I’VE HAD A few close calls in life, and surely you have too. Usually, it was because I was in too much of a hurry to pay attention to what I was doing — like getting distracted or ignoring safety rules when using a power saw.

One incident still stands out in my mind, though it must have been well over 50 years ago. It happened sometime in the afternoon, after school. I had some time to kill while I waited for my second bus, the one that would take me home. The bus stop was in a small neighborhood shopping district, so I thought I’d check out the Top Ten at the record store. (You know, records? Vinyls? 45s? Google it if you have to.)

I didn’t go to the corner to wait for the signal like a law-abiding citizen. I jaywalked. But I knew, of course, to watch for cars. So I looked to my right and saw that it was clear, then unthinkingly stepped into the street before looking to my left.

Right in front of an oncoming bus.

Obviously, I wasn’t killed. But I could have been. It all happened so quickly that most of the incident is only a vague memory. I did look left, but a second late; that’s when I saw the bus almost on top of me and jumped back. There was no time for some helpful bystander to shout out a warning: “Watch out!”

Has anyone ever had to shout that to you? Have you ever had to warn someone else that way? The words sound the alarm, telling people, Danger is near, so pay attention! And if the warning is about an ongoing threat — something less immediate than a speeding bus! — it can make us wary and suspicious, constantly on the defensive.

Is that what John wants when he tells his readers to “Watch out”?

JOHN, AS WE’VE seen, doesn’t open his second letter with a warning about false teachers. Instead, he makes first things first by emphasizing the need for believers to walk in the truth, in obedience, and in love, which are all of a piece. The gospel truth is that God, in love, sent his Son in human form to die a bodily death on the cross for our sins. Those who believe that truth should respond with grateful love, and such love involves obedience — including obedience to the command to love one another.

But of course, the whole reason for writing the letter in the first place is to help protect church communities beyond his own from the danger of false teaching, as he now makes clear:

I say this because many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist. Watch out that you do not lose what we have worked for, but that you may be rewarded fully. (2 John 7-8, NIV)

John, it seems, is talking about the secessionists who caused a ruckus in his own community before leaving. As 1 John 4:2 suggests, they did not “acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh”; the language in both places in nearly identical. In 1 John, the secessionists were referred to as “antichrists,” and that language too is repeated here.

Moreover, John says that these deceivers “have gone out into the world.” The verb he uses, which means to go or come out, is common enough. But John uses it in 1 John 2:19 to refer to the secessionists when he says, “They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us.” Even more significantly, in 1 John 4:1 he says that “many false prophets have gone out into the world”; again, the language is nearly identical to what he says here in 2 John. The situation therefore seems to be that those who left his community because they couldn’t convince others to adopt their heretical beliefs about Jesus have taken their message on the road. That’s why, as the New International Version translates it, John tells his readers to “Watch out!”

We might want to translate that warning differently, however. When we shout “Watch out!” to someone, it’s usually because there’s some present danger, an external threat. But what John says, more literally, is “Watch yourselves.” That’s how translations as different as the New American Standard and the Common English Bible render it; even the King James has “Look to yourselves.”

Does it matter?

The difference, I think, is subtle but important. Think of it this way. If you and I are friends, and I tell you a story about how horribly a person has behaved, and that you should therefore “watch out” when you’re around them, it’s likely to shape how you see and respond to that person. I’ve told you the truth, and it may indeed be prudent to be wary around that person. But would my words make it easier or harder for you to love them?

In a social context, “Watch out” warns us against the bad things other people might do. We already have a tendency to think in black-and-white terms; people are right or wrong, good or bad, part of us or part of them. And again, please don’t hear me as suggesting that there’s no such thing as right or wrong. The secessionists, John says, are false prophets, children of the devil, and antichrists. They are quite simply wrong about Jesus. That’s about as black-and-white as it gets.

And there’s a lot at stake. When John says, “Watch out that you do not lose what we have worked for, but that you may be rewarded fully,” he seems to be worried that his readers might be swayed by the lies of these false teachers, in a way that would put their eternal destiny at risk. He’s right to warn them; it’s the loving thing to do.

But it makes a difference — in English at least! — whether we’re told “Watch out” or “Watch yourselves.” When the finger is pointed at someone else, when others are painted as a threat, they become the enemy and we are tempted to hate them, breaking the unity between walking in truth, obedience, and love.

But when we’re told to watch ourselves, the issue becomes more about diligently keeping our own house in order. Don’t fear the saw; obey the safety rules. Don’t fear the bus; cross at the crosswalk.

Something similar could be said about keeping our spiritual house in order. We can set the boundaries that need to be set and still do so in love. And yes: John will tell his readers to set some very firm boundaries indeed.