2 John

2 John 4-9

#495 Weekday Year II Context (Friday of the 32nd Week in Ordinary Time)

[Chosen Lady:]
I rejoiced greatly to find some of your children walking in the truth
just as we were commanded by the Father.
But now, Lady, I ask you,
not as though I were writing a new commandment
but the one we have had from the beginning:
let us love one another.
For this is love, that we walk according to his commandments;
this is the commandment, as you heard from the beginning,
in which you should walk.

Many deceivers have gone out into the world,
those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh;
such is the deceitful one and the antichrist.
Look to yourselves that you do not lose what we worked for
but may receive a full recompense.
Anyone who is so “progressive”
as not to remain in the teaching of the Christ does not have God;
whoever remains in the teaching has the Father and the Son.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Commentary on 2 Jn 4-9

This short letter (contained on one sheet of papyrus) is a rather intimate product of the Johannine community addressed to “the chosen lady and her children.” It addresses problems within the community. In this selection, the evangelist speaks to a problem of false teachers, individuals who have fallen into a heretical view that Christ did not walk the earth as man (“those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh”). These “deceivers” are to be rejected, and the proper view of Jesus Christ, true God and true man, which gives us both Father and Son, is to be embraced.

CCC: 2 Jn 7 465, 675
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fin