New Testament
2 John
1 chapter · World English Bible
Context
Context for this book is being written. A note appears here only once it names its sources.
AI explanation
About 2 John as a whole · Written by an AI model · Not reviewed by a theological reader
This explanation was written by an AI model to help you get started. It names no sources and can contain mistakes. Scripture comes first, and context with sources is shown separately on this page.
What this book is about
It is a note of thirteen verses. It comes from one who calls himself only the elder, and it is addressed to the chosen lady and her children, whom he loves in truth. He is glad. He has found some of her children “walking in truth”.
What he asks for is not new. It is the old command, the one they have had from the beginning, “that we love one another.” And love, he says, means walking according to God’s commandments.
Then the tone sharpens. Many deceivers have gone out into the world who do not confess that Jesus Christ came in the flesh. He tells his readers to guard what they have gained, and not to give such teachers a welcome. If anyone comes who does not bring this teaching, “don’t receive him into your house, and don’t welcome him”.
The elder would rather say more face to face than with paper and ink.
Background
The chosen lady is most often understood as a local church and her children as its members, though some take her to be an individual woman. Tradition identifies the elder with the apostle John. In the first century traveling teachers depended on the hospitality of believers.
How Christians read it
The instruction not to welcome false teachers is about lending support to their teaching, and readers generally do not take it as a ban on ordinary kindness or conversation. The letter holds truth and love together and will not let either stand without the other. Truth without love becomes hard, and love without truth loses its direction, and so the short note asks for both.
About this explanation
Written by Claude Sonnet 5.5, an AI model, on 16 October 2026. It draws on the WEB text and general knowledge and was not checked against sources by a person. Every quotation from Scripture is checked automatically against the WEB text.