1. Watson, “Rhetorical Analysis,” 110–11.
2. Lieu, I, II, & III John, 249.
3. Watson, “Rhetorical Analysis,” 117.
4. Lieu, Second and Third Epistles, 176.
5. Marshall, Epistles of John, 67.
6. Ibid., 67–68.
7. Ernst R. Wendland, “What Is Truth? Semantic Density and the Language of the Johannine Epistles with Special Reference to 2 John,” Notes on Translation 5, no. 2 (1991): 32–33, 56.
8. Lieu, Second and Third Epistles, 77; also Yarbrough, 1–3 John, 339.
9. As also Marshall, Epistles of John, 65.
10. Watson, “Rhetorical Analysis,” 121. His other observations about the rhetorical structure would apply even with a different antecedent.
11. Kruse, Letters of John, 208.
12. Tom Thatcher, “2 John,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary (ed. Tremper Longman III and David E. Garland; rev. ed.; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006), 13:516.
13. Watson, “Rhetorical Analysis,” 110.
14. Wendland, “What Is Truth?” 56.
15. Akin, “Truth or Consequences,” 6.
16. Contra Lieu, Second and Third Epistles, 84.
17. Wallace, Greek Grammar, 645–46.
18. Moberly, “ ‘Test the Spirits,’ ” 297.
19. De Boer, “The Death of Jesus Christ,” 336–37.
20. The textual support for this reading is strong. See Yarbrough, 1–3 John, 348.
21. Lieu, I, II, & III John, 256.
22. Watson, “Rhetorical Analysis,” 124.
23. Yarbrough, 1–3 John, 345.
24. Akin, “Truth or Consequences,” 6.