2 JOHN 10- An Introduction
2 John 10 says that “If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house, and do not give him a greeting.” Does this mean we should not talk to cultists in our homes?

2 JOHN 10- Home or Church?
2 John 10 is not a prohibition against letting cultists into one’s home in order to witness to them. It is a prohibition against letting cultists into the church in order to give them a platform for their teaching. I remember Walter Martin used to say, “I wouldn’t give anyone 10 seconds in the church to proclaim their heresies.”

2 JOHN 10- The House Church
In order to see this, one needs only to recall that most first-century Christian churches met in house-churches. Thus, when John says, “do not receive him into the house,” he is almost certainly referring to a house-church. Some translations say “your house,” which makes it sound as if John is talking about people’s private homes, but the truth of the matter is the word “your” is not even found in the Greek text.

2 John 10- An Alternative Explanation
Another interpretation which is possible is that John is forbidding Christians to let cultists stay in their homes and use their homes as a base of operations from which to spread their poison and their false gospel. This fits the common practice in the first and second centuries of letting preachers stay in one’s home while they preach unhindered by material concerns. Obviously, we shouldn’t let cultists use our homes in this manner, that would be ridiculous in the extreme.

2 JOHN 10- Conclusion
The bottom line is that Christians should not allow their churches or their homes to become a base of operations for false teachers. For example, we certainly do not want to let cultists into our door and then allow them to teach their heresy to our children. And by the way, there are many people that want to prohibit this by simply slamming the door on them, and that isn’t the solution, we ought to invite them in. But there is nothing wrong with inviting cultists into our home in order to preach the truth to them. We want them to hear the message of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.On inviting cultists into the home, that’s the CRI perspective. I’m Hank Hanegraaff.