{"id":8889,"date":"2020-04-24T20:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-04-25T03:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/?p=8889"},"modified":"2020-04-19T17:40:26","modified_gmt":"2020-04-20T00:40:26","slug":"2-john","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/2-john\/","title":{"rendered":"Truth is a Person"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"flex_column av_one_full  flex_column_div av-zero-column-padding first  avia-builder-el-0  avia-builder-el-no-sibling  \" style='border-radius:0px; '><section class=\"av_textblock_section \"  itemscope=\"itemscope\" itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/BlogPosting\" itemprop=\"blogPost\" ><div class='avia_textblock  '   itemprop=\"text\" ><p>2 John <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=2%20John+1&amp;version=NIV\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Click here for Bible Verses<\/a><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-8890 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/200425.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/200425.jpg 600w, https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/200425-300x150.jpg 300w, https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/200425-450x225.jpg 450w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Hi GAMErs,<\/p>\n<p>Today we\u2019re looking at one of the shortest books in the Bible: it\u2019s 2 John, a letter which is widely believed to be written by the apostle John and written around the same time as 1 John (about early 60s AD). \u00a0\u00a0Let\u2019s go!<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>2 John 1:1 (NIV)\u00a0<\/strong><br \/>\n<sup>1\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0The elder, To the chosen lady and her children, whom I love in the truth&#8211;and not I only, but also all who know the truth&#8211;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>On verse 1:\u00a0 Who is this \u201cchosen lady\u201d that John is writing to?\u00a0 Many scholars believe that this chosen lady was not an individual but a church community.\u00a0 This is supported by the fact that there are no proper names given for this chosen lady, John refers to this lady not just in the singular but also in the plural, and the church is called the \u201cbride of Christ\u201d in the New Testament.\u00a0 Similarly, \u201cyour chosen sister\u201d (v13) is probably referring to another church community from which John is writing his letter.<br \/>\nSince this was a time of heavy persecution of Christians, \u201cchosen lady\u201d and \u201cyour chosen sister\u201d may have been secret code words to keep this letter from being detected by persecutors of Christians.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>2 John 1:2 (NIV)\u00a0<\/strong><br \/>\n<sup>2\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0because of the truth, which lives in us and will be with us forever:<\/em><\/p>\n<p>On verse 2: \u00a0\u201cThe truth\u201d John is referring to, who \u201clives in us and will be with us forever\u201d, is Jesus Christ.\u00a0 Jesus Himself says, \u201cI am the way, the truth and the life\u201d (John 14:6).\u00a0 For Christians, truth is not just a principle; truth is a Person.\u00a0 His name is Jesus.<\/p>\n<p>On verses 3-13:\u00a0 Some of the big lessons from 1 John are also touched on here in 2 John:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Affirmation that Jesus Christ is the Son of God (v3)<\/li>\n<li>How God commands us to love one another (v5)<\/li>\n<li>How true love is about obeying God\u2019s commands (v6)<\/li>\n<li>Warnings about false teachers who deny that Jesus is the Son of God who came to this earth in the flesh (v7-11)<\/li>\n<li>That if you don\u2019t have Christ you don\u2019t have God, but if you have Christ you have God the Father as well (v9)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>Heavenly Father, thank You for sending Your Son Jesus Christ, like a code word, as a message about Yourself to us.\u00a0 Thank You that by Your Spirit and by Your grace we can decipher that code and understand the parable that You are speaking about who You are, whereas others may miss Your message.\u00a0 \u00a0Thank You Jesus for being the way, the truth and the life, who lives in us and will be with us forever.\u00a0 In Jesus\u2019 name, AMEN!<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hi GAMErs,<\/p>\n<p>Today we\u2019re looking at one of the shortest books in the Bible: it\u2019s 2 John, a letter which is widely believed to be written by the apostle John and written around the same time as 1 John (about early 60s AD). \u00a0\u00a0Let\u2019s go!<\/p>\n<p>2 John 1:1 (NIV)\u00a0<br \/>\n1\u00a0\u00a0The elder, To the chosen lady and her children, whom I love in the truth&#8211;and not I only, but also all who know the truth&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>On verse 1:\u00a0 Who is this \u201cchosen lady\u201d that John is writing to?\u00a0 Many scholars believe that this chosen lady was not an individual but a church community.\u00a0 This is supported by the fact that there are no proper names given for this chosen lady, John refers to this lady not just in the singular but also in the plural, and the church is called the \u201cbride of Christ\u201d in the New Testament.\u00a0 Similarly, \u201cyour chosen sister\u201d (v13) is probably referring to another church community from which John is writing his letter.<br \/>\nSince this was a time of heavy persecution of Christians, \u201cchosen lady\u201d and \u201cyour chosen sister\u201d may have been secret code words to keep this letter from being detected by persecutors of Christians.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8890,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gametime-sharing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8889"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8889\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8891,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8889\/revisions\/8891"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}