II John 1-13 & III John 1-15
Dear RTB’ers,
Two more (short) letters from the apostle John, one written to an “elect lady and her children” (possibly [even likely?] to a church and its members), the other to a person, Gaius. I see a common theme in these two letters – discernment. In the first letter John asks his readers to discern traveling missionaries, to test if they are speaking Jesus’ message and abiding in His teaching, and rejecting those missionaries …who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh … [or one who] …does not abide in the teaching of Christ… (II John 7b, 9b) We are fortunate at St. Andrew’s to have good teaching from our pulpit, both with Ben now and with David before him (and from others who have been invited to speak). Still, we need to “test” all teaching that we receive, as to whether a given writer/speaker is following historic, traditional Christian teaching.
In the second letter John again asks Gaius (and others?) to discern these traveling missionaries, lauding him (them?) for receiving Demetrius so well, but also warning Gaius against one leader, Diotrephes, who is rejecting John’s leadership and who likes to “put himself first”, even to the point of excommunicating people with whom he disagrees. Again, discerning our leaders and their messages…!
Finally, John has a good word for us and our Mission Committee, with a full paragraph in today’s second letter (II John 5-8) encouraging us to support those who have gone out for the sake of the name. I especially appreciate his mention of these brothers, strangers as they are. It is often the case that we do not personally know the people whom we are supporting, but we take on faith the word from others who do know them. We need to be thankful that our Mission Committee is supporting six mission families, but we might also consider our own support for these folks. They need that support, both our dollars and our prayers.
Blessings!
See also: