Teaching Tuesday: 2 John

Series: The Last Eyewitness
Sermon: 2 John (9.29.24)

What do Star Wars, Harry Potter, Dr. Strange, The Vampire Diaries, and Matrix have in common? Other than having loyal fanbases and being considered successful franchises, each of these movies and TV shows has underlying themes/philosophies that align with Gnosticism.

What is Gnosticism? It is a mix of Greek philosophy, Hellenistic Judaism, and Eastern mysticism. Later, Christian values were also mixed in to this so called “religion”.

In the sermon on Sunday, we talked about 2 John. A big portion of the smallest book of the Bible was spent warning Christians about false teachers. These false teachers that the epistles of John talk about became known as Gnostics. While they did not have this name at the time John is writing this, their teaching aligns with that of Gnosticism.

In this Tuesday Teaching, I felt it was appropriate to take a deeper look into some of the common beliefs of Gnosticism. Now, Gnosticism is not a set religion or a gathering of people. It is a “spiritual” system that values experiential knowledge and personal interpretation of that spiritual experience as truth. They are fully convicted that you can know “The Truth,” making the need for faith obsolete. Dangerous, dangerous stuff.

Here are a few other generic summaries of gnostic values that many commit to. 

• Deity/god - They believe in a impersonal force or power is what brought life to existence. 
• Origin of the Universe - They believe that the universe existed in an evil, imperfect state, but that their was a spiritual light that was entered into the world that made everything spiritual good. (Spirit = Good; Matter = Bad).
  • This led to some Gnostics teaching asceticism which is avoiding joy in life and practicing strict self-denial over worldly/material things and pleasures. (Andrew Courtney preached on this in June.)
  • Other Gnostics would teach licentiousness which is the unrestraint indulgence of fleshly desires and immorality. 
• Redemption/Salvation - Many believe that secret revelation/experiential knowledge is what frees the “divine spirit” within humans, to return back to the divine realm. Salvation was less about freedom from sin, but freedom from ignorance. 
• Jesus Christ - They believed he is not equal to their impersonal god. 
• Worship - They value simplicity. Experience God however is best for your truth. Some worship is pagan ways with pomp and circumstance.
• End Times/Heaven - Many believe in the continuation of reincarnation, until the “end time”, where evil and matter is annihilated and the “divine spirits” will return to a divine place. 

Most of this material/research comes from Gareth Reese's class “General Epistles”. 

There are just some of the basics. You can see why John wrote multiple letters warning Christians about this false teaching. It is enticing and dangerous. He gives this warning:

"Watch out that you do not lose what we have worked for, but that you may be rewarded fully. Anyone who runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ does not have God; whoever continues in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not take them into your house or welcome them. Anyone who welcomes them shares in their wicked work” (2 John 8-11).  

Our best defense against any and all false teaching is to know what Scripture says. In the book of Acts, there were a group of believers that were commended for their nobility and respect of the written word.

“As soon as it was night, the believers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. On arriving there, they went to the Jewish synagogue. Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. As a result, many of them believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men” (Acts 17:10-12).

The believers at Berea, when questioned about their faith, returned to Scripture as their practice. For Christians to defend against deceivers, we need to know the truth and turn to the truth. Make this a habit in our own life as well. We do not want to lose out on eternity with our Creator over a false teacher’s scam.

Study for this coming Sunday: 3 John

- Craig Petermen, MCC Student Minister