2 John - Short & Sweet

2 John is roughly a page long (13 verses) with the characteristics of a letter.  It starts with a salutation and ends with greetings.  It identifies the sender as "the elder" and the recipient as "the elect lady and her children".

I find the address of this document interesting - even before I read the letter.  With all those modern people who want to keep women from leadership by claiming they should be silent in church, it is interesting to me that (it sounds to me like) an ancient writer is writing to a woman who is a leader of an early Christian community - and bringing greetings from another.  This has never really been pointed out to me before. While numerous sources have quoted anything that remotely hints that women should not be in leadership, here is another little nugget suggesting women have held leadership positions since the beginning of the church.  I think this avaoidance is another case of us reading into Scriptures. Our traditions have formed our opinions and influence what we read and how we read the passages we do read. I have found a lot of new understandings through this exercise of reading each document as a letter written to me.  This is just one more insight into the ancient church that many ignore because it doesn't fit notions formed by interpretations filtered through culture.

I am not free of reading through my filters (of culture and current debates) - but I am trying to read what is written in the context in and into which it was written, and hear what it has to say to me. This may make my ramblings irrelevant to you - but I hope they might give you food for further thought (and maybe research).  Back to 2 John.....

Once again we are reminded - not of new commandment but one "we have had from the beginning, let us love one another. And this is love, that we walk according to his commandments;"

We are also warned, once again, about deceivers.  We are to "Be on your guard, so that you do not lose what we have worked for".

And that's about it .  Those are the two things that the writer found worth important enough to write this letter.  It is so scarey to think we may be swayed by "deceivers" - people with the words and arguments that twist what is said in Scripture.  Is it any wonder some people want to stick with the traditional interpretations?  But maybe tradition can become the "deceiver"? Maybe it can become a filter through which the living Word cannot keep its meaning intact? How can we keep "what we have worked for" when we are so hard pressed to convince each other what is true and what is deception? However we work at discerning the meaning of Scriptures, I hope we can keep the other admonition, to love one another, central in our interactions with people with whom we may not agree.  Let us also remember to pray.  It is only with the help of the Holy Spirit that we can remain confident in our reading of words written way before our time and from a very different mindset.

Let us continue to pray the God will be with us, will help us to love each other, and will help us understand the message of the Bible.