In the 1964 Republican Convention, Barry Goldwater said, "I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." I admired many of the things Senator Goldwater said and did, but that statement has always been a little troublesome for me. Taken at face value, it sounds good, but it assumes that the extremists who defend liberty are always well motivated and right in that defense. It also assumes that the extremists who pursue justice objectively aspire to promote pure justice without any kind of self-motivated agenda. I would remind all of us that such purity of intentions and motivations are rarely present in the lives of flawed human beings.

The passions of men and women constantly ride a pendulum that swings between two extremes. The pendulum passes by truth but doesn't stop there and if you dig in our heels for truth, you stand a good chance of getting banged on the head when the pendulum swings toward the left and again when it moves to the right. That's price you'll pay if you decide to be a moderate.

What does that have to do with our study of 2 John? Second John is a very brief New Testament letter with an intense message. The message concerns the balancing of truth and love. The letter calls for a posture of moderation when we are dealing with conflicting issues. It is reminiscent of Paul's thought in Ephesians 4:15. While writing about the maturity of the church, He said, ". . . speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ." That's really the theme of 2 John.

The writer is not identified by name. He is simply called "the elder." There's really not much substantial opposition to recognizing the apostle John as the author. The "elder" could either refer to his advance age or his place of service in the church.

It is addressed to the "chosen lady and her children." Controversy exists as to whether "the chosen lady" or "the elect lady" means an actual woman or if it is a symbolic expression for the church. The context of the letter leads me to think that "the elect lady" was probably a friend of John's, who was respected for her faithfulness and whose influence had extended to her children.

The most noticeable feature of the preface is the writer's concern for truth. He expressed his love for the chosen lady "in the truth." She was also loved by all "who know the truth" (verse 1). Besides that, they loved her "because of the truth." The word truth even shows up in the salutation of verse 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.

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. 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. (5-6)

You can't read 2 John without seeing it as a follow up to 1 John.

In 1 John 4:19-21, the same author said,

We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.

John's message to this dear lady is a repetition of a principle he stated earlier in greater detail, but it was not new with John. It's easy to detect the influence of Jesus in the words of verse 5 and 6.

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.(John 13:34-35).

He talked about obedience, but he made it clear in verse 6 that the obedience involved walking in love. How do you obey the command to love? Perhaps it would be instructive to turn back to 1 John for that answer. Among other things John said.

• Whoever hates his brother walks in darkness. (2:11).
• If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. (3:15)
• If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need, but has not pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? (3:17).
• This is love for God; to obey his commands and his commands are not burdensome. (5:3).

Let's pause right here and take stock of the writer's twin concerns. Five times within the first six verses, he used the word "truth." John believed in definable, recognizable truth. That should be a great concern for people living in the last year of this millennium. We live in a day and age when truth is up from grabs in the minds many people. The philosophy of post-modernism espouses the theory that there is no permanent, absolute truth that applies equally to all people in all situations. Post-modernism holds that truth can only be validated by human experience, not by authoritative pronouncements from such sources as the Bible.

John was not afraid to say that truth exists, that truth is knowable and that truth is important. He loved the chosen lady in the truth, because of the truth and assured her that God's grace, mercy and peace would be with her in truth.

But it would also be with her in love. Five times in these first 6 verses, he used the word "love." This is why I'm suggesting that we will find ourselves within God's will if we avoid extremism. If you're concerned about truth, it's quite possible that your zeal for truth will choke the love right out of your heart. In the interest of soundness, our zeal for truth sometimes stamps out love. We can become rigid, demanding, overbearing, cold-hearted, mean-spirited and unduly harsh.

Some years ago, I was sitting at the dinner table with a group of Christians, who were telling about a special evangelistic program they had promoted in their congregation. They had engaged in a concentrated effort to encourage their non-member friends to attend church and many people accepted the invitation. The preacher thought these people might never have another opportunity to hear the truth. He exposed common errors held by the people who were in attendance. The folks at the dinner table were rather proud of the way things turned out. They said, "Our friends will never attend another church service with us, but I'll tell you one thing. They heard one sermon." Actually, I question that, because some of those people may have tuned the preacher out when they heard him attack their cherished beliefs. Sometimes fools walk in where angels dare to tread. I decided to wade into that conversation. I said something about "speaking the truth in love." One dear sister looked me right in the eye and said, "Brother Bales, I ain't no soft-soaper." Perhaps we fear going soft we speak the truth in love. To be sure that danger exists, but the danger does not eliminate our responsibility to walk in love.

At the other end of the spectrum, we can make the mistake of emphasizing love at the expense of truth. Some time ago I read an interview with a man who had struggled with this very issue. He and the church he served had made a conscious decision to turn away from legalism. They were tired of the judging, branding, accusing and polarizing that goes on in some churches. They rejected harshness and judgmentalism. For awhile, they opened their doors to everyone. There was no doctrinal test of fellowship. If you wanted to teach a Sunday School class, the only qualification was willingness. But he said it didn't work. He said that the first thing you know, you'll have New Agers teaching your Sunday School class. You'll have Satan worshippers leading the church. There is such a thing as doctrinal error and while extremists would declare everyone in error who disagrees with them, the fact remains that we must have a concern for both truth and love.

Don't worry about getting knocked in the head by the swinging pendulum. It may be a sign that you're on target.

In a perfect world, everyone we meet would be like Apollos. Apollos was well educated and quite well versed in Scripture, but there were some gaps in his knowledge. According to Acts 18:26, "When Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they invited him to their home and explained to him the way of God more adequately." His open-minded reception to their instruction paved the way for him to become an outstanding for spokesman for Christ. Apollos responded positively because he was a truth seeker.

That can't be said of everyone we meet. John went on to describe some other kind of tactics.

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. Watch out that you do not lose what you have worked for, but that you may be rewarded fully. (7-8).

We'll talk about who these deceivers were shortly, but now we need to take note of the fact that we are going to rub shoulders with people who are not sincerely interested in following Jesus. They have other agendas. John says two things about people like that. Such a person is a deceiver and the antichrist. The antichrist is not some big, bad overwhelming evil person like the current ruler of Serbia. There are many antichrists. In 1 John 2:18, John said, "many antichrists have come." An antichrist is anyone who does not acknowledge that "Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh." That's a little strange way of putting it, but we'll see why it was stated that way just a little later on.

What we need to see in the passage at this point is the possibility of having the wool pulled over our eyes by religious hucksters - people who have some agenda other than Christ and him crucified. They have always existed; they always will. We don't need to go on witch hunts, but we do need to keep our eyes open.

The primary message of the letter is in verses 9-11.

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. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not take him into your house or welcome him. Anyone who welcomes him shares in his wicked work.

This is a highly controversial passage. The controversy revolves around the way we should take the phrase, "teaching of Christ" or as several other translations have it "the doctrine of Christ." What is the doctrine of Christ? Some say that it refers to everything Jesus taught. One writer said that it ". . . means all that Jesus taught personally and through his apostles, all that God has spoken through his Sons." In other words, he's taking the "doctrine of Christ" to mean the Bible. That apparently is the way the NIV translators take when they translate it the teaching of Christ. Other say that the "doctrine of Christ" is not intended to mean everything Jesus taught. One writer said, "The phrase does not refer to Christ's teaching about scriptural worship or church organization . . . . It refers to the teaching about the deity, incarnation and sacrificial death of Jesus." (Incidentally, the man who gave the second quotation taught in the same school with the man who gave the first one). Those who study the Greek language say that it can actually be either way, so our attempt to understand the problem will be limited to context.

When you go to the context, it is very clear that the issue was over whether Jesus had come in the flesh. We don't run into that very often today. Few would deny that Jesus came in the flesh. Many would deny that he is the divine Son of God, however. The letters of 1 and 2 John were addressed to a problem that arose in the early church, in which it was claimed that all flesh is evil. Therefore God could not have become flesh, or he would have become evil. They taught that the divine nature came on Jesus at his baptism and left him before the crucifixion. Therefore he only seemed to suffer. John was saying beyond a shadow of doubt that these fellows wrong. They were not only wrong, they were deceivers and he warned the "elect lady" about them. In all likelihood he was thinking about the nature of Christ in 2 John 9. The entire letter we know as 1 John is aimed at blocking the influence of these teachers.

What then are we to make of his admonition not to welcome these persons into the house? Let's make sure that we don't try to import the environment of the twentieth century back into the first century. When teachers traveled around the country, they didn't stay in a motel. When they went to find a place to stay and share their ideas, the looked up those who were known to be Christians. His admonition was probably a warning to the elect lady not to give these guys lodging and more importantly a forum to do their teaching. He is not suggesting that she should be unkind, harsh, mean-spirited or anything of the kind. It would seem illogical that John would be saying, "Don't ever be kind and gentle with people who don't have all the truth." It doesn't even suggest that you deny hospitality to people who need to know the way of the Lord more perfectly. If that's what he intended to say, then it would appear that Priscilla and Aquila violated it when they invited Apollos into their home.

Of course, the social environment is much different today. Is there a message for the contemporary church?

We all remember the story of the three little pigs from our early school days. Two of the pigs built their houses from flimsy material. One built his house solidly. One day the wolf came and asked for entry. All three answered "Not by the hair of my chinny, chin, chin." The wolf gained entry anyway in two of the houses, but the third house was built so substantially that it resisted all his huffing and puffing. Deceivers will demand entry into minds. If we are not adequately prepared in the truth, the deceiver may succeed in destroying our faith even though we started out saying, "not by the hair of my chinny, chin, chin." If, on the other hand, our faith is solidly, based in truth, all the huffing and puffing in the world will not move us from the faith.

But that by itself is not enough. We must resist the temptation to become so rigidly defensive of the truth that we erode of sense of kindness, graciousness, thoughtfulness and compassion. If we do that, we may miss an Apollos. That means we have to do a balancing act and you can't do a balancing act unless you avoid extremes.

Norman Bales
Southern Hills Church of Christ
Norman's e-mail address: nlbales@allaboutfamilies.org