As we think about the first fruit of the Spirit –– love –– there’s one small word in the gospels that is full of challenge for us. It’s a word has challenged me hugely in many relationships in both my family and in my church. It’s the word “as” in John 15:12: “Love one another ‘as’ I have loved you”, Jesus says. In this context, “as” means “in the same way”. “My love for you is the model. I want you to copy that model in your relationships with each other.”

2 John is the New Testament's shortest letter. In less than 225 Greek words it reveals how a church leader—absent due to travel—nurtured and protected a Christian congregation by employing and adapting the deep-rooted social conventions of family and hospitality to express the core of Christian identity, and to highlight some of its boundaries.

Follow me
Where I go,
What I do,
And who I know.
Make it part of you to be a part of me.

Older readers will immediately hear the voice of John Denver singing these words, which speak the essence of friendship, of the willingness to join oneself into the life and experience of another. In the upper room, Jesus said to his disciples, “Abide in me, and I in you. No longer do I call you servants, but I call you friends” (John 15:4, 15).

The Sabbath School Quarterly lesson for this week comments on the December 8 Saturday introductory commentary:

Scientists did an experiment with four-year-old children and marshmallows. Each child was told by a scientist that they could have a marshmallow; however, if the child waited until the scientist returned from an errand, they would be given two. Some of the children stuffed the marshmallow into their mouths the moment the scientist left; others waited. The differences were noted.