08 June 2023
John's second letter is a personal note to some unnamed lady he knows who hosts traveling preachers and teachers of the gospel. It's quite short but carries one item of teaching. After reminding her that we must love each other as Christ does, and that love is defined by the Covenant boundaries. We are obliged to know what Jesus commanded, because it's too easy for a hostess like her to encounter fraudulent hucksters.
By this time Gnosticism was in full swing. This is the teaching that Jesus could not be both divine and human. So John's reference to Jesus Christ coming "in the flesh" was a counter to the dominant teaching at that time that Jesus was a spirit being but not human. He warns her to be cautious and not receive in her home anyone who taught Gnosticism.
Thus, an item of Christian Law: Hospitality to false teachers means sponsoring their heresies.
3 John is a private note to Gaius, who seems to be the elder of some unknown church. But it's a church famous for generous support to the traveling preachers. Someone named Diotrephes considered himself a big shot in that church. He was trying to seize a form of social control by encouraging people to reject John's apostolic leadership and not to sponsor those visiting preachers.
Jude's letter was probably written between Peter's and John's in terms of chronology. He's another half-brother of Jesus, and prefers Hebrew references. There's no law in his letter, aside from the hint that you don't rebuke demons directly, but remind them that they stand in the Lord's rebuke. Most of this letter is a warning about the rising Gnostic heresy. In this case, the problem manifests as traveling hucksters who clung to the idea that Jesus didn't really die on the Cross, and that the sins of the flesh have no affect on your peace with God. Thus, it's a libertine doctrine.
The net result is that Jude warns you cannot call yourself a Christian unless you walk in the teachings of the Messiah, and Jesus most definitely taught that we should walk in holiness and deny the flesh.
However, I wanted to note in passing that Jude quotes Enoch the prophet, but that's not a quote from the fraudulent Book of Enoch. The prophesies of Enoch were a part of the Hebrew oral lore we no longer have today. That book is nonsense, and it's painfully obvious the text we have today contains stuff from several different writers who kept adding more lies to the original lies.
I reviewed the Book of Revelation some time back, but we are going to take a fresh look from the angle of Christian Law, starting tomorrow.
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