Mirrors and Sponges
If you want to know who you’ll be in five years, look at your friends and the books you read and that’s what you’ll become. These things will shape your life more than anything else. We inevitably become what we see and hear. We’re mirrors.
But we’re also like sponges, designed to be filled and formed and cultivated, just like the earth. God didn’t create us as finished products, but as works in progress. This means there’s tremendous potential in every human you know. There’s a powerful God-given potentiality in each of us to become something we never thought we could become. This is amazing!
Walk in Truth and Watch Yourself
Today we’re going to look again at the short letter of 2 John and the main thing I want us to see is that who we let close to us will shape us, one way or the other.
John says that Christians should be picky about who they associate with, about who they let into the “house” of their lives. John tells us to “watch ourselves” so that we don’t lose the things we love the most.
John wants us to know that we can’t start coasting as Christians because there are dangerous deceivers in the world who want to lead us away from the truth. So he says we have to “watch ourselves” so that we aren’t led astray.
John’s main point in 2 John is that Christians should walk in love and watch ourselves. In verses 1-6, we see the exhortation to walk in love. In verses 7-13, we see the exhortation to watch ourselves. Last week we looked at verses 1-8. Today we’ll look at verses 9-13.
Recap of Verses 1-8
In verses 1-8, we saw that, though the letter is primarily written to warn this church about the danger of welcoming false teachers, John starts by talking about love. Why? Because the stronger our love for one another the less likely we’ll leave one another for something else. Love is what strengthens churches, not fear.
John is encouraging them to push forward in their love for one another. John starts with these reminders about loving one another because he knows that a church that keeps walking in love will ordinarily keep walking in truth.
Think about it. If you really love someone, you want what’s best for them. Love is a commitment to the good of someone else. It’s not an emotion. If we didn’t love each other, we wouldn’t care what our brothers and sisters did. We’re not the morality police. But in love we confront one another about clear and repeated sins or inconsistencies in our lives.
John wants this church to keep walking in love because he wants them to keep walking in truth. Christians who genuinely love one another will care deeply about each other’s soul.
The reason I know John is saying this is because of the conjunction that begins verse 7, “For…” John is saying, “I want you guys to keep walking in love and truth, because many deceivers have gone out into the world.” He’s saying, “You can’t start coasting as followers of Christ. You have to keep walking in love and truth because there’s evil out there that wants to take you down.” The church needs to “watch themselves” (v. 8) because the demonic threat is real. Those who don’t give up on the truth or on the church are rewarded in the end.
Don’t Run Ahead, Stay with Christ
In verse 9, John states clearly what’s at stake in denying the basic tenets of the gospel. “Everyone who…does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God.” The exclusivity of the Christian view of salvation, one writer says, is “the single most socially offensive aspect of Christian theology; the single most important source of contention between Christians and non-Christians.”[1] Why? Because as soon as you say that your way is the only right way, you’re also saying everyone else’s way is wrong. And no one likes being wrong!
Jesus said, “The one who rejects me rejects him who sent me” (Lk. 10:16). Those who reject Jesus as the Son of God who died for sinners and rose from the dead do not know God in a saving way. Jesus is the litmus test for every person and every religion.
This should inform the way we interact with people who aren’t believers. They don’t know God and their lives are headed to a tragic ending beyond description.
But sometimes it’s not clear if someone is an unbeliever. Many people are in the church who look and sound like believers, but have actually “moved on” from the gospel in their hearts. Notice that John starts verse 9 by saying, “Everyone who goes on ahead…” Eugene Peterson’s interpretation of this text captures what John is saying well: “Anyone who gets so progressive in his thinking that he walks out on the teaching of Christ, walks out on God” (MSG).
It’s always been tempting for Christians to run toward new teachings, to get bored with the “old, old story,” to believe that the gospel isn’t enough to sustain their lives, to love what’s novel and new. This is the human tendency. Especially today we think that old basically means bad and wrong, and new is good and right. We’re drawn to innovation and repelled by tradition. We like the avant-garde and shy away from things our parents or grandparents believed.
James Davison Hunter, who researched and wrote on sociological trends in American Evangelicalism in the last century, noted thirty-five years ago that, though a lot of younger evangelicals weren’t leaving their faith, there was a “softening of earlier doctrinal certainties.” He said, “Of their own salvation, they are confident. It is with regard to the salvation of others that there is ambiguity and doubt. The certainties characteristic of previous generations appear to be giving way to a measure of hesitancy and doubt.”[2] Why is this happening? Hunter says it’s because “the theological tradition is conforming in its own unique way to the cognitive and normative assumptions of modern culture.”[3] And this was written in 1987!
Why are we so quick to conform our beliefs to the culture? Sometimes it’s the result of external pressure, whether real or imagined. We want to be seen as legitimate and respectable members of society. We don’t want to be seen as backwards and weird. We want to be accepted in the court of public opinion.
But sometimes the “softening” is due to an internal struggle. We sometimes feel dissatisfied with our faith, wondering why it doesn’t make us feel better or why our circumstances aren’t changing. We may think it’s our beliefs that are off and try to loosen them up a little.
The evil one capitalizes on these feelings and will often put a distortion of the truth in front of us that sounds mostly true, something that appeals to our desire for something new and fresh, something we think will put the wind back in our sails.
But John says that “going on ahead” is eternally dangerous. He says that this kind of progressiveness leads to damnation. He says that if we run ahead and leave behind Christ, we don’t have God. And if we don’t have God, we don’t have eternal life.
But the opposite is true too. Whoever keeps running with Christ will have Christ in the end. “Having the Father and the Son” means knowing them and being indwelt by the Father and the Son through the Spirit.
Why would we want to “go on ahead” when what we have in the gospel is so good? What message could be better than the gospel? The promise of the gospel is that we get God and that God gets us!
Don’t Invite Evil Over for Dinner
In verses 10-11, John tells this church to not allow these false teachers into their homes. He could be saying not to provide them with hospitality. Or he could be saying not to bring them into the assembly of a house church. These options aren’t mutually exclusive because in the early days churches met in people’s houses.
John is saying that someone who denies the gospel must not be accepted as a Christian teacher or welcomed into the fellowship of the church. I doubt he’s saying that we shouldn’t invite a Jehovah’s Witness in for coffee so that we can explain the gospel to them with air conditioning and no mosquitos. He’s saying that a church must not knowingly welcome someone into the fellowship of the church who’ll undermine what the church believes. Those who do are associating themselves with their “wicked work” of propagating lies (v. 11).
This is one reason why our elders do membership interviews for those who want to join the church. One of our jobs is to guard the flock from false teaching or teachers, so we want to get an idea where people are spiritually and whether or not they understand the gospel.
Traveling Teachers Today
This brings us full circle to where we began. Because we’ll inevitably become like what we see and hear, because we’re made to soak up and be formed, because we’re mirrors and sponges, John says that Christians should be picky about who they associate with, about who they let into the “house” of their lives and churches.
Who we let close to us will shape us, one way or the other. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:33, “Do not be deceived: ‘Bad company ruins good morals.’”
You may be thinking, “But there aren’t any false teachers in our church as far as I can tell, and I know to stay away from the prosperity gospel, so how does this apply to me?” It applies to you today because there are more “traveling teachers” today than ever before. And it’s much easier for them to gain a hearing than ever before. They don’t need an invite to a church service or into your home. They just need an internet connection.
Our world is full of people selling us something. A lot of it is innocuous. But the devil hasn’t changed his tactics. He still uses teachers to teach things that sound new and good and true that are actually subversions and twistings of the truth.
For example, social media and YouTube is full of men and women teaching things about gender and sexuality that has some truth in it but is also full of distortions. The guys talking about how true manhood is essentially about authority and not service are wrong. Any view of manhood that demeans women or makes women sound like the inferior gender, saying that they’re not smart, shouldn’t vote, should never work outside the home and should just stay in the kitchen, raise kids, and do what their husbands tell them is wrong. And these guys have millions of followers.
Or the ladies who talk about how feminism is about liberation and rights and equality, who talk like men are just stupid, boorish, harmful, and misogynistic pigs are also wrong.
The internet is selling us a view of parenting that is all over the place. One lady who was a parenting influencer on social media was actually not feeding her kids as a form of discipline. Some of what she said sounded good, but behind the curtain there was evil and a view of authority that was more about control than love.
The cultural conversation on marriage, though it has some truth, is incomplete. The marriage experts who say that you don’t need a piece of paper to prove you love someone are wrong because they understand love in the modern sense of a feeling, not the biblical sense of commitment.
What about the politicians and political commentators who’re shaping the way we think, usually by setting up anyone who disagrees with them as wrong and evil and dumb? If we listen to them for too long, what kind of mindset does that create in us?
What about the Bible teachers who use the Bible to say whatever they want it to say? It’s interesting that Jesus often said when he was teaching, “It is written…” And that Satan came to Adam and Eve in the garden and said, “Did God say?” He also came to Jesus in the wilderness saying, “It is written,” and twisted Scripture. The point is that we need to know what’s actually written!
No Substitute for the Local Church
One of the best ways to do this is to pour your life into your local church and let your church be your primary teachers. We should get our main diet of spiritual nourishment from the teaching and community of our local church. Why? Because these people know us and we know them. We’re in a better position to know whether they’re trustworthy or not. We can ask questions, discuss, and grow together. Podcasters and YouTubers and Social Media Influencers and authors and televangelists are no substitute for the local church.
What “traveling teachers” do you invite into your house? Are you discerning enough to notice when they start saying things that don’t line up with the Bible?
Keep Running with Christ and with Each Other
Who are you going to be in five years? Just look at the company you keep, books you read, people you follow on social media, and videos you watch.
Hopefully we’ll all start to look more like each other as we love each other and push each other deeper into the truth and protect each other from the traveling teachers who evil wants to use to pull us away from Christ.
If we keep running with Christ and with each other, we’ll have Christ and each other in the end.
[1]James Davison Hunter, Evangelicalism: The Coming Generation (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1987), 34.
[2]Ibid., 40.
[3]Ibid., 46.