birthright to daily live in God’s grace, mercy and peace. These three spiritual commodities are available to us at any moment  in which we choose to draw upon them. 
PRINCIPLE:  Peace flows from God’s grace and mercy. 
 
APPLICATION:  Every Christian has peace with God (Ro 5:1).  Jesus resolved that issue once and for all.  He settled that issue at the cross.  However, not every Christian has the peace “of God” (Ph 4:6-7).  Non-Christians try to find peace by drowning their heartaches in booze or drugs.  They hate their lives.  They can’t wait until they can drown their sorrows.  That is sublimation and escapism.  They will never find peace in sublimation. Neither will Christians find peace in sublimation.  They must come to grips with their problems and turn them over to the Lord.  What is eating you? Who is giving you grief?  What is your problem?  Do you know that God is tapping His foot waiting for you come to Him?  Peace comes to us when we trust in Him. 
 
Is 26: 3 “You will keep him in perfect peace, Whose mind is stayed onYou, Because he trusts in You.”
Jn 14: 27 “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”
Jn 16: 33 “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”
Ro 15: 13 “Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peacein believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
1 Th 5: 23 “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
God is the God of peace. 
Ro 15: 33 Now the God of peace be with you all. Amen.”
Ro 16: 20 “And the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen.”
Ph 4: 9 “The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the b>God of peace will be with you.”
He 13: 20 “Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, 21 make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.”
Peace comes when we allow the Holy Spirit to fill us.
Ga 5: 22 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness…”
Co 3: 15 “And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful.”
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2 John 1:3b

Published on September 30, 2001 in 2 John. 0 Comments
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“Grace, mercy, and peace will be with you from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love.”
 
mercy,
Grace precedes mercy.  “Mercy” is God’s compassion toward us.  God freely pardons violation of His character.  Mercy assumes need on the part of the subject. 
La 3: 22  “Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed,
Because His compassions fail not.
23  They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.”
PRINCIPLE:  Mercy freely flows out of God’s grace. 
APPLICATION:  Mercy is akin to grace but it is not identical to grace.  Mercy flows from God’s grace.  The reason God can be merciful toward us is because of the finished work of Christ on the cross. 
Sometimes parents cannot do anything for their children.  All they can do is “pity” them–show compassion to them.  There are times when we cannot nurse them or put a bandage on them. 
2 Sa 24: 14 “And David said to Gad, ‘I am in great distress. Please let us fall into the hand of the Lord, for His mercies are great; but do not let me fall into the hand of man.’”
Ps 23: 6 “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
All the days of my life;
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord
Forever.”
Ps 85: 10 “Mercy and truth have met together;
Righteousness and peace have kissed.”
Ps 103: 8 “The Lord is merciful and gracious,
Slow to anger, and abounding in mercy.”
Ro 12: 1 “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.”
2 Co 1: 3 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort…”
Ep 2: 4 “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us…”
We need God’s mercy every day.  We must come to the throne of grace to confess sins daily. 
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