Welcome to the 10-Minute Bible, where we look at one book of the Bible in 10 minutes. Well, give or take 10 minutes. In this session, we're going to look at the little book of 2 John. Now, if you've heard me say in this series repeatedly, in order to understand a book of the Bible, you need to start by understanding three things. Number one, What is the subject of the book? That is really critical. If you don't get that straight, then you're going to mess up the whole book. It's simply the answer to the question, what is the author talking about? The second thing you need to understand is what is the structure of that book, which is the idea of how does the author deal with the subject. The third thing you need to understand is what is the situation. And as I've explained, in virtually every book of the Bible, That author was speaking to the original audience on that particular subject. That's what provoked him to write. If you can put your finger on that, then you really are a long way down the road to understanding the book. In other words, what's his purpose? Why did he write on that subject to that audience? So, the three things are the subject, the structure, and what I call the situation, which involves the author, the recipients, and the situation, the purpose. Now, with that in mind, let's look at 2 John. First of all, what is the subject of 2 John? And the answer is truth. That seems to be the subject, as is indicated by the fact that that word appears in verses two, three, and four, and other verses as well. If I had to pick one word that I'd say is the subject of the book, I would say it's the word truth. All right, what is the structure of the book? Now, this is an epistle, and if you heard me say the epistles are following the format of an ancient letter. So the question is, does this book called an epistle follow the format of the ancient letter? And the answer is basically yes, except the format of an ancient letter included a thanksgiving and a prayer. and then it ended with a benediction. Those elements are left out, but it does have a salutation and the rest of it is structured basically like a book called an epistle. Now, let's outline the book. As I just mentioned, there's a salutation in the first three verses, and then there is the body of the book. Now, In verses four to six, he talks about the practice of truth, and he talks about walking in truth and walking in love, but the whole idea is the emphasis is on behavior, and he uses the word walk. The second part of the body of the book is verses seven to 11, and there he talks about protecting the truth. Now we've got to get into the details of the book to understand that, but the point I wish to make at this juncture is that the body of the book really breaks down into two basic parts. It's the practice of truth and then he wants to protect the truth so that they will not be deceived. The book ends with that part of an ancient letter called personal greetings, so in that sense it starts and ends like an ancient letter. Alright, the subject is the truth, the structure at least of the body of the book is the practice of truth and the protection of truth. Then what is the situation? Well, we have to talk about the author and this gets to be a challenge. If you look at the first verse, it'll say, the elder. So the question becomes, who is the elder? Now, he doesn't identify himself, so we're left trying to put clues together to figure out the author. Many have suggested, and I agree, that the similarities between 2 John and 1 John indicate that the author was the Apostle John. Now, there are authors outside of the Bible, written after the New Testament was complete, that confirm that. So it's usually said tradition supports the idea that the Apostle John wrote 2 John. most reason that 1st and 2nd John deal with the same problem and use, at least in some cases, similar material. Therefore, they were probably written about the same time. And that, of course, presents a whole other problem because In both of these books, we don't have enough detail to pinpoint a time they were written. So very often scholars will say it was written sometime between 67 AD and 90 AD. I tend to think that it was written a little after 70 AD, given the nature of the material they're dealing with, which was a later development. And so, in both of these cases, I've just picked an arbitrary date between the two and said, all right, let's say it was written in 80 AD. Now, keep in mind that virtually all of the Old New Testament was written before 70 A.D., but John wrote the Gospel, I mean, the Book of Revelation in 95 A.D. So 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John were written after 70 and before 90, as far as we can guess, and I'm gonna just pick 80. All right, that's the author, and when he wrote, who were the recipients? Well, this even gets more interesting. because he said it's to the elect lady and her children. Now again, he's speaking in figurative terms, or is he? There are two ways to interpret that. One is that the elect lady is an individual Christian. Maybe her name is elect. Now, that has some problems. The other suggestion, and the one I like, is that it's figurative and it's referring to the church. The content and the use of the plural in verse 6 and 12 most appropriately applies to a community. So some of the content indicates that it's not an individual, but it's multiple individuals, which leads to the conclusion It was written to a church. Now, what is significant in this book is that they were facing false teachers. John is instructing them not to be deceived by false teachers. That's in verse eight and not to receive them nor even greet them. That's in that. second half of the body of the book that I mentioned earlier. He says if they greet them and receive them, they could be deceived by them and therefore they should not. So, I would say the purpose of the book is to exhort a local church to practice truth and to warn the local church about the perversion of truth. Now, if I were going to summarize the whole book, I would say simply continue practicing the truth and do not be deceived by deceivers. And as far as a spiritual truth for us, I would say it is simply that believers should walk in truth and not support deceivers of the truth. In other words, this book is really pretty simple.