Hello again dear friends, it’s been a minute…long story short, we jumped into full-time farming much sooner and with less money than expected. Due to the generosity of friends, family, customers, and even complete strangers we successfully raised funds through our Kickstarter campaign (it’s not accepting funding anymore, but you can read to whole story at the link) that will allow us to make our next transition.  We’ve been working hard, and still have a long way to go til the season is over in November, but I’m gaining a little more breathing room every week.  For now, I’m going to stick with one post a week, published on Sunday, and build back up to three posts when I’m done processing broilers.  As of this writing, I only have 1,000 more (about eight weeks) to go! I’m excited to get back to reading the Bible with you all.

¹ The elder,

To the lady chosen by God and to her children, whom I love in the truth—and not I only, but also all who know the truth— ² because of the truth, which lives in us and will be with us forever:

³ Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Father’s Son, will be with us in truth and love.

⁴ It has given me great joy to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as the Father commanded us. ⁵ And now, dear lady, I am not writing you a new command but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another. ⁶ And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.

⁷ I say this because many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist. ⁸ Watch out that you do not lose what we have worked for, but that you may be rewarded fully. ⁹ Anyone who runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ does not have God; whoever continues in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. ¹⁰ If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not take them into your house or welcome them. ¹¹ Anyone who welcomes them shares in their wicked work.

¹² I have much to write to you, but I do not want to use paper and ink. Instead, I hope to visit you and talk with you face to face, so that our joy may be complete.

¹³ The children of your sister, who is chosen by God, send their greetings.

I picked this chapter to jump back into writing because it’s short.  This is the whole book of 2 John right here.  I’ll read 3 John next and knock out another whole book in one blog post, too, and feel super good about myself.  Also, if we’re using the Bible as a general tool of reflection and meditation, we should be able to find pertinent information in almost any part of it, so why not re-start here?

A little background on all the Johns (ha, ha) running around the New Testament.  There’s the Gospel of John, then three shorter Johns (seriously, I’m cracking myself up over here) later in the NT, of which this is the second.  All are attributed to the Apostle John, so I guess the NT really only has one John.  (Alright, I’ll stop now.)

In all seriousness, John was very concerned with two heresies cropping up in the early church: Gnosticism and Cerinthianism.  Gnostics believed that only the spirit was divine, and that everything worldly was profane.  The divine spirit of a person could only be released through some sort of special, mystic knowledge of which Jesus Christ was an emissary.  Gnosticism lead to two extremes: punishment of the flesh and hatred of the world, but also extreme licentiousness because since the body was of the profane world, anything done with it or to it wouldn’t impact your spirit’s divinity.  Cerinthianism, so-named for it’s major promoter, Cerinthus, believed that Jesus was just a man to whom the Spirit of Christ joined after his birth and left before his death on the cross.  This would mean Jesus was not divinely conceived and not wholly human and wholly divine.

The church was very young when this letter was written, like maybe eighty years old.  As in many of these early letters (we’ll see a lot of them when we get to Paul’s writings), the authors are trying desperately hard to keep their young organization together, establish some Standard Operating Procedures, if you will, and make sure that the mission remains coherent, relevant, and appealing.  If this sounds rather calculating – it was.  I’m not knocking the faith of these early church leaders. In fact, I admire them for being able to shepherd Christianity through such a trying time, but it is important to remember that history is written by the victors.  Should Cerinthus or the Gnostics gained more followers, Christianity might be completely different than it is today.

Human influences directing the course of religious thought? Gasp!  That can only mean one thing: while Christ may not be fallible, Christianity most certainly is.

A fallible Christianity may sound scary, but I think it’s liberating.  Remember, Christianity used to promote the Crusades and slavery.  There were some Christians who praised Hitler.  Those were human influences on a religion that changed (or thankfully disappeared) over time.  A fluid Christianity means we are allowed to explore our faith, our relationship with God, and know that if we mess up – or if our religion messes up – we get to try again.  Think of it like a marriage:  I love my husband, but I know he’s not perfect, and as much as it pains me to admit it, neither am I.  That doesn’t mean that I’m going to give up on our marriage.  We’ll talk through our differences, make adjustments to our relationship, and hopefully we both grow together. Faith can be like that, too.  Isn’t that so much better than a rigid set of rules we’re never allowed to question, one that stunts our thinking and never allows growth?

As we read more of John’s letters, I want you to keep context in mind.  Because having read through all the Johns (sorry, couldn’t help one last John reference), I found a lot of loving and relevant information.  But John’s fear for the early church is visible, too, and I worry that some people, throughout history, have used that fear to justify xenophobia, intolerance, and a rejection of the world – which, let me remind you, is also God’s glorious creation.

I’ll leave you with an example. In v. 9 John says “anyone who runs ahead and does not continue in the teachings of Christ does not have God,” and then in v. 10 warns “do not take him into your house or welcome him.” Oftentimes, churches would receive itinerant teachers, listen to their lessons, and then send them off with provisions for the next leg of their journey.  In these verses, really verses 7-11, John is warning his followers specifically about Gnostics, Cerinthians, and other “heretics.”  If you didn’t know that (or were willfully blind to it), it could be taken as a warning to never help any non-Christians, ever.  This clearly goes against Jesus’ own teaching of being kind to the stranger.  While it would certainly be easier to turn a blind eye to the sufferings of those not like us – and justify it with a Bible verse, to boot! – we would be guilty of willfully misinterpreting Jesus’ teachings.  Long story short, context is important for everyone, not just biblical scholars!  We’ll see more of that as we continue reading these letters.