Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble and I'm your host for the Bible recap.

New Testamenters, today we've finished books 25 and 26 and whole Bible crew we've finished

books 64 and 65.

We only have one book left.

Both of today's books are written by someone who refers to himself as the elder, which was

a common way of referring to a pastoral leader in the church, which John certainly was,

and church history tells us that this is John the Apostle.

So while there are other viable theories about who wrote these books, the prevailing opinion

is that it was John the Apostle, aka the disciple Jesus loved, aka author of the gospel

of John and first John.

And many believe he also wrote Revelation, which we'll start reading tomorrow and we'll

finish on our last day of this trip through Scripture.

Second John is addressed to the elect lady, which lady, it could be a person but more likely

that's John's way of addressing a specific church, the bride of Christ, God's elect.

Why is that more likely?

There are a few reasons but the most straightforward is that when John uses the word you in this

book, it's typically the plural form of the word you.

In other words, John is using the Hebrew for y'all or you guys.

He starts out by saying he loves the church and its people, and that all people who love

the truth love the church and its people.

This is hard for some of us.

Some of us have been wounded by the church and its people because it's made up of sinners

...