2 John 12Though I have much to write to you, I have not wanted with paper and ink, but I hope to come to you and talk mouth to mouth, so that our joy may be complete. 13The children of your elect sister greet you.
The letter ends with a personal note expressing the elder’s desire to visit the lady and her children. John’s pastoral heart comes through in his tender longing to see the recipients face to face. Writing a letter, email, or text never fully captures a person’s emotions. Much is communicated through one’s facial expressions and verbal and nonverbal actions. John had much more to say to this group. Indeed, 2 John is one of the shortest books in the whole Bible and can be read in just a few minutes. We can only imagine why this letter is so brief. Perhaps John felt a sense of urgency, had only a short time to write, or simply did not have enough parchment. The Greek idiom mouth to mouth expresses the closeness John hoped to have. In modern terms, we might say “face to face.” He was expressing what is often called the ministry of presence.
Powerful moments of transformation can happen when people come together. John expressed this with a perfect passive participle (peplērōmenē), which gives the sense that he already had joy in this group but anticipated that it would grow and overflow. This group was making wise decisions. One of the wisest decisions they could make at that moment was to reject the false teachers. The contrast is strong between John’s desire to see the group and the group’s need to reject false doctrine. They were headed in the right direction by believing the message that he and other true teachers proclaimed about Jesus as the Incarnate Son of God.
The letter ends with a greeting that John was passing on from your elect sister. There is no indication, or even a hint, of who this might be. If the initial greeting of this letter was intended for a church, and if the references to lady in verse 1 and sister in this verse are figurative, then the sister could be another church. If these terms refer to individuals, the sister could be either a Christian woman of faith or an actual familial sister. Whatever the case, verse 13 indicates the close bond among early believers. Significant in both the opening and closing verses is the fact that these ladies (or churches) have children. Some form of discipleship was taking place as the faith was being transmitted to a new generation. Discipleship was happening, and John wanted to make sure it was heading in the right direction through teaching the truth and living in love.