The Gathering of True Fellowship 2 John
This brief letter was written primarily to warn the readers about certain itinerant deceivers, and of the dire consequences of welcoming such people and thereby sharing in their ‘wicked work’. It has a secondary and related purpose of reminding the readers of the command to love one another which they received ‘at the beginning’, and so ensuring that both writer and readers persist in their relationship of mutual love. In this way the writer seeks to make sure that the deceivers do not succeed in alienating the readers from fellowship with him. The paraenetic nature of the letter, comprising both encouragement and dissuasion, suggests that the writer is on friendly terms with the readers and that they regard him as a ‘friendly superior’. (See the Introduction, pp. 36–40, for a fuller discussion of the provenance of this letter.)
1. Truth aims at love.
2. Love aims at truth.
3. Love shapes how to speak the truth.
4. Truth shapes how to show love.
the community of love is as wide as the community of truth,
to know Christ is to love him, and to love Christ is to love all those who are united to him, through faith
On the surface, the text appears to indicate that the truth of the message has been internalised by believers so that it ‘lives in’ them and this is what creates the community of love. The text may also be alluding to Christ, as the embodiment of truth (cf. John 14:6), who lives in believers and who will be with them ‘forever’. In this case, the community of love is created not simply by believers internalising the truth of the gospel, but also by the indwelling of Christ, who is the embodiment of the gospel message, in each of them. Either way it boils down to much the same thing, for one cannot know the truth without knowing the person of Christ who first proclaimed it and also embodied it. If the elder is alluding to the presence of Christ within his readers and assuring them of Christ’s presence with them forever, this would function as a further encouragement to people unsettled by the secessionists’ teaching.
He reassures his readers by emphasising that God’s grace, mercy, and peace will be with them, despite what the secessionists might say. He includes himself with his readers as a recipient of these blessings to reinforce the sense of their community of love. He emphasises that these blessings come from God the Father and Jesus Christ, ‘the Father’s Son’, reflecting the truth about Jesus which he defends against the secessionists’ teaching. He adds that these blessings from God are experienced ‘in truth and love’, a rather imprecise expression, possibly meaning that the blessings are experienced by those who continue to hold to the truth and practise love among themselves; something he believes he and his readers do, but the secessionists do not.
A Note on Hospitality
Malina provides a very helpful description of the nature of hospitality in the Mediterranean world. Hospitality ‘might be defined as the process by means of which an outsider’s status is changed from stranger to guest’. Hospitality, then, is not something a person provides for family or friends but for strangers. They need such hospitality, for otherwise they will be treated as nonhuman because they are potentially a threat to the community. Strangers had no standing in law or custom, and therefore they needed a patron in the community they were visiting. There was no universal brotherhood in the ancient Mediterranean world.22
There were certain ‘rules’ to be observed by guests and hosts. Guests must not (i) insult their host or show any kind of hostility or rivalry; (ii) usurp the role of their host in any way, for example, by making themselves at home when not invited to do so, ordering the dependents of the host about, making demands of their host, etc.; (iii) refuse what is offered, especially food. Hosts must not (i) insult their guests or make any show of hostility or rivalry; (ii) neglect to protect their guests’ honour; (iii) fail to show concern for the needs of their guests.
Hospitality was not reciprocated between individuals (because once people became guests they were no longer strangers), but it was reciprocated between communities. And it was to the strangers’ own community that they were obliged to sing the praises of their hosts if they had been treated well (cf. 3 John 5–8) and to which they would report adversely if they had not been welcomed properly (cf. 3 John 9–10). Communities would repay hospitality to strangers from another community if that community had treated their own people well.
Letters of recommendation were important in the matter of hospitality. Their function was ‘to help divest the stranger of his strangeness, to make him at least only a partial stranger, if not an immediate guest’. To refuse to accept those recommended was to dishonour the one who commended them, and in the Mediterranean culture of the first century the one dishonoured had to seek satisfaction or bear the shame heaped upon him by the refusal of his commendation.