Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text
Pick a passage anywhere in the New Testament. See the customs and ideas a first reader knew without being told.
2 John 7-13, Deceivers at the door, paper and ink
Many deceivers who refuse to confess that Jesus Christ came in the flesh are abroad in the world; such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist. Whoever runs ahead and does not keep to Christ's teaching does not have God, and the readers are not to take such a person into the house or greet him. The elder would rather not use paper and ink, and hopes to talk face to face.
2 John 7-13, in every translation this tool compares.
The elder warns that deceivers who deny that Jesus Christ came in the flesh are at large, and calls any such person the antichrist. Anyone who goes beyond Christ's teaching does not have God, so the readers must not give these teachers hospitality or a welcome, since that would make them partners in their work. He ends by saying he would rather speak in person than write, and passes on greetings from her sister's children. How far the refusal of welcome reaches is read in more than one way.
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/early-false-teachers\/","n":"Early false teachers and splits","s":"Late in the first century a group left the churches John wrote to, taking a different view of Jesus with them. Some may have denied that he was the Messiah; others that he truly became human, as the Docetists and Cerinthus later taught.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/antichrist\/","n":"Antichrist and the lawless one","s":"Daniel's king who exalts himself above every god and defiles the sanctuary became a pattern Jews saw again in Antiochus, Pompey and Caligula. Paul's man of lawlessness, who sets himself up in God's temple claiming to be God, belongs to that line.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/spirit-of-prophecy\/","n":"The Spirit of prophecy","s":"Jews of Jesus' day linked God's Spirit above all with prophecy. Many believed the prophets had fallen silent long ago, and they looked for the day God would pour out his Spirit again.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/hospitality\/","n":"Hospitality to travelers","s":"Taking in travelers was one of the great virtues of the ancient Mediterranean, above all among Jews. Messengers could travel light because they expected to be housed.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/letters-and-letter-carriers\/","n":"Letters, scribes and carriers","s":"Letters were usually dictated to scribes, carried by trusted travelers because there was no public post, and read aloud to the people they were sent to.","r":""}
Keener and the cultural backgrounds notes take the deceivers to be the secessionists of 1 John, for whom Jesus was a great prophet but not the Lord come in the flesh; Wright and Bird call them Docetists outright. The Didache rules that an apostle may stay a day, or two if needed, "but if he remain three days, he is a false prophet". The Dead Sea Scrolls community expelled anyone who supported an apostate, so that, Keener writes, "Housing or blessing a false teacher was thus seen as collaborating with him." How far the refusal reaches is read differently: the ESV Study Bible limits it to caution about false teachers, since a welcome in a house church looked like endorsement; the CSB Study Bible reads withholding support from their mission; Wright and Bird read turning away any itinerant without the apostolic teaching; Wright's commentary would not even greet such a teacher in the street, since a greeting could be taken as approval. Irenaeus, telling how John fled a bathhouse where Cerinthus was, concludes that the apostles would not even speak with corrupters of the truth.
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, introduction to 2 John (Situation), and on 2 John 10, 11 and 12-13
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, Introduction to 2 John (Background), and notes on 2 John 7, 10, 11, 12 and 13
- ESV Study Bible, study notes on 2 John 7, 9, 10 and 11
- CSB Study Bible, notes on 2 John 7 and 10
- N. T. Wright and Michael F. Bird, The New Testament in Its World, ch. 33, Introduction, Genre and purpose, and The Argument of 2 John, sections 2 and 3
- D. A. Carson, Douglas J. Moo and Leon Morris, An Introduction to the New Testament, ch. 21, 1, 2, 3 John, Purpose
- The Didache (Teaching of the Twelve Apostles) 11.4-5, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 7
- Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.3.4, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1
- N. T. Wright, Early Christian Letters for Everyone, comment on 2 John 7-13
