FRIDAY, AUGUST 28 · VERSE OF THE DAY
And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.
— 2 John 1:6
Context
This is one of three tiny letters attributed to 'the elder' — likely the apostle John in old age, writing around 90 AD. 2 John is addressed to 'the elect lady and her children,' probably a house church led by a woman. The immediate problem: itinerant teachers were denying the incarnation — that Jesus was fully human — which gutted the faith. John's response is almost bureaucratic: don't fund them, don't host them. But first he grounds the community in what's actually true. This verse lands mid-argument, defining love not as feeling but as a specific pattern of life.
What it's actually saying
The Greek here is agape — self-giving love, not affection. John says, 'This is love: that we walk according to his commands.' Then he immediately flips it: 'And this is the command: that you walk in love.' It's a deliberate loop. Love isn't a separate virtue you add to obedience; obedience isn't drudgery you tolerate while feeling loving. They're the same thing. The 'walking' metaphor (peripateo) is lifestyle — how you move through the world day to day. John's betting everything on the claim that God's commands aren't arbitrary hoops but the actual shape love takes when it's real. If that's wrong, Christianity collapses into either legalism or sentimentalism. If it's right, love has a skeleton.
How to apply it today
Pick one relationship where you're stuck choosing between 'being loving' and 'doing the right thing.' Maybe you're conflict-avoidant and calling it kindness. Maybe you're brutal and calling it honesty. John's claim is that real love and real rightness converge — not always immediately, but actually. Ask: what would it look like if love and obedience to what's true were the same move here? Not what feels nicest or what checks a box, but what serves the other person's actual good in reality. Sometimes love is a hard conversation. Sometimes it's letting something go. But it's never just vibes.
Sit with this
Think of one 'loving' thing you've done recently that avoided what was actually needed. Or one 'right' thing you did that felt cold. Write a sentence about what it would've looked like if love and truth were one move.
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