2 John

August 12, 2022

Thank you! – 71

In less than a week, I have finished reading and commenting on the Letter of 2 John.  I have now finished the New Testament four canonical gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, plus the Acts of the Apostles, and Paul’s letters to the Romans, as well 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians and 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, and Hebrews.  I have also finished the Letter of James, 1 Peter and 2 Peter, and now 1 John and 2 John.  Every time I finish commenting on a book of the Bible, I send a thank you blog.  I usually post five blogs a day covering a verse of the biblical books.  So far, I have posted over 15,730 blogs about the individual paragraphs of all the 46 books of the Old Testament, plus the individual verses of the first 24 books of the New Testament.  It has taken me nine years to get this done, since I first began in 2013.

262 people follow this blog every day.  Many people have visited this site.  There have been over 83,000 hits on this blog since its inception.  I just want to thank all of you.  Word Press sent me a compilation that showed that about 52,200 people from 174 other countries have visited this web site since its inception.

I realize that over 14,500 people have left comments in 2021, but I have not responded to them.  Some of you might want to moderate my comments, which is fine with me.  If you want to contact me directly, my email is efinne1540@gmail.com.

I want to thank all of you who have sent emails to me this past month, especially

Thank you to everyone.

Peace – love – joy

Eugene Finnegan

August 12, 2022

The antichrists (chapter 1)

This author talked about the antichrists and deceivers.  They do not acknowledge Jesus Christ in the flesh.  Do not lose what you have, your full eternal reward.  God is not with those who do remain with the teachings of Jesus Christ.  However, if you abide in Christ, then God is with you.  Do not greet people who do not bring the teaching of Christ, because to greet them is to participate in their wicked evil ways.  Do you greet people who are wicked?

August 11, 2022

The lady as a person

Another interpretation holds that the letter is addressed to a specific individual.  “κυρίᾳ”, the Greek word used here literally means lady as opposed to the masculine kyrie.  Kyria could actually be a name.  It is also possible that this refers to an individual but simply does not use her name.  Another theory is that this letter refers to Mary, the mother of Jesus.  Jesus had entrusted his “beloved disciple” with Mary’s life when he was on the cross, John, chapter 19:26–27.  The children would then refer to the brothers of Jesus.  Mary was likewise never referred to by name in John.  Such an interpretation would assume a much earlier date of composition than modern scholars have suggested.  Do you use the term “lady” to refer to an individual person?

August 11, 2022

The lady as a church

This letter of 2 John addressed “the elect lady and her children” and closed with the words, “The children of your elect sister greet you.”  Who is this lady?  She is commended for her piety, and warned against false teachers.  This lady has often been seen as a metaphor for a church community, the church being the body of believers as a whole and as a local congregation assembly.  The children would be members of that local group.  This writer also included a greeting from another church in the final verse.  The term “the elect” was a fairly common term for those who believed in the gospel and followed Christ.  Thus, this epistle was addressed to the church as a whole rather than to a single person.  This is true of the Catholic phrase, “Holy Mother Church”.  Have you ever heard the church called a lady?

August 11, 2022

Gnostics

The term Gnostic is very amorphous, as Gnostics were Jewish, Christian, and pagans.  Gnosticism’s beginnings and its relationship to Christianity are not well known, due to a lack of literature relating to the first interactions between Christians and Gnostics.  Gnosticism vehemently condemned anti-corporeal attitudes.  Certainly, during the second and third centuries these Gnostics were sufficiently vocal, persuasive, or numerous to warrant a strong rebuttal by the so-called orthodox Christian church writers.  Have you ever heard about Gnostics?

August 11, 2022

Antichrist teaching

This author had a clear warning against paying attention to those who say that Jesus was not a flesh-and-blood person.  Thus, from the time that this epistle was first written, there must have been those Christians who had a Docetic Christology.  They believed that the human person of Jesus was actually a pure spirit.  The doctrine of Docetism had made inroads among the followers of Jesus in the latter half of the first century.  Some said that Jesus never assumed human flesh, but only had the appearance of a human.  They were scandalized that God would soil himself by associating so closely with human matter. Others said that Christ was raised as a spirit only, and did not experience a bodily resurrection.  In this epistle, John condemned this doctrine in no uncertain terms with the statement that such people who taught like this were antichrists.  The term antichrist was only used in 1 John and 2 John in all the New Testament canonical writings.