Book by Book · New Testament
A short letter, thirteen verses, holding two things at once.
2 John is a brief note from a writer who calls himself "the elder" to "the elect lady and her children," most likely a particular church and its people. It is warm and personal, and it circles two words that the letter refuses to separate: truth and love. The writer is glad to find them walking in the truth, and he urges them, almost in the same breath, to love one another.
There is a caution in it too. Some had come teaching things about Christ that the church knew to be false, and the elder tells them not to lend their welcome to that teaching. Love, in this letter, is not the same as agreeing with everything. It walks alongside the truth rather than apart from it.
And this is love, that we walk according to his commandments.
— 2 John 1:6 (ESV)
That is the quiet center of the letter. Love is not only a feeling but a way of walking, and truth is not a club to swing but the path you walk on. Pull the two apart and you get something cold or something untethered. Held together, they steady each other.
It is a fair thing to ask of anything that speaks on a church's behalf: is it both truthful and kind. We tried to build our assistant to hold those together rather than trade one for the other. It answers only from what a church has actually said, and it tries to meet a real person with care instead of a script.
A short letter, two words it will not let you separate.
Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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