2 John 1: Love One Another

“⁴ It has given me great joy to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as the Father commanded us. ⁵ 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. ⁶ And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.” -2 John 1:4-6

Though one of the New Testament’s shortest letters, 2 John offers powerful insight into one of Christ’s deepest motivations–that we love one another.

Loving one another was nothing new to John’s readers. In fact, John called it “one we have had from the beginning.” What beginning? From the beginning of the Christian movement, from Jesus himself. Jesus had called his followers to show unconditional love toward one another, something handed down to future generations of disciples.

Of course, love has many definitions and did even in New Testament times. Perhaps this is why John also mentioned what he meant by love: “that we walk in obedience to his commands.” Jesus called his followers to a standard of love greater than the norm of his day. In the end, he led by example, offering his life on behalf of us all to show the fullest extent of love possible. Love one another.

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Dillon Burroughs is the author and coauthor of numerous books and is handwriting a copy of all 31,173 verses of the Bible at HolyWritProject.com. Find out more about Dillon at Facebook.com/readdB or readdB.com.