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

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

we finished book 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 will start reading tomorrow and will finish on our last day of this trip

through scripture.

Second John is addressed to the elect lady. 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 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 like us.

Some of us have done some of the wounding of other people either intentionally or accidentally.

God continually pours out grace to help us heal wounds and bridge gaps and restore

brokenness, just like with Paul and John Mark. God is committed to the unity of his church,

so he sends the spirit as our helper in aiming for

unity and in aiming for truth. And in fact those are the two things he drills

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