2 John 1 - 6

1 The Elder,

To the elect lady and her children, whom I love in truth, and not only I, but also all those who have known the truth, 2 because of the truth which abides in us and will be with us forever:

3 Grace, mercy, and peace will be with you from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love.

4 I rejoiced greatly that I have found some of your children walking in truth, as we received commandment from the Father. 5 And now I plead with you, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment to you, but that which we have had from the beginning: that we love one another. 6 This is love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the commandment, that as you have heard from the beginning, you should walk in it.

John is an apostle, but like Peter he is also one of the elders of a congregation. Commentaries do not specify what congregation John is an elder of, but some believe John left Jerusalem sometime after Christ's ascension and later in his life worked in the Ephesus area.

The “elect lady” Lady comes from the Greek work KURIA, Thayer defines it as Cyria, and says “A Christian woman to whom the second epistle is addressed. Robinson agrees with Thayer. Zerr says ”This woman named Cyria and her children constituted the group to which John wrote this epistle.

John calls her elect because it means “a person chosen of the Lord through obedience to the Gospel. It is likely she hosted the local congregation's services in her home. She was well known, loved, and respected not only by John, but also by other faithful followers who live in the area.

The love in truth which John speaks of is the brotherly love which Christ commands us to have. John loves her and her children because of their devotion to the truth which is eternal or lasting forever.

This friendly salutation which is sent forth by many of the New Testament writers. is important to realize for such blessings to be lasting they must come from God the Father and His Son.

We do not know how many of the woman's children John had come in contact with, but he found all of them faithful to God's words and He was very happy to observe this trait in her family.

We know that the commandment to love one another is not new. (1 John 2:7 – 8) Loving your brother you have known since the beginning.

Love is like faith, it must have good works to back it up. (1 John 3:17) tells us for our love to be true we must live our lives in doing good for our brothers and sisters and our works will show our love to be true. Our love is to walk according to the commandments which shows we must constantly moving forward with our lives. To walk is to move forward with our life living as the commandments instruct us to do so.