2 John 1 - IVP New Testament Commentaries

Closing Greetings

Ancient secular letters often include an expression of desire to see the recipients of the letter, as is found in the closing greetings of 2 John. A face-to-face visit will complete our joy. If the author is not simply speaking in the editorial "we," then the plural refers to him and the community with him. Indeed, this is what the closing verse suggests, for the children of your chosen sister are the Christians of the local church from which the Elder is writing. Their joy, the Elder's joy and the joy of the recipients--our joy--will be completed. "Completed joy" is joy that has reached its goal in fellowship with each other and with God. Again the mutual interdependence of Christians, so important to the Johannine community, comes to expression in the simplest way, in a farewell greeting to a church. For the greeting is not simply from an isolated writer, even one so well known as the Elder, but from one church to another. "Beloved, let us love one another" was not simply an external obligation, but the inner directive by which these believers lived.