2 John part 2

We continue on with verse 5 which says "and now, dear lady, I am not writing you a new command but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another." This is a deceptively simple command, until you question from what beginning, what is love, and who are the one another. Are the "one another" fellow Christians, fellow Jewish Christians, or all people everywhere?

The word love here is derived from the Greek root verb agapao. You may have heard of the related noun agape, which, for Christians, represents a special self-sacrificial, divine, Yahweh love. The noun form, agape, appears to have been first used in the greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint. It was apparently derived from the verb. The verb forms, as in this passage, were common in secular ancient Greek writings. The ancient Greeks used it to simply mean having affection or preference for someone or something. Most Christians that I am acquainted with do not differentiate between the religious noun and the common verb. It's all the same to them.

This verse is one of a list of verses that my study bible says correlates to verses in 1 John and the gospel of John, which supposedly proves they have the same author. Lets see how they match up.

1 John 2:7- "Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had since the beginning. This old command is the message you have heard." This passage does not come right out and state what the command is. It is only implied, up until 1 John 3:11. A quick scan of 1st John shows me that the love one another in that book is being applied to fellow Christians or "brothers."

John 13:34-35- "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know you are my disciples if you love one another." These are supposed to be the words of Jesus. 1 John and 2 John appear to be referring back to this passage. They seem saying the command is not new, because it was supposed to be new when Jesus gave it. That is possibly the "beginning" referred to in the other two verses.

As I was writing this, a question came to mind about whether Paul ever preached "love one another" as a command of Jesus. The only place in Paul's writing in which I found the specific phrase "love one another" is Romans 13:8. It says "let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellow man has fulfilled the law." Here Paul seems to be saying that to love one another is a universal obligation for all humanity which also fulfills the law of Moses. (The Old Testament makes it clear that the love that fulfilled the law was directed at fellow
Jews and was not necessarily universal.) Paul never mentions love one another being a separate command given by Jesus to his disciples. For Paul the beginning of the command was the law. Other Pauline letters do stress the importance of love, but do not present it as a direct command of Jesus, as far as I can tell.

 I want to add that this seems rather hypocritical of Paul, since not all the writings attributed to him show a universal love for all of humanity. He displays some marked instances of dislike for particular people and groups of people. It is interesting to note that the letters attributed to Paul were probably written well before any of the letters attributed to John and even before the gospel of John.

Beside all that, how easy do you think it is to have affection for all of humanity? Most people have a hierarchy of affection, starting with their immediate family and moving outward to friends, acquaintances, countrymen, etc. should we be obligated to have the same level of affectionate feeling for everyone? Is it possible? Christians often say that this agape has nothing to do with how you feel, but with how you treat others. I'm not convinced. I don't think that is what love is. That is altruism. It's not the same, in my opinion.