{"id":10157,"date":"2022-05-22T05:37:06","date_gmt":"2022-05-22T10:37:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-2-john\/"},"modified":"2022-04-29T14:05:00","modified_gmt":"2022-04-29T19:05:00","slug":"devotional-on-2-john","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-2-john\/","title":{"rendered":"Devotional on 2 John"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_16349\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-16349\" style=\"width: 960px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/100_3239.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-16349\" src=\"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/100_3239-1024x577.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"960\" height=\"541\" srcset=\"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/100_3239-1024x577.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/100_3239-300x169.jpg 300w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/100_3239-768x432.jpg 768w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/100_3239-1536x865.jpg 1536w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/100_3239.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-16349\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">2014 &#8211; Sightseeing in San Francisco, CA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Pastor to people<\/p>\n<p>2John: My dear congregation, I, your pastor, love you in very truth.<\/p>\n<p>Compared to some books of the Bible, 2John isn\u2019t much of a \u201cbook.\u201d It\u2019s more of an \u201cemail.\u201d It\u2019s just a few lines, written as a quick placeholder for a congregation by their pastor. He\u2019ll fill in the material in person. He greets them by declaring his love for them. I can\u2019t help but think, as I read this opening line, that\u2019s it\u2019s a beautiful thing when a pastor loves his or her congregation \u201cin very truth.\u201d Because of that love-based relationship John starts his note to them by encouraging them, telling them how happy he is with them. Anyone who thinks the pastor\u2019s job is to \u201ctell it like it is\u201d and \u201cset people straight\u201d needs to spend some time here. John tells his church how much he loves them and how pleased he is with their faithfulness to Christ\u2019s command that his followers love one another. It\u2019s only after doing that that he moves on to warning them about some false teachers who are taking advantage of gullible Christians. He has more to say to them, but until he can be with them personally, he thinks this little \u201cemail\u201d will do. The brevity of this letter speaks volumes about the friendly, loving relationship between this pastor and his congregation. I can\u2019t help but think that sometimes saying less is saying more.<\/p>\n<p>Take Away: Pastors need to love and appreciate the churches under their charge. Churches, on the other hand, need to love and appreciate pastors who lovingly care for them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pastor to people 2John: My dear congregation, I, your pastor, love you in very truth. Compared to some books of the Bible, 2John isn\u2019t much of a \u201cbook.\u201d It\u2019s more of an \u201cemail.\u201d It\u2019s just a few lines, written as a quick placeholder for a congregation by their pastor. He\u2019ll fill in the material in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1478,1428],"tags":[1459,211,308,691,809,902],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10157"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10157"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10157\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16351,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10157\/revisions\/16351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}