MSB Book Notes.
This epistle has always been known as 1 John, and is considered a general epistle, since there is no specific addressee.  The epistle does not identify its writer, but the strong, consistent, and earliest testimony of the church ascribes it to John the apostle.  It is believed that only someone of John's standing would be able to write such an epistle, not "sign" it, and yet have a good expectation that the readers would follow its recommendations because they knew it was from John.

We aren't very sure of when it was written because it has no internal material that lends itself to a specific date.  Church tradition puts it in the late 1st century, and they consistently place John in his later years as living in Ephesus and actively writing during this time.  The book does not mention the persecution under Domitian which began about 95 AD, so it was likely written sometime before that, from Ephesus, to the churches in Asia Minor over which John exercised apostolic leadership.  (((so...this may be why Revelation has instructions to all the churches in Asia Minor, but not to others.  Not as much of a mystery as I thought, though you do still have to wonder.)))

(We have often used the fact that 70 AD was not mentioned in other books to date them before that date.  Does 1 John mention 70 AD?  If not, why the late date?)

John was the last surviving eyewitness apostle who was with Jesus during his earthly ministry, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension.  Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Eusebius - all indicate that John lived in Ephesus during his advanced years.  One church father, Papias, knew John personally and described him as a "living and abiding voice.".  John's words - writings - at this time were highly authoritative, many sought to hear him speak in person.  After all, he had known Jesus!

It is believed that Gnosticism grew out of Ephesus, since it was a cultural and philosophical center at that time.  Paul predicted that many false teachers would arise from here and infect the church.  Most likely, John was combating the beginnings of this heresy.  Gnosticism was influenced by such philosophers as Plato, who "advocated a dualism asserting that matter was inherently evil and spirit was good".  As a result of this presupposition, these false teachers, although attributing some form of deity to Christ, denied His true humanity to preserve Him from evil.  It also claimed elevated knowledge, a higher truth known only to those in on the deep things.  Only the initiated had the mystical knowledge of truth that was higher even than the Scripture."

Also this quote: "Instead of divine revelation standing as judge over man's ideas, man's ideas judged God's revelation (2:15-17).  

The heresy of Gnosticism had two forms.  (Most of this is coming directly out of the MSB).  In the first, it was asserted that Jesus only "seemed to have a real body".  He didn't because it would have been made of matter and so corrupt.  This is called Docetism.  John refuted this as one who saw, touched, and heard Jesus Christ in the flesh.  He was with Jesus on earth, and this carried much weight.  According to Irenaeus, another form of the heresy said that Christ's "spirit" descended on the human Jesus at his baptism, and left just before his crucifixion.  John says in 5:6 that the same Jesus baptized at the beginning died on the cross at the end.  No "spirit" showing up and then leaving.

Such views destroy not only the true humanity of Jesus, but also the atonement, for Jesus not only had to be truly God, but also truly human (a physical man) who actually suffered and died in order to be acceptable as the substitutionary sacrifice for sin.  

The Gnostic idea that matter was evil and only spirit was good led to the idea that either the body should be treated harshly, a form of asceticism, or sin committed in the body had no connection or effect on one's spirit.  This led some to believe that no sin committed in the body had any effect at all on the spirit.  This led to absolute indulgence in immorality as permissible.  One could deny that sin even existed.  John stressed that true love of God required obedience to his commandments.

This sentence:  "A lack of love for fellow believers characterizes false teachers, especially as they react against anyone rejecting their new way of thinking (3:10-18).  The false teachers "separated" those who followed them from those who remained faithful to apostolic doctrine.  This created a crisis as John wrote that those who followed the false teachers were unsaved, and had never really been part of the true church.  This shook the remaining believers to the core, and thus John wrote gently, lovingly, but with unquestionable apostolic authority to stem this spreading plague of false doctrine.

John deals with certainties, not with opinions or conjecture.  But also, John rebuts the defectors with sound doctrine, exhibiting no tolerance for those who pervert divine truth.  He labels those departing as "false prophets".  "those trying to deceive" and "antichrists".  He says the source of all of their teaching is demonic.

John is very absolute in his teachings.  Where Paul allowed for some exceptions and dealt with believers' failures to meet the standard, John does not deal with the "what if I fail" issues.  He is black and white almost without exception in his teaching.  He says that those who do not display evidence of the new nature that comes with salvation do not, in fact, have that new nature.  He says they aren't saved at all.  

John uses repetition of basic truths as a means to accentuate their importance and to help his readers understand and remember them.
(Wrote these "notes on the notes" the night before reading.  Tomorrow is Friday and I have the babysitting duty alone.  My time will be very "blocked in", so  I expect to be more rushed than I'd like to be.  However, this morning was over four hours, and that was just too long.  I don't have a four hour concentration span anymore.)

1/30/22 - I read 1Jn4 this morning.  I have been noticing what I called "self-tests of salvation" through this whole book.  While each one is relevant, and we ought to consider each one as it applies to us, I did not find them ultimately diagnostic.  That is, despite all the times I've heard that if you doubt your salvation, read 1Jn and then you will know, one way or the other, I did not find that to be the case, and I think I have an explanation of why.  1 John is not written to help doubting Christians affirm their salvation.  It is written so that true believers can discern false teachers by the great and obvious contrasts between the hearts and actions of the imposters and the words and actions of the saved - the testers.  1 John presupposes that the testers ARE saved, and that they KNOW they are saved.  They know because they know what their inner promptings urge them towards, they know the love they have always for others, they are aware of checks in their spirits, and while they may have a normal and very human fear of the appearance of Christ in the heavens at the rapture, they do not dread that appearance as a signal of their own eternal punishment but as the beginning of fearful catastrophic and apocalyptic events.  So no, 1 John is not here to help us ascertain the status of our salvation.  It is here to help us separate the true teachers from the false ones - who are anti-Christs, run by Satan's angels.   This is what 1 John is for.
2023 - EXCEPT...see note 2022 - 1Jn 5:13 below.   He specifically says he is writing to believers "that you may know that you have eternal life".  So...can we say that there is a certain tension here, between the doubts that arise from what the false teachers are saying and what these believers originally heard?  How many people sit under Joel Osteen, and believe what he says because he preaches at this giant successful church and he has masses of devoted followers.  Wouldn't you wonder if maybe you had it wrong all these years?  Looked at like this, both things are true.  It is so believers can be assured.  It is to point out the obvious errors of the false teachers, it is to give confidence to rank and file Christians who are exposed to false teaching and ridiculed for not believing it.  This book is a pep talk to those being pushed out by supposed brothers, encouraging them to stay and fight.  This is about not leaving a church you disagree with, but holding fast to what is orthodox.

Chapter 1
Begins, in the TCR, with "That which was from the beginning...."  In NASB, it is "What was from the beginning..."  Both these phrases refer to Jesus, and John goes on to say that he'd seen this with his eyes in vs 1, he had seen it in vs 2.  He uses "manifest" twice in vs 2.  In vs 3, he has seen.  So in three verses, he tells us three times that he has seen Jesus, and twice that Jesus was "made manifest".  

2023 - If I am correctly understanding what "forward inline" means in the BLB, then comparing vs 1 and vs 3 is quite interesting.  The same words are used in each.  Here is vs 1:
ἀκηκόαμεν ὃ ἑωράκαμεν, Which would be "heard and seen".  Then in vs 3 they are reversed:
ἑωράκαμεν καὶ ἀκηκόαμεν, which is literally read "seen and heard".  John tells them that he had both heard and seen Jesus, and that the had seen and heard Jesus.  It is a way, in the Greek, of just hammering this point that he was there, upside down, sideways and straight ahead, with Jesus.  He is saying that to contradict him is to contradict an eye witness to these things, and he is challenging anyone who disagrees with him to come forward and report what THEY SAW AND HEARD!  Because if you weren't there, you are just not as credible as John.  He is really laying it on thick here.

2022 - Vss 1,2
1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life-- 2 the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us-- [1Jo 1:1-2 ESV]
First, John says this eternal being - this Jesus - was here, he walked and talked, he was clearly and unequivocally seen, and could be touched and felt.  Because he, John, had experienced each of these things.  He'd rested his head on Jesus shoulder at the last supper for crying out loud.  Who could seriously doubt what he said about the physical presence of Jesus?  And that second verse - I proclaim the eternal life - that is, the immortality of Jesus.  He is stacking this very non-mortal attribute right on top of his first hand claims that Jesus was entirely mortal.  He is getting right to the point!  He was with the Father - so he came FROM heaven - he was with us - so he came TO mankind.  What next?
2022 - This is next:
3 that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. [1Jo 1:3 ESV]
You need to believe what I'm telling you, not least because I want to share it with you, I want us to "own" these truths together.

2023 - He is also stating what you have to believe in order to be saved and then making fellowship an exclusive consequence of salvation.  John proclaims the truth - the gospel? - so that like him, we can be saved, and ultimately our salvation results in fellowship among believers, and fellowship with Father and Son.  
So go back....what is it you have to believe?  First, that Jesus was a man.  A walking talking breathing eating sleeping human being, just as we are.  He was a physical reality, just like we are.  Second, he is eternal.  He was with the Father before the world was created, and he is eternally with the Father now.  He does not die.  Look how closely this matches the gospel in 1 Corinthians:
3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, [1Co 15:3-4 ESV].
Paul says we ought to believe because the scriptures prophesied these things that actually happened in Christ.
John says we ought to believe because HE SAW these things unfold in real life.

2023 - There is a footnote to vs 4 that says in some manuscripts it reads "your joy" rather than "our joy".  In both the mGNT and the TR, it reads "our joy".  If those two agree....why would you look elsewhere?  Maybe the ones that read "your joy" are older manuscripts or in some other way considered superior?  KJV and NKJV both translate it your.  How is that possible if KJV is based on TR???  And how important is that, really?  If he says "our", he is including himself with his readers.  If he says "your", it is written just for them...so that understanding as he understands, they too can have joy.  So...as to his readers, either translation says the same thing.

This verse:
5 This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. [1Jo 1:5 ESV].  Again, John is making it clear that this is not some after the fact, I read Jesus' biography kind of statement.  This is the message he heard Jesus preach, when he was there, in the inner circle!  I can see where John speaks as if there is no room at all to doubt him.  2021 - Also, this may be presenting a contrast between the Greek philosophy of dualism and the Godly philosophy of body, soul, spirit all as one.
2022 - No darkness might be understood as "no corruption inherent in flesh".  None at all in Christ.  He lived as a flesh and blood man, yet he was perfect.  Therefore, dualism as the Greeks had it, falls.  He is only light.  Only light can associate with light.  Light and darkness truly are a duality!  The true, the relevant duality.  If you embrace the darkness you cannot be in the light.  It excludes darkness, overcomes it, removes it.  Wow.  The true duality explained for those who were leaning toward the false duality.  How insidious was this?  

2023 - I think this goes all the way back to John's gospel...and I really don't know how far apart in time he wrote his gospel compared to when he wrote this letter...but John was calling Jesus the light of the world in John 1.  He has always made a big deal of contrasting the light that was Christ with the darkness that is everywhere else.  John was maybe annoyed at those who tried to "over-analyze" the teachings of Christ, and break things up into matter and spirit and corruption and purity and so on.  Maybe he went with light and dark because those aren't really divisible, but are either on or off.  John saw the gospel as binary only.  You believe it.  You do not believe it.  You don't "believe it only if these assumptions about Jesus are true and fit with your further worldly philosophy".  You don't get to put conditions on it, and you do not have to be able to fit it nicely into some cubby hole.  Is it a zero or a one???  That's all that matters.  Get that right first, and then the rest will be properly prioritized.  
2023 - It gets back to the Timothy Keller thing about what makes the best sense.  Strip away all these "later considerations" and decide whether, at the most fundamental level, you believe that Jesus was sent by God to die on the cross for your sins - is there any better way to explain what we know about him - that he was buried, rose on the third day, and then went back to heaven.  Does anything else BETTER explain the phenomenon that is Jesus Christ?  No, we don't have as many facts or as much documentation as we would like.  When is that not the case?  But based on what we do know - 2000  years later - how else do you explain Christianity if those facts are not the truth?  Think of it as a model.  There is this gospel model, that he literally rose from the dead and literally ascended back to heaven.  Then there are all these others.  That he only swooned, that the body was stolen, that no one talked, that the conspiracy held together, that the 500 witnesses were all liars....Decide first WHO Jesus was based on a skeptical evaluation of the evidence, and then go from there.  
Always start with Jesus!  Don't start with Genesis, don't debate Genesis or miracles (though I'd go there second!!!) or matter and spirit.  Debate who Jesus had to be!!!
Possible FB post if condensed...

If we say we follow God but we walk in the dark, we lie.  No minced words.  John says you cannot just "do what you want" and still claim you are a Christian.  By contrast if we walk in the light, we have fellowship with one another.  Doesn't say with God, says one another.  vs 3, though, had this phrase:  "and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.  AND we are cleansed with the blood of His Son.  

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves.  So - John says "I know what I'm talking about because I was there.  I know what he preached because I heard him preach.  Then he says that a sinful life cannot be lived in fellowship with God.  Then he says that claiming we are "untouched" by sin is self-deceit, because anyone can see that sin is sin is sin.  So this isn't about believing Christian's claiming to be so good that they never sin.  The Pharisees claimed not to sin under the law, and maybe this was the twist that Satan used to get Christians to believe that they too could live a sinless life, and just do it easily.  They separated the spirit and said the body could not affect it.  So there was no sin "imputed" to the soul of the believer.

2023 - Note that this is also one of the forms that Gnosticism took, per the MSB intro.  That what the body did, no matter how immoral, did not count as sin because the body could not "infect" the spirit.  This view "allowed" unbridled sin in those who believed this way.  Not only could they do whatever the idol worshipers were doing, they could do things that shocked even idolators and call themselves righteous.  They could use this "freedom" as a recruiting tool!  Follow Christ, make no changes to your life - except to stop curbing your inhibitions - and go to heaven.  And those recruited by this false gospel would still be completely lost and headed for hell, and feel good about it!

2022 - Here, he addresses the second of the possibilities MSB mentioned in the intro.  First, he makes sure we understand that Jesus WAS flesh and blood, and that did not automatically corrupt him nor preclude in any way a sinless life.  Therefore, it is not flesh and spirit that we need focus on, but light and darkness.  And the other thing is, there is no duality in the pollution that darkness brings.  We cannot claim that what affects our bodies does not touch our souls.  This is a also a false duality.  We are put together in a wonderful way, part mortal, part immortal.  But the parts are also one and the same in their experience and their embrace of earthly things.  If it affects the body, it affects the spirit.  I think we can also say the opposite is true.  If our spirit is troubled - is dark, is unsaved - then our physical life also suffers.  

2021 - But we still have to reconcile the carnal Christians of 1 and 2 Corinthians, and the teaching in 2 Peter that we can get far enough away from living rightly that we don't even know whether we are saved or not.  John isn't leaving those to whom he is writing any wiggle room on this.  BUT, John is writing to specific people with a specific false teaching, and he knows about the application of that false teaching - doing things just like they did when they worshiped Diana and yet claiming it does not affect their Christianity.  Surely this is a perversion of what the Bible on the whole teaches about sin.  Sin affects the person, the whole person, and persistence in sin indicates an unconverted spirit, not an advanced understanding of body soul spirit that allows compartmentalized and sin-filled Christian life.  Stated like this, there is obviously a huge problem somewhere!

2023 - Starting with vs 6, here is a paraphrase:
If we say we are saved while we walk in darkness, we lie.  The extant visible behavior, observable to anyone, demonstrates whether we are saved or unsaved.  Like being a little pregnant otherwise.
If we say we have no sin, we lie.  I think this is about the Gnostic teaching that what our body does has no effect on the spirit.  That is, no matter what we do, it is not sin.
If we say we have NOT sinned, we lie.  This means that being saved now doesn't mean nothing you ever did was sin.  You must still realize sin, confess sin, repent of sin.  I bet they were teaching there was really no such thing as sin and repentance was therefore  unnecessary!
There's a good FB post in this!
ADDING this from 2:4:
If we say we are saved, and act like heathens, we are liars

How direct is that?  

Chapter 2
Starts with "My little children...".  John is very old, especially by the standards of his time.  He's just said some pretty strong things.  Now his face softens, he smiles, and switches from authoritative directness to benevolent grand parenting.  Jesus is the propitiation for our sins, and for the sins of the whole world.  This sounds like unlimited atonement.  Pretty good proof text for it in fact.  MSB says this is "a generic term for mankind in general, not for every single individual.  Then MSB states clearly "Christ actually paid the penalty only for those who would repent and believe."  This is at the heart of Calvinism.  John MacArthur is Calvinist.  What then does he disagree with Spurgeon about?  (2023 - John MacArthur is also a dispensationalist, which I'm guessing Spurgeon is not.  I am pretty sure that I am not a dispensationalist.  I wonder if the few places I have agreed with MacA are related to dispensationalism.  I will check as I get to them again.)

2022 - This verse:
2 He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. [1Jo 2:2 ESV]
(((2023 - Hard to swallow, but looking at BLB today it appears that this whole conflict between TR and mGNT is non-existent.  I compared TR adn mGNT word for word for word, adn they are exactly the same on this verse.  There are no differences at all.  SO this huge paragraph below where I complain about spending hours on one word?  Well that was all wasted time because I got something in my head that wasn't there.  And today, I just don't feel like I have the time to unravel it all.  Reading on through, just need to get it read.)))
2023 - Well...no I am not just reading it on through.  Here are some other verses where that phrase "whole world" is used:
6 In days to come Jacob shall take root, Israel shall blossom and put forth shoots and fill the whole world with fruit. [Isa 27:6 ESV]
26 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? [Mat 16:26 ESV]
14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. [Mat 24:14 ESV]
36 For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? [Mar 8:36 ESV]
Not that in every case, "whole world" is about geography, never about people.  So when it says that he is the propitiation for the sins of the whole world, it means that no matter where in the world you live, his propitiation reaches you.  It doesn't mean for every individual in the whole world, it means that there is no place IN the world that it does not reach.  So given that, my conclusion is that this verse is not about unlimited atonement at all.  It is just not a good proof text for that.

(2023 - For some reason, today, in 2023, I am hesitant to delete the erroneous paragraph below.  Perhaps to remind me that when I get into something this difficult, the FIRST thing to do is make sure I'm reading it right.  So I'll leave this huge error here for now.)
If we deny that the meaning here is unlimited atonement, then what does it mean?  How are we to explain it without sounding tautological?  We could say that he has atoned for the sins of all who are currently saved, the"our sins" part, and for those lost now who will be saved, for generations yet unborn and unknown to us who are yet to be saved "the whole world" part.  Is that fair?  The Greek word translated "our" in the first phrase is "ego".  Hmm...It has the list of how this word is translated, as it is used 370 times in the KJV.  "our" does not appear in that list.  Yet here is 1J2:2 in the KJV:  2 And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for [the sins of] the whole world. [1Jo 2:2 KJV].  KJV clearly uses "our", but here is the thing.  The above use of ego is based on the ESV translation, and ESV is based on the mGNT.  The KJV is based on the TR.  AND, in the TR, the word is not "ego", it is "hemon".  This word "hemon" is NEVER used in the mGNT!  In 313 of 410 instances in the TR, "hemon" is translated "our".  In the TR, in 365 of 370 uses, "ego" is translated "I".  Very difficult situation for a Greek non-scholar.  I will keep on though.  In the mGNT, there are 2,581 instances in 17 unique forms of the Greek word we transliterate as "ego".  That is a tremendous number!  The precise form of the word that appears here in 1J2:2 occurs 470 of those 2581 times in the mGNT.  In this form, the word is a Genitive plural.  So that would never be translated "I", except of the Trinity.  We are not here speaking of the Trinity, so it is translated "our" based on the underlying word in the mGNT.  Instead of "our", the same word in the same Greek form is here translated "us".  23 "Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel" (which means, God with us). [Mat 1:23 ESV]  In 1J, as "our", it is a possessive plural pronoun.  But in Matthew, it is a pronoun still, but not possessive.  God with us, not "our God with".  In both places it is genitive case.  The genitive case shows ownership.  So I get "our sins", we certainly own them.  But that does not apply to "God with us".  Maybe context determines...no!  Genitive is genitive, context nothwithstanding.
So I have been locked up on this verse now for almost half an hour.  On this one word for half an hour.  I am at least as confused now as I was when I started - in fact much more so.  Given the number of forms this little three letter word can take, I suspect that even a Greek scholar could do little better in explaining the reasons for these two very different translations of the same root word in the same form.  Come on.  Who can explain such a thing?  
So my conclusion, what I see as the result of this, is the rise of two very different doctrines from the same verse.  You have the Calvinist saying this does not undo the third point of Calvinism - limited atonement - and all their hand waving to prove that.  Perhaps they say there are obvious translation problems here, there is obviously much more going on here - much assumed based on what was "commonly meant" by this phrasing in NT Ephesus - that just isn't concisely stated in this verse.  After all, this verse is not about whether atonement is limited or unlimited, it is about Christ's death being applicable to all men...and the Calvinist add, if they are elect.  His blood COULD cover all sins, but is only actually applied to the elect.  And the Arminians say that "whole" means exactly that and nothing more with no caveats.  
It seems like every time we start to take apart a verse used as a proof text for something as "theological" as Calvinism vs Arminianism we find one of these contested and very complex translations, of which this is maybe the most profound I have yet encountered, having roots in whether or not the TR or the mGNT ought to be followed, and then just getting more complex from there!  What are we to think?  Perhaps, and I think what is most likely, is that both are correct, but the "mental resilience" for both to be true is lacking in human beings.  God has not clearly revealed how atonement can be both limited and unlimited at the same time.  This isn't the only such thing, and if we correctly identify the horse and the cart, it is clear that the horse is how God constructed the efficacy of the crucifixion, and the cart is just a dilapidated, worn out derelict version of the perfect wagon God designed.  We should spend our time enthralled about the very  idea of a perfect sacrifice, a mortal man without sin (for what could ever be excluded as too much for such a sacrifice to cover) and not worry so much how exactly that blood is applied to mankind.  Let the theologians work on that.
AND, I have used up my whole time on this one verse, really this one word.  So I am moving on now at a much more rapid pace.

2021 - This verse:
3 And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. [1Jo 2:3 ESV]  In this little book, the Apostle John has said some very direct things in his first chapter.  He said, literally, that if we are allowing/tolerating/embracing habitual sin in our lives, then we are not Christians, not children of God, not regenerated, and headed straight to hell when we die.  He cuts them no slack at all.  But then in chapter 2, his approach changes from "schoolmaster" to "grandfather".  He lays out a test.  A pretty simple test.  But this is not presented as a litmus test, that will reveal one of only two possible answers.  This is more like asking "is the check engine light on?"  If we don't pass this test, it means that something is wrong somewhere, and we need to check further to determine how serious the problem really  is.  The problem might be an indulgent attitude toward some sin, a wholesale slide into carnality, or it may indicate a previous lack of true conversion that shows a rejection of offered salvation.  Whichever the case may be, failing this test ought to prompt us to see a good "mechanic".  We should talk to someone well grounded in faith (we should know a lot of people who are well grounded!) and get an outside, objective opinion of what is going on.  We should get some guided study to help us diagnose the real extent of the problem, the "cost" to repair that problem, and an informed decision about how we want to go forward.  This is not a check engine light that we should ignore, or paint over.  Failing this simple test should give us a sense of urgency.  Ignoring this warning light will almost certainly lead to problems that are increasingly difficult and expensive to correct.  (John does not stay in Grandfather mode very long, but soon follows with this verse:  4 Whoever says "I know him" but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, [1Jo 2:4 ESV])
This is a really good FB post.

2023 - This verse:
4 Whoever says "I know him" but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, [1Jo 2:4 ESV].
So...do I just tack this onto the bottom of the 2023 summary at the bottom of chapter one?
If we claim salvation, and act like heathens, we are liars.  That's four things now that John calls lies.  Actually...he calls those who SAY these things LIARS.  That is really the word he's focused on.  Not lies, but liars.

Then a shift from grandfather back to authority:
5 but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: 6 whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked. [1Jo 2:5-6 ESV]
So keeping God's laws "perfects" us.  Living as the false teachers said, and indulging all physical pleasures because they don't matter anyway, does the opposite.  In keeping God's laws, we find real pleasure, we find fellowship, our spirit agrees with His Spirit, and we just know - we are internally assured - that we are "in Him".  There is that phrase again, this time John is using it, not Paul.  the paragraph concludes that if we say we are "in Christ", we ought to live as Christ lived, in full accord with the commandments of God, not as indulgent brats.

John says what he is saying is nothing new, but is in fact very old.  He doesn't actually name the command until later, but he is talking about "love".  Jesus required that we love each other as he loved us.  While this was in the OT, it was not emphasized as the core of all the commandments.  Jesus gave it a central place in the lives of believers, even to their own hurt.
2022 - The verse is like this:
7 Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which ye have heard from the beginning. [1Jo 2:7 KJV]
John says the new stuff is not to be embraced, but rather held up against the old word, heard from the beginning.  Orthodoxy before innovation in every case is what John is saying here.  What a lesson for us today!  New doctrine is bad doctrine!
This might be turned into a pretty good FB post!
No...because the next verse introduces considerable complexity.  What John is really saying is that he is going to restate something that was there before, but never conceived in these same words.  We see it now because the light - Jesus - has come into the world and clarified this commandment - which he certainly did and in so many words.  But I think trying to just FB what is above as standalone is to oversimplify in an unacceptable way.  So I'm taking it back off the list.

Vs 9 gets direct and unequivocal again.  If you hate your brother, you are NOT in the light, but still in darkness.  You have it wrong.  This is likely directed at what the false teachers are saying about those who oppose them, as mentioned in the introduction.  John is "shining the light of love" right on them, undermining their false teaching by pointing out that they are not even believers.  Then John uses a sort of "poetic construction" to make the same point repeatedly: that living in the light makes us God's children, while living in the darkness of sin makes us children of the world - and the world is controlled by Satan.
In the NASB the verbs in vss 13c-14 are translated "I have written", instead of I write.  There is a contrast with 12-13b where the tense is different - I am writing.  This section would be easy for John's readers to memorize I expect.  It would be interesting to take a look at it in Greek...

These tremendous verses:
15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world--the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life--is not from the Father but is from the world. [1Jo 2:15-16 ESV]
John just won't leave them any room at all to indulge in sin.  He makes it clear over and over that committing sin DOES matter, and it is NOT acceptable, and it means - it makes it certain - that you are not saved.

In vs 18 John says that the prediction that antichrist must come before the end of time is fulfilled.  Many antichrists are here already, therefore he identified his own time as "the last hour".  This is the man who wrote Revelation saying that the "end times" are upon them.  I think.  MSB though, says the term antichrist appears only in John's epistles, and this is the first appearance in them.  Its first use is singular, referring to the world ruler who is predicted to come.  It's second use in the same verse is plural, referring to many individuals already present.  So...John is not saying the final antichrist is visible.  He makes THE antichrist, and those who have followed the false teachers essentially "of the same mind and intent" as that last antichrist that will come.  He doesn't say those who follow the false teachers have made a mistake and need to be corrected and urged back, but that they are of the same stuff as the evil ruler of this world.  Man.  He is not leaving any wiggle room at all.

2022 - This, I think, contradicts what Bobby Kelly said.  I do not remember Kelly pointing out that one is singular and one is plural.  When John uses it as singular, he could well be speaking of the spirit of antichrist, as the idea of direct opposition, refutation and denial of Christ is now showing up to influence demonically these false teachers that are the subject of his letter so far.  They are all of one mind - anti-Christ - and there are many of them with that mind, the plural.  However, if you want to justify calling that predicted world ruler "THE Antichrist", you can pull it out of this verse.  I think to do so would put you on shaky ground though, as John specifically says "Therefore we know that it is the last hour".  He is saying that the predicted world ruler is there, because that is what signaled the last hour.  I t seems to me that is how John meant it.  Bobby may be right...but he may not.
I think the spirit of antichrist is what John means in the singular, and that the false teachers, plural, are a part of that spirit.  John isn't talking about "THE Antichrist" when he uses the singular.  What verse is John referencing when he says "You have heard...."  Find that verse, and unlock John's real intent.  MSB references Dan. 8:9-11; 11:31-38; 12:11; Mt 24:15; and 2Th 2:1-12.  See MSB notes on Rev 13:1-5; 19:20.  So these are where you start, and I bet it is a very interesting study...but not for today.  Moving this paragraph to End Times note.

2023 - Hmm...I wonder if I am as mistaken in the two paragraphs above as I was in the vs 1!?!?  Here is verse 18, in the ESV:
18 Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour. [1Jo 2:18 ESV]
The first use of "antichrist is as a nominative singular masculine noun.  Nominative is the subject of the phrase "antichrist is coming".  It is singular, but there is NO definite article in here anywhere.  
The second use is actually "antichristoi", and is nominative plural masculine, the subject of the phrase "many antichrists have come".  
I think - though I am no Greek scholar - that if John was equating antichrist with the end times world ruler, with that specific human person - there would be a definite article here to make that clear.  It is not here.  Look at the two phrases:  Sometime in the past, the saved to whom John is writing, heard that antichrist, singular, would come.  And John is here to tell us that the predicted antichrist is here in spades.  So does John mean that they were all told that teaching against Christ would arrive, and that now, such teaching is present in many variations?  I don't think he is talking so much about persons here as about what these persons teach, he is talking about a message that is against Christ with the intent of making Christ of no consequence.  Does that hold up in the rest of the verses where John uses it?  If it is a concept, and not a man, then we would expect it to always be a concept.

2023 - The word "antichristos" is used 5 times in 4 verses in the mGNT.  Twice in 1Jn 2:18, once in 1Jn 2:22, once in 1Jn 4:3, and once in 2Jn 1:7.  And that is it.  John does not use the word in his gospel, John does not use the word in Revelation.
18 Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour. ... This is the original use that we postulate is a
22 Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. [1Jo 2:18, 22 ESV].  So...Here, the word antichrist does seem to be applied to specific individuals.  The definite article IS present in vs. 22.  John seems to be saying that any man whose teaching includes a denial of the Father and the Son belongs in the category of those who teach antichrist.  That seems weak...
3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. [1Jo 4:3 ESV].  This is about the spirit of antichrist.  Like the underlying motivation in the world to teach against Christ.
7 For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist. [2Jo 1:7 ESV].  Definite articles are present in both places.  THE deceiver, THE antichrist.  By look back...at the beginning of the verse John tells us that there are MANY of these?  Many "THE antichrist".  Perhaps the deceivers are the ones who are doing the teaching, and they will proclaim all sorts of refutations showing that Jesus, the Christ, did NOT come in the flesh.  Any such teaching is ANTI-Christ.  Maybe that's the problem?  We try to make antichrist a single word, where in English it is better understood as TWO words.  
18 Looking back...ANTI-CHRIST teachings will arise.  Many teachings are now extant that are ANTI-CHRIST.
22 He who denies Father and son is ANTI-CHRIST.
3 Every "idea" categorizing JESUS as just a man is an idea that is ANTI-CHRIST.
7 Such a person is ANTI-CHRIST.
Wow!  Putting that little dash in there, and so changing the pronunciation, put the emphasis on a different aspect.  It fits ALL the instances when paraphrased this way.  Teaching that is anti-Christ was predicted.  Many teachings are now in the world that are anti-Christ.  If you want to ferret out teachings which sound plausible but are in fact anti-Christ, then look for these tell tale signs:  They deny that Jesus is the Christ.  So simply an anti-Christ teaching!  That he is not who we say he is.  If they teach that Father and Son   These all work very very well.  Just change the way you write it down!

2024 - Going still further with this, it is plain as can be that antichrists are already in the world in John's time.  They were previously members of the church, but went out from them, indicating that these who embrace anti-Christ teachings were never saved to start with.  There is no way to get an end of the world diabolical world tyrant out of what John says in this chapter.  And John is the only NT writer who ever uses the word anti-Christ.  How did we get this so messed up?  John is warning us about a teaching, not about a man.  In Revelation we will get the number of a man, the number of THE beast.  But John isn't talking about that beast here, and antichrist is not the name of that beast that is to come.  Satan wants us to know as little about the beast as possible so that he can put off recognition as long as possible.  Having us refer to the beast as THE Antichrist is one of the ways he does that.  There is no "THE Antichrist".  There is the MoL, SoP.  A man in both instances.  Antichrists have been around since John's day.  The ones he's talking about start inside the church, do all the harm they can, and then go out.

2023 - Using the two 2023 paragraphs above, vs 19 now makes perfect sense.  The ones who have "left" are those who have embraced teaching that is anti-Christ.  Against Christ.  I think John is talking now not about the rank and file, but about the teachers, the leaders, the liars who are promoting beliefs that are not orthodox at all, but new teachings which according to the signs and tests John has give us, are anti-Christ.

He speaks to the ones who have not left, and says he writes to them BECAUSE they are holding to the truth, not to correct them for NOT holding to it.  Those who have left are not the ones he is writing!  He's let them go.  He does another sort of summary verse that I suspect draws a stark contrast with the teachings of the antichrists that have led many away from the church:
23 No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. [1Jo 2:23 ESV]
Another verse that makes me want to find a good book on Christology!

2022 - Sort of backing up just a bit to this phrase:
22 Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. [1Jo 2:22 ESV]
First, look at the last phrase: "...he who denies the Father and the Son".  Is that not Islam in a nutshell?  Are they not here predicted?  The word antichrist here is Nominative Singular Masculine in the Greek.  He is using a singular noun to describe multiple "subscribers".  ANY singular person who denies the Father and the Son is "the antichrist".  Is the definite article there, before antichrist?  Yes!  "ho antichristos" is the phrase.  So take this back to the 2022 note above on vs 18.  Antichrist is singular there also, but it does not refer to "The Antichrist" as we use the term.  I think the argument is very very compelling that John did not mean it that way.

This verse confirms that John is not writing those who are following false teachers, but those still in the church and holding to the true faith:
26 I write these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you. [1Jo 2:26 ESV].
2023 - I think this verse also means that the above analysis relying on "anti-Christ" instead of antichrist is all about identifying the men who are teaching doctrine, philosophy, theology that is anti-Christ.  He is not looking out to the coming of the Man of Lawlessness in any way at all.  It is just NOT about "the antichrist", and our referring to the end times world leader AS "The Antichrist" is a complete misnomer.

Look at this in vs 27!!!:
27 But the anointing that you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie--just as it has taught you, abide in him. [1Jo 2:27 ESV]
A reference to fulfillment of the prophecy that says "a new heart will I put within you, and no man will teach another, because all will know the truth".  I thought this prophecy was only about the Jews in the last days but here John seems to apply it to the Gentile church in Ephesus!  MSB does not make this connection...so I am likely off the track.  But still...

2022 - And still one more verse to appreciate in this chapter:
28 And now, little children, abide in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming. [1Jo 2:28 ESV]
If we are in him, we know absolutely that we are, we live "in him" in all that we do, and so when the trumpet sounds and the light flashes, and every eye turns, we don't have a rock in our bellies wondering if we were right, but lift our hands and welcome him at his appearing.  Think of this contrast!  And how is this confidence gained?  By abiding in him, living his words, his ways, his teaching...and by turning everything outward and loving those whom he has put near us to love!  Love close by, not continents away!  God calls some to that, but he calls us all to love close by!

Chapter 3
Referring back to that little poem maybe, this chapter opens by saying we should be called children of God.  As God's children, we are now in one state, but we are progressing to another state, which has not appeared.  Glorified bodies?  Yes.  When he appears we will be like him.  

2022 - This verse:
1 See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. [1Jo 3:1 ESV]
The world does not know us because it did not know him.  Is this about how Jesus was here, and John knew him and others can know him through the Holy Spirit,  but the world, by John's day, had not known Christ, nor even heard about him?   

2023 - I think it means that when he was here the world didn't believe who he was, despite the signs.  But I don't think it is confined to just the days while he walked the earth.  The world does not know him today either...yet that first verse is in past tense.  Ahhhh....MSB says this is aorist.  It is therefore rendered in past tense in English because that is usually best, but in this particular case, it is critical to understand that the "world not knowing him" is unstuck in time - before John wrote this, when John wrote this, and forever after John wrote this.  This is a sort of characteristic state of the world as to the children of God.  We should see the world not knowing Christ as the current and ongoing state of things.  It is aorist.

2022 - This one:
2 Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. [1Jo 3:2 ESV]
This seems to be a reference to what Paul says in Thessalonians about our bodies changing into something else at the rapture.  But in the phrase "when he appears", the word for appears is not rapturo but phaneroo.  To me, this is a persistent appearance, more than a quick glimpse.  Many times this word is translated "manifested".  Jesus, on earth the first time, was manifested to us.  He was here, we saw him, there was no wondering if that was a dream or vision because of its "now you see it now you don't" nature.  He was here and people touched him, saw his works, and so on.  No doubt he was here.  So in this verse, I think John speaks more of the second coming than the rapture...but why would that be what he means?  These he is writing to are "in Christ".  they "shall be like him" at that moment.  It has to be about the rapture.  And John would say that because the rapture is really an endpoint for those in Christ.  I think OT saints remain dead until the GWT, but at the rapture, if you are part of the church age, if you are saved during the church age, this is when you go to heaven.  It will be at the rapture or not at all.
2023 - If that is the case though, then we have to say that phaneroo CAN refer to the rapture, not just to the second coming, and each case will have to be argued based on context.  Do we really want to open up that can of worms?  MSB just sort of calls it "at his coming", so I think MSB is going with second coming, not rapture.

Here is a clear statement of doctrine:
4 Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. 5 You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. 6 No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. [1Jo 3:4-6 ESV]
Direct, succinct, concise.  If you think continual sin in your life without repentance is ok, then you do not know him.  You are lost as a goose.  You have missed the boat completely.  This speaks to the lordship of Christ in the life of the believer.

2022 - In vs 5, John uses phaneroo again:
5 You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. [1Jo 3:5 ESV]
This time, he is using it as I usually think of it, as a persistent, extended appearance.  Makes it very confusing as to what he really means in 2.  Why would he use it two different ways so closely together?  Does phaneroo ever describe a rapture like appearance or is it always persistent?  
KJV only translates it as some form of manifest, show, or appear.  Appear is used 12 times, manifest is used 18, so not as different as I thought.  But here is one of the "appears":
10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things [done] in [his] body, according to that he hath done, whether [it be] good or bad. [2Co 5:10 KJV]
I don't believe this is a wink of an eye kind of appearance.  This one though:
4 When Christ, [who is] our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. [Col 3:4 KJV]  This is Paul, and it also looks like a reference to the rapture.  And this also:
4 And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away. [1Pe 5:4 KJV].  Is this crown at the rapture, or at the second coming?  Is it a literal crown?  Is it the bema crown?  And again...
28 And now, little children, abide in him; that, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming. [1Jo 2:28 KJV].  This has to be the rapture doesn't it?  Has to be, in that he would otherwise be addressing this statement to those alive at the end of Great Trib, when Christ comes back with his army to establish his kingdom.  But John knows full well, and it should be equally obvious to us, that he is writing to the people of his own day about what they may expect IN THEIR OWN DAY.  What they can expect is the rapture, and NOT the second coming.  So I am going with phaneroo sometimes meaning rapture and sometimes meaning the longer, more persistent first appearance of Jesus.  But does it ever mean second coming?  Hmm...Maybe in 1Pet5:4, above.  IF though, we say it is always either the last appearance of Christ on earth during his life, or it is the rapture and not the second coming, then we have to say that 1Pet5:4 is about the rapture and that crowns will be distributed at that time.  This is a long way around to find the bema judgment - and it is certainly not phrases as judgment but award ceremony.  

Summarizing phrases from 6-8:
No one who abides in him keeps on sinning.  No one who keeps on sinning has known him.  Whoever practices righteousness is righteous.  Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil.  The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.  
Then vs 9 is a sort of therefore, though it doesn't have the word.
No one born of God makes a practice of sinning.  Those born of God have God's seed abiding in them (Jesus!) and he cannot keep sinning because he is born of God.  
This awesome conclusion:
10 By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. [1Jo 3:10 ESV]
Simple.

2024 - This:
6 No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. [1Jo 3:6 ESV].  Look at the logic here that leaves no middle ground at all.  If you're saved, you avoid sin as much as is possible.  It is not something you knowingly include in your routine.  But if you do decide that sleeping around is just a part of you that you won't give up, if you CHOOSE to go on with something you KNOW is a sin, you are still lost, you were not saved, are not saved.  This implies that repentance of ALL sin is necessary for salvation.

2022 - But not simple.  I spent years of my life, decades probably, doing whatever I wanted to do, knowing that it was sin, and doing it anyway.  Cussing, drinking, not even considering going to church.  I did not make a habit of lying, stealing, neglecting family, or taking advantage of others.  How does this work?  I believe I was saved all that time, yet anyone looking at me objectively would never have thought, well obviously he is saved.  Never would have happened.  So how does this work?  What kind of perception is required to tell which state is being evidenced by a person's behavior?  How?  How can it be as simple as vs 10?

2023 - I still don't know.  You just cannot tell whether a person is saved and woefully backslidden, or not saved at all.  There was a verse about being so far out that you've forgotten you were even saved.  I wanted to put that verse in here but I cannot find it.  I thought it was in 2Pet 2...but that doesn't seem to be it.  Maybe 1Pet 2.  I really want to connect these two.  I was thinking a couple days ago, as I began to read 1 Jn, that there was quite a contrast between what John is saying here and what Peter was saying in his books.  Peter seemed to think saved people could behave very badly.  John seems to be saying that is not possible.  So...how to resolved that?  Peter was on the inside, as was John, and James was killed by Herod so we have no book written by him.
Here is the verse from 2 Peter:  9 For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. [2Pe 1:9 ESV].   
Hmm...going back to the context though, Peter is saying a saved person's life may not be characterized by that whole list of good qualities - faith, virtue, knowledge, self-control and so on, if that saved person has gone blind and forgotten....
By contrast, John is not talking about a lack of good things in a persons character, but the presence of continuous repeating sin.  
Maybe that it the thing.  Someone once saved who is not increasing in good works....not so great.  Someone once saved who's life is characterized by repeating sin...never saved in the first place.  
AND THAT DOES NOT FLY because by that measure...when was I even saved?  Losing my salvation and then getting it back three or four times would be the only way to explain my life!  

Vs 11 takes us back to the "unspecified commandment" which is not new, but is new in quality and emphasis:
11 For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. [1Jo 3:11 ESV]
Again, short and to the point.  Cain murdered Abel because his own deeds were evil, and Abel's were righteous.  He hated Abel because Abel followed the right.  Those in the dark hate those in the light.  A fact, inescapable and difficult - to be hated for being righteous.  That is not how we are taught that it is supposed to work.
2022 - Is this the "clarification" that my 2022 note on vs 10 requested?  Cain is the example of those who do not practice righteousness and who do not love their brother.  Cain was offering sacrifices.  He was in church, practically speaking.  He looked like he was a believer.  But inside, he hated Abel, was jealous of Abel, he recognized that Abel was righteous and he was not.  In the extreme case, Cain killed the better man that he hated in order to stop the obvious contrast.  To make a call about someone else's salvation, you have to know them.  Not just superficially, either.  Anyone can appear Christian for a time, but that doesn't matter.  We have to know what's in their head, and the best time for that to be revealed is under duress - extreme duress.  How did I behave under duress?  When Mark died?  When we had marriage problems?  Did hatred come out of me or love?  Has to be love in both cases.  Is this right?  When we went to different churches, I didn't hate and scream and demand.  I loved as best I could.  I was patient as best I could.  Tom Redmon - I used to make fun of his saying grace when we all went out to eat.  He was Abel to my Cain in those days.  But no longer.  Maybe I wasn't saved then, but at Heritage, later, when I started going again with the kids, there was that one afternoon, when I prayed.   Maybe that is when I was really saved.  I didn't hate Louis Klein though, during the same time I didn't like Redmon?  I just cannot be definitive about when.  But now, today, whenever it started, today I practice righteousness.  I know that I do that, and I know it is sincere and not for show.  I know it comes from inside and reflects what I am now.  Leaving it there.

The believers are reminded that loving the brothers is an outward sign that they are saved.  Jesus died for us and we should die for the brothers.  But it shouldn't take such an extreme to provoke us to "love".  If a brother is hungry, and we have enough, we should share - and show love in this way also, not just talk about how we'd die for that brother.  I wonder if the false teachers were enriching themselves and letting their followers starve?  Or extorting money from those who could barely buy food.  This is NOT love.

2022 - These two verses of assurance - two self-tests of salvation:
21 Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; ...
23 And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.
24 Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us. [1Jo 3:21, 23-24 ESV]
In summary, our heart knows.  Does my heart say yes, or does my heart say "pretender"?  And second, the Spirit is in us.  Evidence of the Spirit?  Answered prayer, clarifications, answers to questions, guidance.  

Look back up also at the end of Chapter 2, at vs 28.  Think of the rapture, when you look up, and it hits you that this is the rapture.  Are you afraid, or are you thrilled?  Are you sure you're going, or is every second a lifetime?  That's your heart talking to you.

The plan of salvation per the apostle John, whom Jesus loved:
23 And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. [1Jo 3:23 ESV]
2022 - Have doubts?  Do more of vs 23, and the truth will come out.  Say Jesus' name.  Say it out loud, in public, proclaim it, own it.  And do for others.  If you don't "love", you will get really tired of helping others.  These two are what it comes down to.  

Chapter 4
Test the spirits.  
MSB says that since John mentioned the Holy Spirit in 3:24, he now informs them that there are other spirits in the world - demonic in nature - who twist and distort God's word to lead as many astray as they can.  Satan has done this since he lied to Eve.  MSB says John is going to give the believers two "tests" by which they can identify false doctrine.

First, does the spirit confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh?  The point being made is that Jesus is fully God and fully man.  He came to earth IN THE FLESH that these Gnostic dualists find so repulsive as to be something Jesus would never take on.  So the test may be a bit specific to the false teaching occurring at the time John is writing.  They are not teaching the same truth about Jesus as the apostles taught.  He seems also to say that this teaching is anti-Christ - from unbelievers, and sourced in demonic deception, and devised by Satan to undermine the church itself.  More contrasts between truth and error.  John is very "constant and precise" in the way he does this.  
(What is the other test?)
MSB says the second test is in vvs 5, 6.  That is, do they speak from the word, and the word only, following apostolic doctrine.  MSB quote:  "The OT and NT are the sole standards by which all teaching is to be tested.  In contrast, demonically inspired teachers either reject the teaching of God's Word or add elements to it."

2022 - Also, in vs 3, John says again that the spirit of anti-Christ is already in the world.  He has labeled as anti-Christ any teaching that does not confess Christ.  I think he primarily has in mind the false teachers that abound, after all he named them in vs 1.  The false prophets.  I think he is "linking" spirits not from God directly with/to the many false prophets.  So we again see this idea of correspondence between spirit beings - that is angels, and I will be calling them that from now on - and mortal men.  Angels, in this case, better called demons.  We saw this in the beast from the sea and his correspondence with the beast from the earth - demon beast and man beast.  Now we see that at even lower levels of the hierarchy, there is still correspondence.  The demon angels provoke mortal men to deny Christ.  This is the focus of their attack, this is the place they run the siege towers right up against.  They are anti- Christ.  They must "un-deify" him if they expect to actually breach the kingdom.  Men are deceived by them and preach their heresy, their anti-Christ doctrine.  So here again, in this usage, anti-Christ does not refer to the evil world ruler who arises at the end.  John, in context, is referring here to a very different sort of anti-Christ.

2022 - Vs 4,
4 Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. [1Jo 4:4 ESV]
The false prophets and false teachers are under the control of the spirit of anti-Christ.  They are overcome.  But the saved, those already converted, with the Holy Spirit within them, are not and CANNOT be overcome with such demon angels.  This is, I think, the basis for John's position that if they teach such things - if they deny that Christ came in the flesh, and that he is the Son of God - then they were NEVER saved.  John says you cannot go there if the Holy Spirit is in you.

2021 -  This verse:
5 They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. [1Jo 4:5 ESV]  Perhaps the reason that so many distrust megachurches.  To be so very hugely popular is to invite the accusation of worldly preachers.  I think this also implies that if a large proportion of the members of a church live as the world lives, and does not follow God's commandments, it reflects on the true source of the teaching in that church.  We know that Corinth went pretty far off the rails, but there were believers in that church.  But Paul's continued concern for that church - based not just on the teaching there but on the specific, named, detailed behaviors of some of its members - surely says that it was in danger of becoming no church at all, but merely a social club no different than any other.

2022 - This one:
6 We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error. [1Jo 4:6 ESV].
In vs 5 John says "you are from God".  Now, in 6, he says "we are from God".  They are not alone.  Another test here.  If others who are from God listen to you, it confirms that you are from God.  If those obviously - within our ability to tell - unsaved listen to a certain teacher, then that teacher is of the world.  Popular with the world means you belong to the world.  So the 2021 verse and the implications for megachurches is on the right track.  This one thing though, you cannot judge, you cannot evaluate these things from a distance.  As you must know a false prophet - at least the better false prophets - to really know what runs him, so you almost have to be in the megachurch, know a lot of people well, to determine whether its members are living like the world or living like the church.  And think what that part now means for churches everywhere!  Can you pull out a cross section of members of any church and not find alcohol, divorce, pornography, greed, and covetousness?  Or will it look just like the world?  But here is a thing - will those in the church demonstrate recognition of their sins, repentance for them, and effort to overcome them?  Because you won't see that in the worldly cross section.  This is the key to real data from the survey - to whether the church and its leaders are "from God" or "from the world".
And look at that last phrase, pitting the demons that follow Satan against the angels that follow Christ.  Spiritual battle rages over possession of the children of men.  Spirits fight with spirits, and men fight with men - as supported by, as encouraged or deceived by, those spirits.  Note that the saved have one Spirit - the Holy Spirit - while the false have many spirits, each of which needs testing.  This is what we are looking for!  Either the indwelling Holy Spirit, or possession by demonic forces.  Maybe this is what it means when it says "4 There is one body and one Spirit--just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call-- 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. [Eph 4:4-6 ESV]".  On God's side, there is one, and he is opposed by multiple, divided, individual demons on the other.  No wonder we are stronger!  God is not divided!  
We have seen before in the diminution of power from the dragon, to the beast from the sea, to the first beast from earth to the second to the image.  At each stage, the power is diluted.  Not so with the Holy Spirit.  In each believer resides the undiluted full power of God, in the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit.  Satan cannot pull this off.  His are always weaker, by definition, by nature, as creatures, not creators!

New paragraph begins in vs 7:
John makes the same sort of argument here about love as he made about Christ in the previous section.  There, if you do not confess Christ, you are not of God, you do not know God.  Here, if you do not love one another, you do not know God.  This phrase:
"...whoever loves has been born of God and knows God."  [1Jo 4:7b ESV].
2023 - We keep seeing this about how true believers in Christ also love their brothers and sisters in the church.  This is probably aimed at the fact that those teaching false doctrine are excluding people, angry at them, denigrating them, gossiping about them and so on.  They do the things to Christian brothers that the world does to enemies.  This ought to inform us as to their hearts.

John now turns to a short treatise on love.  This verse:
9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. [1Jo 4:9 ESV]

Also this verse of assurance:
13 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. [1Jo 4:13 ESV]
MSB does not expand on this.  
2022 - But it seems to be another important characteristic of the saved.  The saved have the gift of the Holy Spirit.  Another self-test.  And the question popped into my mind "How do we know we have the Holy Spirit in us?".  And unfortunately I thought "Well, you can talk in tongues, and rattlesnake bites don't kill you, nor does drinking poison."  But that isn't right!  The verse doesn't say we know because if we have the Spirit, we will be able to do these outwardly demonstrable things so other men can assure us, yep, you're saved because I didn't understand a word you just said.  It doesn't say those who abide can and do demonstrate the power by such specific actions.  

2022 - Is it that only those who have the Spirit can truly, believably, pull off vs 15, below?  In some cases, this is pretty simple.  No atheist is going to proclaim that they have this belief about Christ.  No agnostic is going to do it, either.  But what about megachurch members?  They'll likely know these words by heart, and spout them right out.  Some of them will be sincere.  Some won't.  
Hmmm...a lot of John's tests here, in context, are not self-tests so much as they are lessons in discerning the Spirit of God in others, especially in teachers, prophets, preachers.  I think he has already presumed that those who receive this letter are saved, and KNOW ALREADY that they are.  These are assurances to them that what they already know and do - that Christ is God's son, that he was flesh in the world, sent by God because of God's great love for us, and died for us, and they love one another and all men, and go about motivated not by the things of the world but by love for all created in God's image and a desire that all might come to repentance.  But Satan is going about trying to deceive them into doubting some of these fundamental teachings.  To weaken them.  If they are saved, he cannot possibly un-save them, he has no such power.  But he can weaken them down to non-combatants in the battle that is taking place.  If he can do so, he can re-allocate his forces to his weak points, and reinforce the places he is being attacked.  He can move his more powerful angels elsewhere to battle against the strong, and leave the misinformed and the weak to his lesser troops.  In military terms, John is saying don't be sapped, don't be undermined by these liars who impugn our commander.  Hold fast, and doubt the liars, not the commander.  Depose them, don't look to them, get away from them.
Yes.  This is a better way to understand what this book is about.
2023 - I highlighted the sentence above as I reviewed my notes this year.  Look at that!  That sentence is about the "low" places in my life.  There is the explanation.  Through lies, deceit, worldly abundance and so on, I was weakened as a Christian.  Satan's forces can do that - but they CANNOT UNSAVE ME!!!  That is why I keep coming back to Him, that is why there was always guilt on Sunday after sleeping late, that was why there were things I just would not do and would not say.  And I am sure Satan can do worse to others than was done to me.  All the way to the point that Christians don't even "remember" their salvation, as we saw in 2 Peter 1!  THIS is how it can happen, this is the "What" of how it works.   It is a battle. Battle vocabulary applies!

This verse:
15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. [1Jo 4:15 ESV]
This leaves out a ton of religions, makes them by definition demonic deceptions, and exposes them to the light of the first test.  

2022 - A confirmation verse:
17 By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. [1Jo 4:17 ESV]
Perfected in the sense of affirmed.  It is mutual abiding, evidenced by confession of Christ and love one for another, that confidence grows as to our standing on the day of judgment.  I would read rapture, but Greek is "krises".  

2022 - Vs 18 seems to say that if we fear, we are not yet perfected.  
I am out of time, but there is so much more in the last few verses.  NEXT YEAR, focus on 13-21.  SO much more there!
As in 19, we cannot hate someone we have seen and claim to love one we have not seen.  Another self-examination - not test.  We should nod our heads and agree readily that we hate no one, anywhere.
I must close for now....

Chapter 5
1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. [1Jo 5:1 ESV]
Another angle that tests true teaching vs false.  
2022 - Another easy self-test.  Quick confidence.  Those in church who "hate" about half the people in their Sunday School class, and who would never ever associate with them outside of class - and usually I think it would be the most Godly in the class that bothered them most - know in their hearts that they feel this way!  The saved, just as surely, know they do NOT feel this way towards others in the church.  If you think maybe the virgin birth is just a made up miracle to elevate Jesus-worship to legend worship, but didn't really  happen?  Then quite simply, you are not born of God, you are not saved, you are not Christian, you are pretender.  It is interesting that we can really never know what feeling is in the heart of others toward the saved, but we can always know what is in our own.  IF we get close enough to others, spend time with them, see them at their worst and at their best, we might get a peek at who they really are.  Most people, most normal people, will let their real feelings show when they are under stress.  That is when the truth comes out.  We also, ourselves, ought to take particular note of what came out of our mouths the last time we got in a jam.  More than one place says the tongue speaks what is in the heart.

2023 - I think the above is correct...but I don't think that's really what John is trying to tell his readers.  It just does not seem to me that John's point was to give us "self-tests" so that we can know WE are saved.  He is giving us "other-tests" so that we who are saved - and saved people are most definitely those to whom he is writing - can recognize a false teacher, and anti-Christ, when we hear him.  We can recognize them by what they say about Jesus and by how they deal with their Christian brothers and sisters.  By how they behave toward dissenters, toward those who call them on their unorthodox teachings.  These beliefs about Christ and the way we behave toward others do apply to each of us as saved.  But he is writing to us BECAUSE WE KNOW we are saved, and so we won't be unsettled by the false teachers.  That is what this verse is about.  EXCEPT...see note 2022 - 1Jn 5:13 below.  

3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. [1Jo 5:3 ESV]
John circles back to the first point.  If we live a life of wilful sin, we do not love God, nor do we feel that keeping his commandments "keeps us from the good things in life".  We know the difference.
2022 - Both 1 and 3 need to be memorized.  Why is there no "mission field" for lost church attenders?  Why does no one test the hearts of the church?  Is that what James 5:16 is about also?  Confessing truth?

2022 - This verse also:
5 Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? [1Jo 5:5 ESV]
This is the concept that Peterson is always trying to construct from the evolution of mankind.  He gets that we need to overcome the world - its suffering, its malice, its greed and vindictiveness.  He gets that despite all the horror that the world can and does throw at us, we need to rise above that and do good instead.  But he does not see, or refuses to acknowledge, that believing that Jesus' teachings are indeed God-sent teachings for the benefit of mankind, and that Jesus and his commandments ought to be embraced, not because they rest atop a billion years of evolution, but because they came from the One who "invented" us, and who therefore knows what is best for us...and He does not try to keep that a secret from us!  

This verse, that I am pretty sure has caused a lot of problems over the years.  Jesus born of water in natural childbirth.  Jesus born of blood when he was raised from the dead after shedding his blood.  
6 This is he who came by water and blood--Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. [1Jo 5:6 ESV]
MSB says they refer to Jesus' baptism and death.  Further, MSB says that God gave testimony to who Jesus was by his baptism (where God spoke from heaven, and the Holy Spirit descended as a dove) and by his death, from which He was raised.  

2022 - Reread the MSB notes on these verses.  They aren't all that satisfactory.  He ties all this testimony stuff to the OT Law requiring two or three witnesses.  Water and blood are each witnesses.  
I think this first part, about water and blood, establishes that Jesus was the first, and at that point the only one, raised from the dead as a result of his perfect life.  Jesus laid down his life, and it was Jesus who took it up again.  No other resurrection in the Bible prior to that time was attributed to the one who had died.  I don't see that we are talking here about water baptism.  Go back to the conversation Jesus had with Nicodemus about being born again.  If John is talking about water baptism here, then wouldn't we have to say that Jesus was talking about water baptism here:  5 Jesus answered, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. [Jhn 3:5 ESV]?  And that means that to belong to the kingdom, you have to have both a water baptism and a Holy Spirit baptism.  It makes water baptism essential to look at it this way.  It makes water baptism necessary but not sufficient.  I don't think it means that because Jesus is answering Nicodemus question about re-entering his mother's womb.  They were talking about birth.  Basic, simple, straight-forward birth, always accompanied by water breaking, in both man and animals.  Jesus is saying you have to be born a person (abortion is before this????) and the Holy Spirit must indwell you....this isn't sounding any more satisfying than MSB, though.  
So go back.  Born of water is physical birth.  Born of blood is life after death.  But how are we to connect bloodshed, blood spilled, and new life?  Born of flesh as flesh, born of Spirit as spirit?  Spirit-birth is only possible after the blood is spilled?  The spilling of water isn't integral to physical birth, it is incidental it.  The shedding of blood is not integral to Spiritual birth, it is incidental to it.  This is closest.  This sounds like the right explanation.  So what comes next?

2022 - The Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is truth.
This isn't the Law.  This is only one, yet is the truth.  Unquestionably the truth, because the Spirit is God.  I searched for an OT verse that says "The Lord is Truth" or something like that, in ESV and KJV.  Didn't find it.  
Found these two:  
160 The sum of your word is truth, and every one of your righteous rules endures forever. [Psa 119:160 ESV]
17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. [Jhn 17:17 ESV]...
Maybe I'm making too much of it.  The MSB note says we are going beyond mere witnesses here.  The Spirit of God cannot lie, therefore the Spirit is truth, unimpeachable.

This whole section needs to be studied in more detail than I have time for on a Friday morning.  It talks about water and blood, then it talks about the three who testify.  Seems to be a lot to consider here, and it just plain needs more time.  The section ends with this verse:
12 Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. [1Jo 5:12 ESV]
2021 - This verse seems to address a strategy of the false teachers.  The implication is that these teachers are trying to bypass the role of Christ in access to the Father.  That is what Islam does, what Roman Catholicism does.  These John is addressing seem to me more likely to be teaching that since Jesus was flesh, he was not perfect.  He was therefore not the required perfect sacrifice, and it was still imperative to go directly to God - either through the law or some new set of rituals the false teachers had set up.  John is making it absolutely clear that trying to bypass Jesus is a road straight to hell.  John's gospel is also full of these statements that if the road is going to salvation, it must, and always does, and only can, go through Christ.

2022 - Here is the very verse where John tells us to whom he is writing:
13 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. [1Jo 5:13 ESV]
Hmm...is my introductory note wrong then, about how this is NOT written to Christians who doubt their own salvation?  Vs 13 here pretty much says that the letter is indeed about assurance.  He IS writing to those who DO believe.  To reinforce their confidence in the face of false teachers who would instill doubt in their minds and move them away from following the commandments of God.  John wants his readers to understand that THEY have as much authority to question the false teachers as he himself has.  They need to be confident in this, not cower in the face of elitist authority.  If they will look inside themselves, they will know that they are saved by the gospel as evidenced by the internal change that went with that, and is still extant in them - and which is qualitatively different than what the false teachers have.

Another verse of assurance:
14 And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. [1Jo 5:14 ESV]
God answers the prayers of believers.  Not every one as we want it answered, not every one even in a way we recognize AS an answer, but there will be answers that are clearly, definitely God's answers to our prayers.  As we see more and more of these in our lives, we gain confidence that we are in Him

2023 - This verse:
16 If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God will give him life--to those who commit sins that do not lead to death. There is sin that leads to death; I do not say that one should pray for that. [1Jo 5:16 ESV]
Looked to MSB on this one.  MSB says this is not about a specific sin, but is about the "last straw" sin that leads to death.  In Acts we read about Ananias and Sapphira, who dropped dead for lying to the Holy Spirit.  That lie, for each of them, was the sin that lead God to strike them dead - to judge them - on this earth.  So this is not talking about going to hell or heaven - though we might have some suspicions about where such people end up for eternity.  We also see in Corinthians where some were eating and drinking death to themselves by profaning the Lord's Supper.  Very different from what Ananias did.  No one could have prayed for God to overlook the sins of Ananias and Sapphira and been effective.  God was done with them.  Same with the Corinthians.  There was a point beyond which some of them went that God judged immediately.  Prayer would not have helped them either.  God won't answer THIS prayer of the believer, but will answer any other.  Think of the verses in the OT where God tells Jeremiah not to even bother praying for Judah and Jerusalem, because God will not hear those prayers.  And the verses about Job, Noah, and Daniel, saying even these could only save themselves in that situation.  So this theme of sins unto death runs from OT to NT.  But any other prayer, any prayer that is thus in accordance with his will and not contradictory to it, will be answered.  
BUT, we might also speculate about whether these sins unto death are still in the world?  They were certainly there under the Law, and John tells us here that they are present under the New Covenant.  Were they like the miracles of the apostles though?  Did they only stay until the church age was kicked off?  I don't see that being the case because their presence in the OT does not fit that criteria.  I think we have to believe such sins are still here, they still happen.  Perhaps not as dramatically as with Ananias and Sapphira, but we see people in the church die unexpectedly quite often.  We just usually don't know them well enough to even suspect that it was because of sin unto death, but I have to believe that some, a few or a lot, are because of that.

2023 - In light of 1Jn 5:18 We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him. [1Jo 5:18 ESV], where the words "keep on" are added, and the word translated sinning, as a participle, is NOT a participle at all in Greek, I think this section of Romans helps us in translating what John means.  In the NASB95, the verse starts this way, more clearly translating what the text says:    18 We know that no one who is born of God sins; but He who was born of God keeps him, and the evil one does not touch him. [1Jo 5:18 NASB95].  How do we explain this?
When we are saved, we are baptized by the Spirit.  We are immersed, by the Spirit, into Christ.  So we who are in Christ we in him when he died.  In like manner, when Christ rose, we who are in him by virtue of our salvation also rose from the dead.  Now after Christ rose, did he sin?  NO!!!  And we who are saved are now IN HIM so far as God sees us?  Yes, of course.  Then being IN CHRIST, we NO LONGER SIN.  Not that in 1Jn 5:18 the verb for "born" is in perfect tense, meaning something done in the past with continuing results which need never be repeated.  John goes to some trouble with verb tense here to make sure we understand that he isn't talking about people who CLAIM to be saved, but about those who ACTUALLY ARE.  And such people, truly saved, according to Romans 6, are IN CHRIST, who does not sin, and therefore the saved DO NOT SIN!  This is how John means it.  This whole paragraph came up the morning after a Wednesday night when the speaker talked on this verse in 1John, using the NIV, which interprets the Greed as "those born of God will not continuously sin".  But continuously is not in the Greek and not implied by the verb tense.  I argued in the discussion after that we ought not read it with "continuously" in there, but look deeper to understand why John said the way he ACTUALLY SAID IT!  And I think in Romans 6 this morning, I can now explain why he said it that way.  John was telling those he was writing to that neither men, nor angels, nor things above...and so on....can separate us from God, because there is never ANY BASIS on which to accuse us.  Because the saved do not sin!  Once saved, always saved!
And as I am writing this, Dwight called and gave me this...we all have an experience of Christ, and we all have a position in Christ.  Here, I think John is focused exclusively on our position in Christ.  In Christ we have no sin.  In our daily lives, we sin.  A help in this is that in Ephesians, we are already "seated in the heavenlies with Christ".  But when I look out the window today, I do not see the heavenlies, I see that the neighbors mowed their yard finally!!  
The reservation I would still maintain, though, is that even though there are different perspectives here,  I THINK the ESV translators went too far when they snatched "keep on" right out of the air in 1Jn 5:18.  It is neither there in the Greek, nor implied in the Greek.  AND, if we just take the ESV interpretation of the verse, portrayed as if it is translation, we miss that entire "position" vs "experience" contrast!  We cannot go there, because the "answer" has already been fed to us with a spoon!
And one more thing...I do not know whether John spoke this verse in fisherman's Hebrew, and some stenographer/translator immediately converted it into Greek, based on HIS understanding of Hebrew, such that saying "it isn't there" is just an exercise.  And that charge is valid unless you believe that God has preserved his word - in many different translations - such that it is still NEVER WRONG, even in the NIV, though perhaps it is a little distilled.  So all I am doing, and I need to consider whether it is worth the time I spend on it, is putting the water back into product.  Some translations make beef jerky out of ribeye steak.

​

2 John
MSB Book notes:
2 and 3 John both bear John's name, and are close approximations of the "standard letter" in the NT.  They contain a statement of who the sender is, and to whom he writes.  These are the two shortest books in the NT - each less than 300 Greek words, each would fit on a single sheet of papyrus.

The epistle is written by John, but no precise dating is really possible.  The wording, subject matter, and circumstances of 2 John closely approximate 1 John, so it was likely written at the same time or shortly after - that is, in about 90-95 AD, from Ephesus, when John was a very old man.

This book deals with the same problem as 1 John.  False teachers, the beginnings of what would become full blown Gnosticism.  2 John is different from 1 John in that it is addressed to a particular group of believers in a particular house church.  1 John was more general.  

In 2 John, he seems to be making the members of this little church aware that the false teachers are going around to many of the newly planted churches in the region, imposing on the Christian hospitality of the members of these little churches, and then using that as a springboard to lure them away from the true faith.  John is saying that such false teachers SHOULD NOT in fact, be extended hospitality.  The harshness of the warning he gives reflects the insidious danger the false teachers represented.  You don't allow poisonous snakes to live in your house.

In addition to the themes of 1 John, 2 John also addresses more directly Christian hospitality.  Establishes guidelines for that hospitality you might say.  The basis of hospitality must be common love of or interest in the truth, and Christians must share their love within the confines of that truth.  MSB says "They are not called to universal acceptance of anyone who claims to be a believer.  Love must be discerning!  Hospitality and kindness are for those who share this basic love of the truth.  Hospitality for all may in fact give aid to those who are trying to undermine that very truth.

Under interpretive challenges, we have this:
"Second John stands in direct antithesis to the frequent cry for ecumenism and Christian unity among believers.  Love and truth are inseparable in Christianity."-  That is, truth must always guide love.  You don't hear too much about this "prerequisite" for Christian hospitality.

Text
Letter is from "The elder".  The article is present.  There is only one elder, or the sender's identity is unique as to this title.  To the chosen lady and her children.  MSB says this is not in a general sense.  This is to a particular specific person and her children.
2022 - Well isn't that interesting.  The only surviving apostle of the time writes a letter, not to the pastor of this church, but to an elect lady in this church, and her children.  Why would he send such a message to the whole church through her?  Why not to the pastor, or the eldest elder or a deacon?  Is this letter to a church at all?  Or is this lady the only one on the hospitality committee, and these "users" keep showing up at her house wanting free room and board.  Seems likely she was either a widow - most likely - or  her own husband was a non-believer.

John begins by stressing that the commandment - not a new commandment but the one they had from the beginning - is to love one another.  

2022 - He emphasized this same thing in 1 John, including the part that it is not a new commandment.  I wonder if the false teachers had added "Love means you have to give us free room and board" to the original commandment, and what John is trying to say is that "love one another" is not a universal command to treat everyone as family?  Perhaps John is writing this letter mainly to put the original sideboards of this command back in place and stop the abuse.
2022 - Vs 6 seems to bear that out.  He emphasizes that this is not some universal version of love for all mankind to the harming of our own selves and our children in order to heap love on anyone who asks.  It is not that.  And John says it was NEVER that.  Love means following his commandments.  The commandment was to love the Son, and so love the Father, and the way you love THEM is to obey the commandments, the statutes and the judgments.  Jesus did say "love one another".  He also said "love your neighbor".  

This is firstly, love for God, because he begins a formal definition with "...this is love, that we walk according to his commandments;"  Then he tells  her that many deceivers are about, denying that Christ came in the flesh.  He pulls no punches on what kind of people these are - deceivers, and antichrists.

2021 - This verse:
7 For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist. [2Jo 1:7 ESV]  This is the fundamental heresy.  This is the trait shared by all false teachers, that in some way they deny who Jesus was.  Again, we are back to Christology being the key to identifying false teachers.  To know and study and be certain of who Jesus was is to stay firmly and precisely grounded on the teachings of the Apostles who knew him and to recognize without doubt false teachers when we hear their words.  This is so important, and I had not really seen that  until now.  John is not the only one saying this  Many of these letters - from Paul, Peter, and now John - address this problem.  False teachers may wrap their core teaching in other concepts, but at the foundation, they must negate Christ in some way.  They must weaken his perfection with their words, or there is just no room for them.

2022 - Vs 7 also seems to clarify why he is repeating this command to "love one another".  The kind of over the top hospitality that this woman was providing was reserved for Christian brothers and sisters, and not for strangers who claimed to be Christian and then from inside her own house, tried to subvert her understanding of Christ, AND to re-define his teaching.  John is saying these are not good people, in fact they are the worst kind of people.  They are anti-Christs, in that they say the Christ taught by the apostles is incorrect.  They are anti- that version, the true version, of Christ.

2022-
8 Watch yourselves, so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward. [2Jo 1:8 ESV].
He is saying here, surely, that if you are swayed by these anti-Christs, and you go down the wrong road and never return to the truth, your reward suffers.  Here again there is no denying that we are talking about a reward to the saved.  It is not the same for all the saved.  Some will have a bigger reward, some almost nothing, yet all will be saved and in heaven.  The reward is maximized by rigid adherence to orthodox teaching...so long as that is correct.

The warning is against those who go on ahead and don't abide in the teaching of Christ.  This verse:
9 Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. [2Jo 1:9 ESV]
These are people who claim additional revelation beyond scripture, and claim that only they possess this newly provided knowledge.  This is Islam.  This is Mormon.  Perhaps we should NOT offer hospitality to such people - this certainly says we are not to do so in our own homes?  Meeting to teach and exchange is one thing, but supporting them as they try to spread their deceit is another thing entirely.  To support them with hospitality is to take part in their wicked works.  Very strong statement here.
2022 - Inviting them in for a debate is not, in my view, extending them hospitality.  Inviting them for a meal and a bed overnight is what is in view here, in that it directly supports their continued deceit.

2021 - This also seem to imply an adherence to orthodoxy.  Older teachings - teachings from the original source - as the Apostles in the New Testament, as the Word only and not traditions or interpretations or worse, re-interpretations or worse still interpretation in light of current culture - are to be the basis of our understanding.  If it conflicts with the Word, with the teachings of the Apostles, then it is just wrong.  We are not to condone it, consider it, much less embrace it.  In this resistance to change is a good thing.  A very good thing.  MSB note confirms that this is what it means.  This sentence from MSB:  The word ""abide" has the idea of constant adherence and warns that these fundamentals are not open to change or subject to the latest trends or philosophical fads.  MSB also says that failure to be faithful to these fundamentals marks one as having never been saved at all.

Then a closing.  The warning, the consequences of not heeding the warning, are succinct.  I like that about John in his letters.  I don't recall seeing that in his gospel, or in Revelation.  I will pay closer attention to those two.  

2022 - This lady was - must have been - a leader in her church.  John would not have written to "just her", I don't believe, but wrote her because others were looking to her example of how they should react.  Perhaps it is not that she was the only one on the hospitality committee, but she was the chairperson of that committee, and it was a very large committee.  By writing her, John could shut down the abuse of this church - and this insidious way of infiltrating and corrupting this church - in a most efficient way.  These false teachers, in it for the bucks, are not going to spend their own money saying at the local "inn" to tray and corrupt this church.  That also is a telling clue as to their sincerity.  If they thought they were saving you from hell, they'd pay their own way to do so.  If they won't speak unless you feed them...then what is their real message?

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3 John
MSB Book notes:
Much the same as that offered for 2 John.  A difference between this epistle and 2 John is that this one is addressed to one, single person.  Gaius.  Only this and Philemon in the NT are addressed to an individual.  We have no specific information about who this man was.  3 John, like 2 John, also focuses on hospitality, but from a little different perspective.  Where 2 John was about NOT being hospitable to deceivers, 3 John is about BEING hospitable to believers.  Some guy named Diotrephes had not only refused hospitality to some true teachers sent by John, but had domineered that whole church into refusing them hospitality, and kicked out anyone who did show them hospitality.  Oh my!  An example of a church split over a difference of opinion and brought about by a single person of questionable character!  John says he is coming to straighten it all out.  

Text
Also opens with "The elder..."  
John begins by commending Gaius for his his support of the "missionaries" who come his way.  Then this verse:
7 For they have gone out for the sake of the name, accepting nothing from the Gentiles. [3Jo 1:7 ESV]
Seems to indicate that Gaius was Jewish, and that Diotrephes maybe was Gentile.  Maybe most of the teachers sent out were also Jewish, and it was really this that Diotrephes had a problem with.  An early anti-Semite?  MSB says this phrase about Gentiles means that the church was the only means of support for these missionaries.  They were not being paid for anything by others.

John specifically says next that Diotrephes does not acknowledge John's authority, and on this basis, has ignored John's letter to the church in question.  It seems likely that Gaius was a member of the same church as Diotrephes, but had "withstood him" and done the right thing by the missionaries despite Diotrephes "command" to do otherwise.  

2022 - I think these verses indicate that Gaius had indeed treated the visitors from John and presumably sent by the church at Ephesus hospitably.
3 For I rejoiced greatly when the brothers came and testified to your truth, as indeed you are walking in the truth. ...
5 Beloved, it is a faithful thing you do in all your efforts for these brothers, strangers as they are,
6 who testified to your love before the church. You will do well to send them on their journey in a manner worthy of God. [3Jo 1:3, 5-6 ESV]
This seems to read that the ones Diothrephes refused to even acknowledge were welcomed by Gaius, and when these went back to Ephesus, they let everyone know the whole story - including that Gaius took care of them at his own expense, while that church refused even to hear them - because of Diotrephes position there.  Kind of a small town politics kind of situation is what it sounds like.