Monday 27th November - 2 John

Today’s chapter is 2 John

Tom writes:

This tiny little letter from an old bloke to a random lady (or is it a church?) has been preserved and prized because brevity brings clarity. The less you say, the more weighty your words. It’s a bit like Yoda, in letter form.  And so here we find a titan of the faith shrinking down to a few sentences our central call from Christ; This is love that we walk in obedience to his commandments. As you have heard from the beginning, his commandment is that you walk in love (v6).  There is a fascinating circle formed by these two phrases. We are told that love is about obeying Jesus and that what Jesus told us to do is to walk in love. One keeps on flipping us back round into the other like a kid pushing herself around on a playground roundabout. As you push on obedience it brings you round to love. As you push on love it brings you back round to obedience. You love and you obey, you love and you obey. On and on with ever increasing strength.

Except it doesn’t make you dizzy. Instead it makes you “true”. You know, the kind of truth that makes you feel connected to something eternal, that makes you feel so clean and so alive and like finally - after all this time - you have found your purpose and your goal. Truth or, as we might find more appealing today, living “true” is the most precious of commodities. And John tells us it is found in doing what Jesus said and then doing what Jesus said. We live the “truth” inside of us when we choose to obey and we choose to love. All of which brings me back to the brevity of John. This joy-filled generous old man had seen Jesus in the flesh and had an encyclopaedia of expertise in every area of faith. And yet he whittles it all down to obedience and love. Out of love for you and love for me he makes it all so simple and he makes it all so clean. It inspires me to obey; to choose to love and walk in love and to keep on loving until the very end.

Question for reflection

What is loving and obeying looking like for you in this time?