A Blunt Instruction from John

Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works.
– 2 John 1:9-11, ESV

Showing Hospitality

Well, that seems harsh, right? Throughout scripture, we are called to show hospitality—to “practice hospitality.”¹ Elders/Overseers are expected to be hospitable.² An enrolled widow is one who has shown hospitality.³ Hebrews instructs the showing of hospitality to strangers,⁴ and Peter tells us to show hospitality without grumbling.⁵ Now we are supposed to be rude and unwelcoming? Surely not!

I believe a key element in understanding this rather blunt instruction from John is understanding to whom John gave this instruction. Who is John’s audience for this letter?

The letter of Second John is one chapter, a full thirteen verses, and it is addressed to “the elect lady and her children.”⁶ The letter’s closing statement says, “The children of your elect sister greet you.”⁷ It is easy to see this as John sending this letter to some specific, albeit unnamed woman he knows, and also sending greetings to her, from her nieces and nephews, in the closing statement. I do not believe that to be the case.

These greetings, the content of the letter, and John’s propensity for the use of metaphor make it almost a certainty that John is writing this letter not to an individual, but to a church body. John is raising a specific warning with that church body while simultaneously sending that church greetings from another church body. In doing so, John symbolically anthropomorphizes those congregations as two noble women with children.

The Warning

What, then, is John’s message to this body of Christ-followers?

John’s stern warning is that each assembly in the body of Christ must be keenly aware of who is teaching, and what they are teaching. The church, today, is rife with teaching that is ignorant of, and, at times, in direct opposition to the teaching of scripture. We are instructed not to receive wreckless and dangerous teachers into our “house,” referencing the local body of believers.

For decades, my viewpoint has been that we want sinners in the church. We want everyone exposed to the biblical message. We have all spent plenty of time outside of Christ, dealing without own sinful impulses. Therefore, we do not look down on anyone.

There is that person, however, who comes to the body with an agenda, usually a hidden agenda. They are there, not to learn or to grow in Christ, but rather to promote a false doctrine of Christ. According to John, not only do we not welcome this person, we do not even greet him or her.

We test everything against scripture—the whole counsel of God⁶—from Genesis to Revelation. What does not align must be rejected. When such teaching is allowed to move in unchecked, it takes root and is exceedingly difficult to overcome. Hence the following warning from the apostle Paul: