AT SOME POINT, you’ve had to tell someone, either in person or in writing, something that might be hard for them to hear. If all you really wanted to do was vent your own anger or frustration, you probably didn’t choose your words very carefully; any tirade would do. But if you wanted them to get the message, to take what you said to heart, you had to be more thoughtful and strategic. Bosses and supervisors, for example, don’t get higher quality work from their employees merely by criticizing them or giving them negative performance reviews. Similarly, parents don’t get good behavior from their children merely by scolding them for bad behavior.

But let me qualify that: it depends on what a parent means by “good” behavior. Do you just want your kids to do what you think is right because you say so, or because they also believe it’s right? If they only toe the line around you because they’re afraid to cross you, chances are they’re going to behave differently when you’re not watching. And when they get their independence as adults, when they’re out from under your supervision and rules, they’re going to do what they want regardless of what you think.

You can use force to make your children behave the way you want them to. But if we want our kids to adopt our values, we can’t bully them into it. Rather, they will learn to see the world the way we do and internalize our values because we’ve shown them patience, grace, and compassion and have become trustworthy models in their eyes. And as they grow, when we see behavior that needs correction, it’s often more effective to look for the part they’re doing right and encourage more of that than it is to tear them down for what they’re doing wrong.

IN THE LETTER we know as 1 John, the apostle wrote as a concerned pastor to the people in his own church community. They had been faithful in standing for the truth about Jesus despite the pressure from the secessionists, but the controversy had shaken his readers’ confidence. Even though the troublemakers had left, some of the faithful who remained may have been influenced enough by the heretical views and sinful behaviors of the secessionists that they themselves had begun speaking or acting in ways that alarmed their brothers and sisters.

And now, it seems, the secessionists had taken their message elsewhere. John is rightly concerned about their potentially damaging influence upon other communities; after all, his own community has just been through it. He wants to warn other churches, but it’s not as if he can just call, text, or send an email. Nor can he just run down to the local office supply store for an endless and inexpensive supply of papyrus. It would make sense for other churches to read what he wrote for his own community in 1 John, accompanied by a short cover letter that could invite other communities into the conversation and function like an executive summary of the concerns.

But such a letter can itself be controversial, especially when the concerns expressed in so short a space get intensified like sunlight through a magnifying glass. Strategically, John knows that it’s important to begin well, capturing his readers’ attention and goodwill right from his opening words.

As we’ve seen, 2 John reads more like a conventional letter than 1 John; it identifies the sender and recipient (albeit a bit cryptically) and then greets the recipients. Customarily, what came next in many ancient letters were carefully chosen words in which the sender would make a friendly connection with the recipient and introduce the subject of the letter at the same time. Such words, known as an exordium, helped open the recipient to hearing what the sender had to say. Here’s how John does it:

It has given me great joy to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as the Father commanded us. And now, dear lady, I am not writing you a new command but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another. 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 4-6, NIV)

John hasn’t mentioned the false teachers yet; that will come in the next verse. But he chooses to begin with the positive by paying the church a compliment, saying in essence, “I’m so happy to know that some of your folks are living in a way that is obedient to God and true to the gospel.”

But wait: only “some” of the people in the church were living that way? Is that intended as a criticism? Imagine that you had cooked a seven-course feast for someone then asked if they liked it, and the reply was, “Well, the salad was excellent.” How would you take that?

It’s possible that John is implying that while some of the members of the congregation were walking in the truth, too many of them were not. But it’s more likely, I think, that John is merely speaking from incomplete knowledge of a congregation he simply doesn’t know as well as he might like. He’s praising them for the encouraging reports he’s heard, without necessarily implying that he’s heard discouraging ones.

In this way, he begins on a positive note and then immediately makes common cause with them: “just as the Father commanded us.” Not “you,” but “us.” Yes, he’s giving them a command, but it’s the command that we all have as believers, that we love one another, that we walk in obedience. Only having said that does John switch back to the second person: “As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.”

This is not “Do as I say,” but “Do as I do,” the counsel of a respected elder to the people who are all his brothers and sisters under one heavenly Father. And as we’ll see, his counsel to them is a summation of what he’s already said at greater length in 1 John.