2 John 1:5 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Now, I beseech thee, Kuria This sort of address suits a particular person much better than a whole church, consisting of many individuals, to which, in the opinion of some, this letter was directed; not as though I wrote a new commandment A commandment which thou didst never hear before; but that which we had from the beginning Of our Lord's ministry. Indeed it was in some sense from the beginning of the world; that we love one another More abundantly. The apostle does not here speak of a new commandment in the sense in which our Lord used that phrase John 13:34; (see on 1 John 2:7-8;) but his meaning is, either that the commandment to love one another, which he gave to this family, was not a commandment which had never been delivered to the church before, or that it was not a commandment peculiar to the gospel. The first of these seems to be the apostle's meaning; as he tells this matron that the disciples of Christ had had this commandment delivered to them from the beginning. In inculcating mutual love among the disciples of Christ so frequently and so earnestly in all his writings, John showed himself to be, not only a faithful apostle of Christ, but a person of a most amiable and benevolent disposition; his own heart being full of love to all mankind, and particularly to the followers of Jesus, he wished to promote that holy and happy temper in all true Christians.