Living according to God's Commandments (2 John 1: 4-6)

LIVING ACCORDING TO GOD'S COMMANDMENTS (2 JOHN 1: 4-6):

After greeting and wishing the recipients, Apostle John starts his instructions and advises to live according to God’s commandments by starting with a positive initiation. Apostle John writes that he rejoiced greatly to find that some of the lady’s children are walking in the truth, just as they were commanded by the Father. A part of the believers under the care of the leader are good and Apostle John appreciates it by saying that they are following what is right, noble and true, that is a sign of a believer in the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

After encouraging the good things in the believers, Apostle John then writes the scope and need for improvement and the need for growth in the likeness of Christ. The author then writes that he asks the dear lady not as he was writing her a new commandment, but the one they had from the beginning, that the believers ought to love one another. The way of addressing the recipients with closeness and love by the author demonstrates his letters’ theme of love. There is nothing called a new commandment as God is an unchanging God and He had given all the commandments just to love Him and love other people as the self, since the beginning of creation. The author might have claimed the teachings that he did, from the beginning of his ministry to the people there. All the commandments of God in relation to the people could be consolidated by the commandment, loving one another.

Apostle further illuminates the relation between the commandments of God and loving one another, by writing that walking according to God’s commandments is love and the commandments are the ones that had been heard from the beginning and so that the believers should walk in it. God’s commandments are not the compulsions for man to promote the well-being of God but the well-being of the humans themselves. God’s commandments are infallible and unchangeable as God is unchanging and God knew things from eternity to eternity. The commandments of God from the beginning to the end of the scriptures as well as times, in a person’s life and in the history of mankind, is valuable and unperishable. So following the commandments of God is a need and not a compulsion for all the people. Believers have knowledge and guidance to follow the commandments of God.

Stimulations for Self-Reflection:

1.      Why does Apostle John rejoice?

2.      How some of the children walk in the truth?

3.      How does the author address his recipient? Why?

4.      What is the commandment given by Apostle John?

5.      What the author says about the commandment he writes? Why?

How is that so?

6.      What is love?

7.      How walking according to the commandments of God is love?

8.      What should the believers walk in? Why?

9.      How we can love one another?

10.  How we can walk in the commandments of God?