The Epistles of John, Part 25: Choosing the Good Part

A story is told of two sisters.  These siblings shared a home together.  Responsibilities for the care and upkeep of their home were split between the two of them.  However, they had very different personalities.  One sister was detailed, no-nonsense, all business.  Her greatest priority in life was to see to it that things were accomplished in the most efficient and productive manner possible.  The other lady was fascinated by beauty.  Although she shared her sister’s desire to be responsible she often found herself distracted by the simple pleasures of life.  While her sister tended to have her sights set squarely upon the destination, this woman was delighted in the journey itself.

Needless to say, this difference of perspective led to some not insignificant contention between the two of them.  Not surprisingly, the conflict came to a head one day.  A dear friend was to visit their home.  This was a man of surpassing beauty.  Not so much in appearance but in character.  He was neither famous nor wealthy.  But he was possessed of a singular ability to love others that the sisters had rarely found in people.  And to top it off, their friend was exceedingly humble.  He never drew undue attention to himself.  He unfailingly put others first.  And when he visited they were always, without fail, the focus of his attention.  The sisters always felt like they were the center of his world when he was with them.  Needless to say, they were over the moon with excitement about his visit.

On this particular occasion their friend’s arrival was imminent and the sisters worked together to try to get everything ready for him.  They cleaned, they cooked, they straightened.  Unfortunately, despite their best efforts, all was not in order when he arrived.  And much to the first woman’s dismay, her sister, rather than continuing to help her get things in order, immediately dropped what she was doing and sat down with their friend to spend time with him.

Obviously, this seemed like the height of rudeness and inconsideration to the first sister.  While she continued to slave away, desperately trying to finish her work, her flighty sister just sat there in the presence of their friend.  And as she beheld the situation she grew increasingly frustrated and angry.  Finally, her irritation boiled over and she could contain herself no longer.  She marched up to the two of them and let loose with a heated plea for their friend to pay attention to the injustice of what was transpiring.  She thought to herself that surely this wonderful man, who always put others first, would see how unfair the situation was.

But instead, much to her chagrin, he responded quite differently than what she had expected.  We can read His response in Luke 10:41-42: But the Lord answered and said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.”

As I begin to contemplate the second epistle of John, I am reminded of this story of Martha and Mary from the Scriptures.  I find myself convinced that all too often, when it comes to studying the Bible, we unwittingly find ourselves in the shoes of Martha, hurriedly and mistakenly fixing our attention upon what is not of greatest significance.

But before we get to that, let us consider some details about this letter that John wrote.  Measured by words it is the second shortest book in the entire Bible, clocking in at only 219 words in the original language.  In our modern era we probably would not even call it a letter.  Instead it might be classified as a memo.  And what is particularly fascinating is that this ancient “memo” seems to have been between churches.  We will see this in verse 1, in a moment, but in a nutshell I believe the evidence points to John having sent this epistle from whatever church he was currently ministering at, to another church elsewhere in the world.  As such, by having 2^nd John in our Bibles we become privy to sort of a private communication between the leaders of two churches.  We get to listen in on their ancient discourse as the proverbial “fly on the wall”.

John opens with a typical salutation in verses 1 and 2: The elder to the chosen lady and her children, whom I love in truth; and not only I, but also all who know the truth, for the sake of the truth which abides in us and will be with us forever.  A number of points and questions must be addressed right off the bat.  First is the acknowledgement that this is classic Johannine style on display.  In almost all of his written works John consistently preferred not to refer to himself by name.  In the Gospel of John, he called himself “the disciple whom Jesus loved”.  In his first epistle, that we have already examined, he never even acknowledges himself at all.  Both 2^nd John and 3^rd John bear the moniker of simply “the elder”.  Revelation differs in that John does name himself as the author.  But the variance there is that he is merely relaying something on behalf of someone else; namely Christ.  He is serving as a messenger in Revelation, whereas in his other works he is communicating directly from his own person and initiative.

And in that context John fervently desires that he not be made much of.  He does not wish to draw attention to himself.  He does not want to distract from the single-minded fixation upon Jesus that he wants his readers to possess.  This is a principle that we would do well to pause and linger over.  Grand-standing and attention-seeking is the name of the game in our culture.  First place in line goes to the one bold enough to bypass others and then be dismissive of their outrage.  The best test results are obtained by the student crafty enough to cheat without being caught.  Sporting medals are won by the fastest, the strongest, the most agile.  Debates are dominated by the person who is the most adept with their tongues and brains.

Now, I acknowledge that much of the traditions of the United States still work against these types of sinful excesses.  Many parents continue to teach their children to be honorable.  Public education systems resoundingly condemn and punish any form of cheating.  Corporations write codes of ethical business conduct, expecting their employees to abide by the principles set forth, and terminating those who are found to violate them.

But my point is that this is window dressing.  The dominant school of thought in the modern secular, affluent, and educated world is that of natural selection, otherwise known as evolution.  The full title of the book published by Charles Darwin in 1859 that launched modern evolutionary thought is “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life.”  Implicit in the title of his book is the idea that nature favors certain races over others, selects them for adaptation to their environment, resulting in one race surviving while another dies out.  In crude terms it is the principle of “survival of the fittest” or “only the strong survive”.

Regardless of cultural mores pointing the other direction, toward humility, the mass of modern humanity is going to be impacted tremendously by an evolutionary, and therefore essentially prideful, foundational understanding of how life works.  This is particularly evident if the rest of the world outside of the United States is considered.  For all of its faults, its depravity, its rapidly accelerating slide into debauchery and godlessness, America is in some ways still governed by basic tenets found in the Bible such as honor and humility.  But if you replace this implicit assumption of theism with an explicit enforcement of atheism and humanism you get countries such as Russia and China.

All one has to do in order to see this is look at the leadership of the countries mentioned.  There is an aura of unrepentant and unapologetic self-interest inherent in their actions and attitudes toward the rest of the world.  The phrase “might makes right” comes to mind as a description of their state agendas and policies.  Pertinent to this discussion is the reality that these countries were influenced by the systematic and comprehensive elimination of spirituality from their collective consciousness under communism.  They exist now in a mostly theistic vacuum that exalts man and finds no place for anything other than the supremacy of the creature rather than the creator.  In other words, they present a raw and unfiltered glimpse of the pride of the human heart played out on a national scale.

So, do not be too quick to gloss over John’s desire to consciously and deliberately be humble.  You live in a world that is guaranteed to be increasingly opposed to such attributes.  This world and its propaganda, in the form of media, entertainment, and politics, may well be influencing your thoughts and attitudes toward biblical principles in ways you are not even aware of.  I am mindful of Colossians 2:8 at this point: See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. 

Most dangerous of all is the reality that these factors are perfectly designed and suited to play upon your own ingrained lust for pride and desire for autonomy.  As the prophet famously wrote in Jeremiah 17:9: “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?” Don’t think that this curse does not apply to you and that you are not susceptible to the basic predilection of all humans to pride and arrogance.  Cast your mind and your heart upon John’s example.  It is well worth your time to follow in his footsteps.

Now then, in considering John’s salutation in this letter a question emerges.  Namely, who is the addressee.  He writes “to the chosen lady and her children.”  On the surface, taking the words at face value, it might seem that the apostle is writing to a specific woman, perhaps a widow, along with her family.  But I think this is not likely and there is a better explanation that fits the text and the clues given to us more closely.  I alluded to it earlier.  I believe John, in a position of leadership at whatever church he was ministering in at the time, is writing to the leadership of another sister church regarding the fallout resulting from a split in the church at large over Christology, or the doctrine of Christ. 

There are some very detailed and technical treatments of this view available on the Internet.  I am only going to skim the surface here.  And I am going to do it by focusing on four simple points.

First, it strikes me as odd that if John were writing to an individual Christian woman that he would refer to her as “the chosen lady”.  We can see in 3^rd John that he addresses his intended recipient by name.  So it seems strange to me that if he was writing to a female acquaintance of his that he would address her so mysteriously and impersonally.  John, throughout his first epistle, demonstrated a tremendous capacity for expressing, pursuing, and teaching the love of God.  Over and over he demonstrated his conviction that loving one another was of paramount importance in the life of a Christian.  So for him to turn around now and be so cold and impersonal raises a red flag for me.

Furthermore, notice the word he uses.  The English word “lady” in verse 1 is a translation of the Greek word “kuria” (kyoo-ree-ah).  This word is the feminine form of the word “kurios”, meaning lord or master.  It is used nowhere else in the New Testament, other than this letter.  So we have little evidence to compare with.  But we know that “kurios” is undeniably a term of respect and/or submission.  It connotes authority and/or power to the one to whom it is ascribed.  In point of fact, it is quite often used to refer to Christ Himself by several different New Testament writers.  One example of this is Acts 1:6, as follows: So when they had come together, they were asking Him, saying, “Lord (“kurios”), is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?”

So I find it exceedingly strange to believe that John would use a related form of the same word of honor, and apply it to any individual, let alone a woman.  That is not to imply that women were less important or relevant to John.  To the Roman culture at large, sure, but not to an Apostle of Jesus Christ, who would have undoubtedly been on the same page as his fellow Apostle, Paul, who wrote “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” in Galatians 3:28.  But at the same time, although women were loved and respected in their own right, they were clearly not given the same level of authority in the church as that reserved for men.  The qualifications for elder given in 1^st Timothy 3:1-7 and Titus 1:5-9 are exclusively pointed at men.  I do not find it credible that John would have given any individual woman the same or a similar level of respect and authority as that which he applied to his master, Jesus.

We need to peek ahead at the end of the letter for the next point.  Verse 13 reads: the children of your chosen sister greet you.  There are two possibilities.  One is that John is writing a letter to a specific female individual.  And this person has a sister who is a member of John’s church.  Therefore, he closes his letter by telling the lady, not that her sister greets her, but that her nieces and nephews greet her.  He doesn’t even bother to say good-bye himself.  This seems utterly ludicrous to me.  Why would he not give the names of the people involved?  It would be very strange indeed.

Instead I believe it makes much more sense and is more natural to conclude the following.  The “chosen lady” of verse 1 is a church.  Her children are the members of that church.  Therefore, the chosen sister is John’s church and the children are the members of his church.

The final point that I believe supports the idea of “inter-church communication” is the context of the letter itself.  John warned of antichrists, those opposed to Christ, within the church in 1^st John 2:18-19.  Subsequent to that letter, he wrote this missive of encouragement and exhortation to one of the churches, probably of Asia Minor, dealing with the same problem.  This will be made clear when we get to verse 7 because John gives an explicit reference back to his former teaching.  This issue was a church wide concern.  It was an overarching error of doctrine and theology that John addressed in a “global” capacity which covered the entirety of the church or churches he was writing to.  So it is much more logical that now, in writing a follow up that addresses the same problem, he would be communicating to a church rather than a person.

The relevance for us is this.  If indeed John wrote this letter to a church body, and I believe the weight of evidence points to that, then we need to understand and interpret his writing in that context.  We need to see this book as being specifically applicable to whatever local church we are associated with.  The issues he will present to us are of universal significance to the body of Christ as a whole. 

So in that sense, this letter dovetails perfectly with 1^st John which was also addressed to a wide audience of Christians.  In fact, the two letters have a particularly interesting relationship with each other.  In 1^st John, as we have seen, although John may have had a specific local church in mind when he wrote, he purposely left his teaching broad in scope and general in application.  So we could say that 1^st John was addressed to the whole of Christendom.

But now, with 2^nd John, he is going to narrow the focus of his lense a bit and zero in on a single church within the greater whole of the body of Christ.  I find this fascinating because it presents the idea of a sort of spiritual funnel where John’s teaching starts out very wide and then begins to narrow down to a more precise focus.  The harmony between these letters is really quite amazing.

I think this beauty and harmony between two letters written by John are one of many examples in Scripture of the beauty inherent in God Himself.  Students of the Bible can sometimes fall victim to the tendency to take a pragmatic approach to Scripture.  In other words, we read God’s word constantly looking for the bottom line.  We bring an unspoken expectation of finding out “what’s in it for me” to our study time.  We rush through the passage in question, trying to juice out the application as quickly as possible, in an effort to squeeze God into one of the segmented time bound compartments of our day.  And in the process we may fail to recognize beauty when it is staring us right in the face.

This is exactly what happened to Martha in the situation described earlier from Luke chapter 10.  She was so pre-occupied with her petty human concerns that she failed to recognize the far greater thing that was right in front of her face; Christ Himself.  Jesus rightly rebuked her for this oversight.  Mary, on the other hand, saw the Lord for what He was; the single most important and beautiful thing possible for her to experience.  And so, captivated by His splendor, she focused all of her attention upon Him with a single-minded devotion that drove her sister crazy.

As stated, I personally find one aspect of the beautiful face of God in the contemplation of John’s letters that I have been writing about for the past several pages.  Does the question of whether John wrote 2^nd John to a particular woman or a church, and the resulting conversation which flows from the answer to that question, specifically and quantifiably impact your life in a demonstrable and actionable manner?  No, probably not.  But what it does accomplish, if you allow it, is to direct your attention to the source of utmost glory, majesty, and splendor in all the created order.  Namely, the One responsible for that created order, the Lord God Almighty.

Does this sound like hyperbole to you?  If it does then you may be unfortunate enough to have never gazed fully upon the face of God as revealed in the Scriptures.  You may be hapless enough to have never had your attention captured by God’s character and your vision fixed on His pure and undiluted goodness.  You may be a Martha instead of a Mary.  And if that describes you then you may find that the conclusions I will draw as I continue through 2^nd John may be of little interest to you.  Make no mistake my friend, this is not a good or healthy state of affairs for you.  There is absolutely, unequivocally, nothing better you will ever find than the God who made you, His Beloved Son who died for you, and His Spirit which indwells those who place their faith and trust in Him. 

This is not about avoiding hell.  This is not about attending church.  This is not about improving your life.  This is not about being a good moral person.  This is about fulfilling the purpose for which you were made and for which you continue to draw breath even as you read this.  And in that process finding the greatest source of joy you have ever dreamed of.  That is, the worship and adoration of God.  Christian or non-Christian, do not waste another second pursuing anything less than that.  Come to the end of yourself even now, recognize the Lord as the best you can get, pursue Him until your dying breath, and as a start join me in this exposition of one of the shortest books in the Bible.