2 John — Editorial Guide

Editorial guide

This reading edition follows the Saints-priority English text. Source chapter and verse labels are retained, including textual additions and numbered gaps. Square or double brackets signal textual or translation qualifications retained from the companion edition. This is a V1 working translation awaiting specialist review.

Companion translation and editorial notes: Saints Translation: 2 John [V1 Working Draft]

Textual and Christian reception notes

Every verse of 2 John 1:1–13 was reviewed against the official SBLGNT Greek main text. The existing English reading is retained. Each entry below distinguishes source wording from verified Christian reception. Clement’s fragments are received through the Latin transmission attributed to Cassiodorus; Wesley represents later Methodist interpretation. Neither an exhaustive reception survey nor manuscript/apparatus collation is claimed. Independent specialist review remains outstanding.

1:1 Text [G]: The sender calls himself the elder; John is the book’s traditional title, not a name in this salutation. Chosen lady retains eklektē kyria without turning either word into a personal name or explicitly substituting Church. Reception: Clement, Fragments I.IV, opening [CL], calls the addressee Electa and sees the chosen Church in her. These are his interpretations, not names supplied by the Greek.

1:2 Text [G]: Truth is the grammatical subject of both abiding and future continuance. Its personification does not require replacing it with the name of a divine Person. Reception: Wesley, Notes, 1:2 [W], understands abiding truth as an active principle of faith and holiness.

1:3 Text [G]: Will be with us is a future assertion, not a second-person wish. Father is repeated as in the source; source G does not include Lord before Jesus Christ here. Reception: Wesley, Notes, 1:3 [W], connects grace with release from guilt, mercy with misery relieved, and peace with their continuance.

1:4 Text [G]: Some of renders the partitive ek tōn teknōn; the statement does not say that the other children were disobedient. Walking preserves the ethical metaphor. Reception: Wesley, Notes, 1:4 [W], interprets walking in truth as life in faith and love.

1:5 Text [G]: You is singular, addressing the lady; we love is first-person plural, including writer and recipients. Reception: Wesley, Notes, 1:5 [W], locates the command in Christ’s ministry and urges increasing mutual love.

1:6 Text [G]: His refers naturally to the Father in 1:4. In it preserves the feminine pronoun, which can point back to love or commandment. The plural you heard and you walk address the wider group. Reception: Wesley, Notes, 1:6 [W], treats obedience grounded in love for God as love’s practical evidence.

1:7 Text [G]: Erchomenon is present-participial, coming; this wording is retained rather than changed to a perfect having come. Saints: Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.16.8 [IR], explicitly uses 2 John 1:7–8 against interpretations that divide Jesus from Christ. This is explicit doctrinal reuse of the two-verse unit, not separate exposition of every clause.

1:8 Text [G]: Source G distinguishes you do not lose and you receive from we have worked. The change of grammatical person is preserved. Reception: Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.16.8 [IR], quotes the loss warning with 1:7 in his argument against dividing Jesus from Christ; see 1:7. His consulted English quotation says what you have wrought, unlike SBLGNT’s we.

1:9 Text [G]: Goes ahead renders proagōn. The negative qualification is failure to abide in the teaching. Of Christ can concern His teaching or teaching about Him; the English preserves the genitive’s openness. Reception: Clement, Fragments I.IV, second paragraph [CL], interprets possessing the Son as knowing the Father through Him.

1:10 Text [G]: You is plural. A house renders the anarthrous oikia without deciding whether a private household or a house Church is specifically intended. The greeting is chairein, a conventional salutation. Reception: Wesley, Notes, 1:10 [W], understands the prohibition as withholding encouragement from a contrary teacher. Clement’s treatment of 1:10–11 is described at 1:11.

1:11 Text [G]: Koinōnei expresses participation in the works of the person just described. Reception: Clement of Alexandria, Fragments I.IV, transmitted through Cassiodorus’s Latin translation, on 2 John 1:10–11 [CL], applies the warning to hospitality and extends it to shared prayer. The latter is his explicit interpretive application, not an added command in this verse.

1:12 Text [G]: Face to face renders literally mouth to mouth. Source G reads your joy, plural, not our joy. Paper and ink are the actual writing materials named. Reception: Wesley, Notes, 1:12 [W], explains the short letter as concentrating on matters immediately needed.

1:13 Text [G]: Your and you are singular, matching the address to the lady in 1:1. The chosen sister parallels chosen lady without resolving whether the language describes individual women, communities, or a figurative relationship. Source G has no final Amen. Reception: Wesley, Notes, 1:13 [W], supposes the sister absent or deceased; this is conjecture beyond the greeting’s wording.

Sources consulted

[G] Michael W. Holmes, ed., The Greek New Testament: SBL Edition (2010), official electronic main text, 2 John 1:1–13. SBLGNT Greek text. All thirteen verses reviewed; apparatus markers distinguish editorial boundaries, not translated words. No manuscript or critical-apparatus collation.

[IR] Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.16.8. Alexander Roberts and William Rambaut translation, Ante-Nicene Fathers 1 (1885), New Advent. Explicit quotation of 2 John 1:7–8 within the argument for the unity of Jesus Christ; English presentation consulted.

[CL] Clement, Fragments I.IV, Comments on the Second Epistle of John, under From the Latin Translation of Cassiodorus. William Wilson translation, Ante-Nicene Fathers 2 (1885), New Advent. Opening, second paragraph, and comment labeled verse 10, which quotes 1:10–11. The transmitted English presentation was consulted, not Greek or Latin manuscript witnesses.

[W] John Wesley, Notes on the Second Epistle of St John, chapter I, individual notes 1–13; Wesley Center Online, Northwest Nazarene University, electronic presentation of Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755). Later Methodist reception; his English biblical forms and historical conjectures do not replace the selected Greek.