Doctrine Analysis
Doctrine Analysis: 2 John (Full Book)
Purpose
This document maps every doctrine assigned to this curriculum, plus every doctrinally load-bearing doctrine implicit in the text of 2 John, onto the risk-tier and review-routing framework established by the Romans baseline. Because 2 John is a single short chapter, full-book coverage is achieved by walking through the letter in its natural structural sections (salutation → walking in truth and love → warning against deceivers → hospitality and discernment → closing), confirming for each section which doctrines are active and explicitly noting sections that introduce no new doctrinal risk.
This analysis is CONSISTENT with doctrine_risk_registry.json: the same 14 doctrines appear
below with identical risk tiers and identical review routing. No contradiction is introduced.
1. Full-Book Section Coverage Map
2 John has only one chapter. Full-book coverage is demonstrated by section, verse-by-verse.
| Section | Verses | Doctrines active | Coverage status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Salutation and greeting | 1:1–3 | Eldership and Apostolic Authority; Divine Election of the Elect Lady and Her Sister Congregation; Grace, Mercy, and Peace from the Father and the Son | Reviewed — full doctrinal analysis below |
| Joy at children walking in truth | 1:4 | Walking in Truth and Love; Apostolic Truth Permanently Indwelling Believers | Reviewed — core passage begins here |
| The command to love one another | 1:5–6 | Walking in Truth and Love; Love Defined as Obedience to Christ’s Commandments | Reviewed — core passage |
| Warning against deceivers and the antichrist | 1:7 | Warning against Deceivers Denying the Incarnation; Confession of Christ’s Incarnation as the Test of True Doctrine | Reviewed — core passage; doctrinal center of the letter |
| Watch yourselves / full reward | 1:8 | Full Reward for Persevering, Faithful Ministry | Reviewed — core passage |
| Whoever goes ahead does not have God | 1:9 | Perseverance in the Teaching of Christ; Access to God Inseparable from Confessing the Son | Reviewed — core passage; doctrinal center of the letter |
| Do not receive or greet false teachers | 1:10 | Hospitality and Doctrinal Discernment | Reviewed — core passage |
| Sharing in wicked works | 1:11 | Complicity in False Teaching through Endorsement | Reviewed — core passage |
| Desire for face-to-face fellowship, joy | 1:12 | Relational Joy and Warm Fellowship in Ordinary Ministry | Reviewed — no new doctrinal risk; confirms narrow/exceptional nature of 1:10–11 |
| Greetings from the sister’s children | 1:13 | Divine Election of the Elect Lady and Her Sister Congregation (recurrence) | Reviewed — no new doctrine; consistency check only |
Coverage declaration: All 13 verses of 2 John have been reviewed. No verse is silently omitted. Verses 12–13 introduce no new doctrine beyond what is already captured; they are recorded here explicitly as “reviewed, no new risk” per the full-coverage mandate.
2. Doctrine Matrix
| # | Doctrine | Supporting passages (2 John) | Risk | Translation risk summary | Review routing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Grace, Mercy, and Peace from the Father and the Son | 1:3 | Critical | Joint Father–Son sourcing of the blessing implies the Son’s co-equal deity; दया (mercy) must not collapse into self-cultivated compassion (Buddhist करुणा) or independent devotional दयाळुता, but read as inseparable from कृपा. | Human theologian |
| 2 | Warning against Deceivers Denying the Incarnation | 1:7 | Critical | देहधारण must never render as अवतार (Vaishnav avatar-descent) nor assimilate to Bodhisattva repeated-rebirth imagery; affirms one-time, historical, real human देह against both Docetism and cyclical-appearance frameworks. | Human theologian |
| 3 | Perseverance in the Teaching of Christ | 1:9 | Critical | προάγων (“goes on ahead”) risks a positive misreading as commendable reform-minded “progress”; राहणे/टिकून राहणे must read as relational fidelity to a specific historical teaching, not Vedantic sthiti or Buddhist contemplative abiding. | Human theologian |
| 4 | Access to God Inseparable from Confessing the Son | 1:9 | Critical | The stark either/or (“does not have God” / “has both the Father and the Son”) must not be softened toward partial or optional access to God apart from full confession of the Son’s co-equal deity. | Human theologian |
| 5 | Walking in Truth and Love | 1:1, 1:2, 1:4, 1:5, 1:6 | High | चालणे risks reading as self-propelled advancement (Eightfold Path / sadhana-marga); प्रीती risks softening into generic/romantic प्रेम or भक्तिप्रेम; both must anchor to fidelity to received apostolic truth and Christ’s commandments. | Human theologian |
| 6 | Apostolic Truth Permanently Indwelling Believers | 1:2 | High | सत्य carries independent weight in Advaita (Brahman as Sat), Gandhian Satyagraha, and Buddhist Four Noble Truths; must read as specific, historically anchored apostolic testimony about Christ, not impersonal cosmic Truth or self-realized inner state. | Human theologian |
| 7 | Love Defined as Obedience to Christ’s Commandments | 1:5, 1:6 | High | Must resist collapsing into caste-dharma-style धार्मिक कर्तव्य duty on one side, and devotional bhakti-style emotional surrender lacking binding obedience-content on the other. | Human theologian |
| 8 | Confession of Christ’s Incarnation as the Test of True Doctrine | 1:7 | High | ὁμολογέω/अंगीकार करणे functions as litmus test of true doctrine (parallel to Romans 10:9’s Lordship confession); must be decisive public theological affirmation, not private opinion or generic assent. | Human theologian |
| 9 | Hospitality and Doctrinal Discernment | 1:10 | High | Directly overrides अतिथी देवो भव (“the guest is as God”); must be taught as a narrow, doctrine-specific exception concerning incarnation-denying itinerant teachers, not a general license for inhospitality; distinguish from Romans 12:13’s positive instruction. | Human theologian |
| 10 | Complicity in False Teaching through Endorsement | 1:11 | High | सहभागी होणे shares its root with the baseline’s positive सहभागिता (Christian fellowship, Low risk); here it names wrongful participation in evil works via mere greeting — every occurrence must be polarity-checked. | Human theologian |
| 11 | Divine Election of the Elect Lady and Her Sister Congregation | 1:1, 1:13 | High | Must reuse baseline’s देवाची निवड root, never echoing नशीब/दैव/कर्मफळ; स्वामिनी must be avoided for “lady” (Warkari/Vaishnav goddess-consort risk, e.g. Rukmini/Rakhumai beside Vitthal); individual-vs-congregation reading must be documented and applied consistently. | Human theologian |
| 12 | Full Reward for Persevering, Faithful Ministry | 1:8 | Medium | पूर्ण प्रतिफळ must be presented as fruit/completion of persevering faithfulness, not merit-wages earning तारण/नीतिमत्त्व — flag alongside baseline’s Critical grace-vs-merit distinction. | Native speaker review |
| 13 | Eldership and Apostolic Authority | 1:1 | Medium | वडील names a recognized, delegated congregational office; risk of collapsing into गुरू (self-attained authority, already rejected in baseline for “apostle”) or a merely generic “elderly person” sense. | Native speaker review |
| 14 | Relational Joy and Warm Fellowship in Ordinary Ministry | 1:12, 1:13 | Low | Standard warm closing vocabulary; confirms by contrast that the 1:10–11 restriction is narrow and exceptional, not the community’s normal relational posture. | Automated review |
Risk summary (must match doctrine_risk_registry.json): Critical: 4 · High: 7 · Medium: 2 · Low: 1 · Total: 14 Total requiring theologian review: 11 · Total requiring native speaker review: 2 · Total automated-only: 1
3. Detailed Doctrine Analysis by Book Section
3.1 Salutation and Greeting (1:1–3)
Doctrines active: Eldership and Apostolic Authority (Medium); Divine Election of the Elect Lady and Her Sister Congregation (High); Grace, Mercy, and Peace from the Father and the Son (Critical).
- Eldership and Apostolic Authority (v.1). The author identifies himself simply as “the elder” (वडील). This carries recognized congregational authority, delegated rather than self-attained. Risk is Medium because collapse into गुरू (implying self-attained teaching authority, already rejected in the Romans baseline for “apostle”) or into a merely generic “old man” sense would strip the office of its authoritative, delegated force. Native speaker review is sufficient since no Critical/High term collision is present, but consistency with प्रेषित’s established contrast against गुरू must be checked.
- Divine Election of the Elect Lady and Her Sister Congregation (v.1, recurring v.13). “Elect lady” (ἐκλεκτῇ κυρίᾳ) requires reuse of the baseline’s देवाची निवड root for “elect/election.” The honorific “lady” (κυρία) must never be rendered स्वामिनी, since Maharashtra’s Warkari/Vaishnav devotional tradition applies स्वामिनी-adjacent honorifics to goddess-consort figures (e.g., Rukmini/Rakhumai beside Vitthal), which would falsely elevate an individual or congregation into consort-deity territory. The individual-vs-congregation personification question (a real woman, or a congregation addressed collectively) must be resolved once and applied consistently at v.1, v.5, and v.13, per the Core Glossary’s Section 5 requirement. High risk reflects both the election-theology stakes and the specific goddess-consort collision risk.
- Grace, Mercy, and Peace from the Father and the Son (v.3). This is the Critical doctrine of this section. Unlike many NT greetings, this one explicitly names “the Father” and “the Son of the Father” jointly as the source of grace, mercy, and peace — an implicit but firm affirmation of the Son’s co-equal divine standing (consistent with the baseline’s Critical Deity-of-Christ and Sonship-of-Christ doctrines). दया (mercy) is a new term for this curriculum and must be anchored tightly to कृपा; standing alone, दया risks being read as a self-cultivated virtue (Buddhist करुणा attained through practice) or generic Hindu devotional दयाळुता, rather than God’s own covenantal compassion extended through Christ specifically. The joint Father-Son sourcing of the blessing must never be phrased so as to suggest the Son is a secondary or subordinate channel.
3.2 Joy at Children Walking in Truth (1:4) — Core Passage Begins
Doctrines active: Walking in Truth and Love (High); Apostolic Truth Permanently Indwelling Believers (High).
- v.4 opens the core passage. “I rejoiced greatly to find some of your children walking in the truth” introduces both चालणे (walk/conduct) and सत्य (truth) as paired terms that recur through v.6. चालणे must never be rendered in a way that suggests a self-propelled spiritual journey akin to the Buddhist Eightfold Path (मार्ग) or Hindu sadhana-marga toward liberation; it must be anchored explicitly to conduct consistent with an already-received apostolic truth, not an open-ended path toward a future attainment.
- सत्य’s independent theological weight in Advaita Vedanta (Brahman as Sat), the Gandhian Satyagraha tradition, and Buddhist teaching (Four Noble Truths, sacca) means every occurrence needs contextual anchoring to the specific apostolic testimony about Christ (per v.2’s “the truth that abides in us and will be with us forever”) rather than an impersonal cosmic Truth or a self-realized inner state.
3.3 The Command to Love One Another (1:5–6)
Doctrines active: Walking in Truth and Love (High, continued); Love Defined as Obedience to Christ’s Commandments (High).
- vv.5–6 tighten the truth/love pairing into a specific ethical demand: love one another, and this love IS walking according to his commandments. This is the doctrinal core of “Love Defined as Obedience,” distinct from mere sentiment. प्रीती (the established formal term, chosen over प्रेम to avoid romantic/generic collision and भक्तिप्रेम’s erotic-devotional associations in Radha-Krishna poetry) must be rendered so that love and obedience are inseparably bound — resisting both a caste-dharma-style धार्मिक कर्तव्य collapse (duty performed to earn standing) and a devotional bhakti-style emotional-surrender collapse (feeling without binding content).
- आज्ञा (commandment) recurs twice in v.6 and must be kept distinct from नियमशास्त्र (reserved for the Mosaic Law/Torah in the baseline) — this is Christ’s specific, binding charge to the church, a different referent.
3.4 Warning Against Deceivers and the Antichrist (1:7) — Doctrinal Center
Doctrines active: Warning against Deceivers Denying the Incarnation (Critical); Confession of Christ’s Incarnation as the Test of True Doctrine (High).
This verse is the theological center of the entire letter and carries this curriculum’s highest concentration of Critical/High risk.
- Warning against Deceivers Denying the Incarnation (Critical). Many deceivers (फसवणारा, an active, doctrinally destructive term, not mere innocent error) have gone out who do not confess Jesus Christ has come “in the flesh” (ἐν σαρκί / देह). This directly implicates the baseline’s Critical देहधारण (incarnation) term. देहधारण must never be rendered with अवतार — a term whose Vaishnav avatar-descent associations sit at the very center of Warkari devotion to Vitthal/Krishna. It must also be guarded against assimilation to the Bodhisattva ideal of repeated compassionate rebirth, an image Ambedkar himself invoked in his reinterpretation of Buddhism — Christ’s incarnation is a one-time, unique, historical event, not a repeatable or cyclical appearance. देह (flesh) must affirm real, historical human nature, guarding against Docetism (Christ only seemed human).
- Confession of Christ’s Incarnation as the Test of True Doctrine (High). ὁμολογέω/अंगीकार करणे functions here exactly as the Lordship confession does in Romans 10:9 in the baseline package: a decisive, public theological affirmation, the litmus test separating true teachers from deceivers. It must never be softened to private opinion or generic assent.
- Antichrist (ख्रिस्तविरोधी). Though not a separate doctrine entry (folded into the Critical incarnation-denial doctrine above), this Critical-risk term must never be softened to a generic “opponent” or “enemy” — it names active, doctrinally defined opposition to Christ specifically through incarnation-denial.
3.5 Watch Yourselves / Full Reward (1:8)
Doctrines active: Full Reward for Persevering, Faithful Ministry (Medium).
- The exhortation to “watch yourselves, so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward” introduces पूर्ण प्रतिफळ. This must be carefully glossed as the fruit or completion of persevering faithful ministry — never as merit-wages that earn तारण (salvation) or नीतिमत्त्व (righteousness), which would directly contradict the Romans baseline’s Critical grace-versus-merit distinction (कृपा ≠ कर्मफळ/पुण्य). Medium risk with native speaker review is appropriate, but translators must flag this passage alongside grace-versus-merit material for cross-check during Phase 2 Step 17.
3.6 Whoever Goes Ahead Does Not Have God (1:9) — Doctrinal Center
Doctrines active: Perseverance in the Teaching of Christ (Critical); Access to God Inseparable from Confessing the Son (Critical).
- Perseverance in the Teaching of Christ (Critical). “Everyone who goes on ahead (προάγω) and does not abide (μένω) in the teaching (διδαχή) of Christ, does not have God.” προάγων carries serious mistranslation risk: a bare “progresses/advances” gloss could be read positively as commendable spiritual or social “progress” — a value carrying strong resonance in Maharashtra’s reform-minded religious and social movements. The Marathi rendering (पुढे जाणारा, मर्यादा ओलांडून) must make explicit that this is departure from, not advancement of, apostolic doctrine. Likewise, राहणे/टिकून राहणे (“abide”) must be distinguished from Vedantic sthiti (abiding in the Self/Brahman) or Buddhist contemplative “abiding in awareness” — this is relational fidelity to a specific, received, historical teaching about a specific person, not an interior contemplative attainment.
- Access to God Inseparable from Confessing the Son (Critical). The verse’s stark either/or — one either “has God” through right teaching about Christ, or does not have God at all — must not be softened toward suggesting partial, alternate, or optional access to God apart from the Son. This directly extends the Romans baseline’s Critical Sonship-of-Christ doctrine: the Son’s co-equal deity is not negotiable, and neither is exclusive access to the Father through him.
3.7 Do Not Receive or Greet False Teachers (1:10)
Doctrines active: Hospitality and Doctrinal Discernment (High).
- This command — do not receive into your house or give a greeting to one who does not bring “this teaching” — collides directly with the deeply held Indian hospitality ethic अतिथी देवो भव (“the guest is as God”), making it unusually culturally jarring to a Marathi-speaking audience formed by that norm. The translation and accompanying teaching material must state unambiguously that this is a narrow, doctrine-specific exception applying to itinerant teachers actively denying the incarnation and seeking legitimation/support, not a general license for inhospitality. This must be explicitly distinguished from Romans 12:13’s positive hospitality instruction, which remains the norm for the church elsewhere.
3.8 Sharing in Wicked Works (1:11)
Doctrines active: Complicity in False Teaching through Endorsement (High).
- “Whoever greets him takes part (κοινωνέω/सहभागी होणे) in his wicked works.” This shares its root with the baseline’s positive Low-risk term for Christian fellowship (सहभागिता). Every occurrence of this negative-polarity usage must be flagged and checked so translators and reviewers never mistake this warning for endorsed Christian fellowship — the same root, opposite moral valence. High risk reflects the doctrinal weight of the warning itself, not merely lexical ambiguity.
3.9 Desire for Face-to-Face Fellowship, Joy (1:12)
Doctrines active: Relational Joy and Warm Fellowship in Ordinary Ministry (Low).
- The author’s expressed preference for face-to-face conversation over “paper and ink,” and his desire that “our joy may be complete,” introduces no new doctrinal risk. Standard joy/fellowship vocabulary suffices (आनंद, समोरासमोर बोलणे). This section’s low-risk warmth is doctrinally significant precisely by contrast: it confirms that the severity of vv.10–11 is a narrow, doctrine-specific exception, not the community’s normal relational posture. Reviewed and recorded per full-coverage mandate; automated review only.
3.10 Greetings from the Sister’s Children (1:13)
Doctrines active: Divine Election of the Elect Lady and Her Sister Congregation (recurrence, High — already fully analyzed in §3.1).
- No new doctrine is introduced. This verse requires only a consistency check: the same individual-vs-congregation interpretive decision made for “elect lady” (v.1) and its “election” root must be applied identically to “her elect sister” here. Reviewed, no new risk.
4. Cross-Reference to Romans Baseline Doctrines Reused in 2 John
| Baseline doctrine (Romans) | Reused in 2 John at | Consistency requirement |
|---|---|---|
| Deity of Christ / Sonship of Christ | 1:3 (Father + Son joint source), 1:9 (has both Father and Son) | Same Critical tier and same forbidden-substitution rules apply; no softening of co-equal divine Sonship |
| Incarnation | 1:7 | Same Critical tier; never अवतार; never Bodhisattva-rebirth assimilation |
| Grace | 1:3 | Same Critical tier; grace-vs-merit distinction extends to 1:8’s “full reward” |
| Election | 1:1, 1:13 | Same High tier; same forbidden नशीब/दैव/कर्मफळ substitutions |
| Church as God’s People (adjacent) | 1:1, 1:13 (“elect lady,” “sister”) | Congregational personification must not be confused with a caste-segregated or ritual-institutional reading |
5. Confirmation of Consistency with doctrine_risk_registry.json
This analysis introduces no new doctrines and alters no risk tier relative to
doctrine_risk_registry.json (2 John version, generated 2026-07-03). The 14 doctrines, their
risk tiers (Critical: 4, High: 7, Medium: 2, Low: 1), and their review routing are identical
in both documents. This document exists to provide the full-book, section-by-section
translation-risk narrative and passage mapping that the registry’s compact JSON form does
not itself carry.
This document must be loaded alongside doctrine_risk_registry.json, translation_memory.json,
and 08_core_glossary.md before any Phase 2 segment translation of 2 John begins.
Critical Risk Doctrines
Grace, Mercy, and Peace from the Father and the Son
Marathi name: पिता आणि पुत्राकडून कृपा, दया व शांती
Key terms: grace, mercy, peace, father, son_of_god
Review routing: Human theologian
The unique triadic greeting names both the Father and ‘the Son of the Father’ jointly as source of this blessing, implicitly affirming the Son’s co-equal divine standing. दया (mercy) risks being read as generic self-cultivated compassion — Buddhist करुणा attained through practice, or a Hindu deity’s devotional दयाळुता — rather than God’s own covenantal compassion inseparable from कृपा; and the joint Father-Son sourcing must not be softened to suggest the Son is a secondary or lesser channel of blessing.
Warning against Deceivers Denying the Incarnation
Marathi name: देहधारण नाकारणाऱ्या फसवणाऱ्यांविरुद्ध इशारा
Key terms: deceiver, antichrist, confess, flesh, incarnation
Review routing: Human theologian
This is the letter’s doctrinal center. देहधारण must never be rendered with अवतार (Vaishnav avatar-descent, central to Warkari devotional theology of Vitthal/Krishna) nor assimilated to the Bodhisattva ideal of repeated compassionate rebirth (an image Ambedkar himself invoked). The confession that Christ has come in genuine, historical human देह affirms a one-time, unique event, guarding against both Docetism and any cyclical or repeatable-appearance framework native to either tradition.
Perseverance in the Teaching of Christ
Marathi name: ख्रिस्ताच्या शिकवणीत टिकून राहणे
Key terms: abide, teaching, goes_on_ahead
Review routing: Human theologian
προάγων (‘goes on ahead’) risks being read positively as commendable spiritual ‘progress,’ a value with strong resonance in reform-minded religious movements in Maharashtra; the rendering must make explicit this is departure from, not advancement of, apostolic doctrine. राहणे/टिकून राहणे (‘abide’) must also be distinguished from Vedantic sthiti (abiding in the Self/Brahman) or Buddhist contemplative ‘abiding in awareness’ — this is relational fidelity to a specific historical teaching about Christ, not an interior contemplative attainment.
Access to God Inseparable from Confessing the Son
Marathi name: पुत्राच्या अंगीकाराशिवाय देवाजवळ प्रवेश नाही
Key terms: son_of_god, father, teaching
Review routing: Human theologian
The stark either/or of 1:9 (‘does not have God’ / ‘has both the Father and the Son’) must not be softened to suggest partial or optional access to God apart from correct confession of the Son’s full, co-equal deity and unique Sonship — the same Critical Sonship-of-Christ doctrine established in the Romans baseline.
High Risk Doctrines
Walking in Truth and Love
Marathi name: सत्य आणि प्रीतीने चालणे
Key terms: truth, love, walk, commandment
Review routing: Human theologian
चालणे (‘walking’) risks being read as self-propelled advancement toward a goal, the dominant framing of the Buddhist Eightfold Path (मार्ग) and Hindu sadhana; and प्रीती risks softening into generic/romantic प्रेम or the erotic-devotional भक्तिप्रेम of Radha-Krishna poetry. Both terms must be tied explicitly to fidelity to already-received apostolic truth and obedience to Christ’s commandments, not self-directed spiritual progress or sentiment.
Apostolic Truth Permanently Indwelling Believers
Marathi name: सत्याचे कायमचे वास्तव्य
Key terms: truth, abide, forever
Review routing: Human theologian
सत्य (truth) carries independent weight in Advaita Vedantic metaphysics (Brahman as Sat, ultimate undifferentiated Reality), the Gandhian Satyagraha tradition, and the Buddhist Four Noble Truths (sacca). This doctrine’s claim — a specific, historically-anchored apostolic testimony about Christ permanently indwelling believers — must not be read as an impersonal cosmic Truth or a self-realized inner state attained through practice or meditation.
Love Defined as Obedience to Christ’s Commandments
Marathi name: आज्ञापालन म्हणून प्रीती
Key terms: love, commandment, walk according to his commandments
Review routing: Human theologian
2 John deliberately binds love to obedient conduct, not feeling. In Marathi this must resist collapsing into धार्मिक कर्तव्य-style caste-dharma duty (the very framing the Romans baseline rejects for ‘obedience of faith’) and must equally resist collapsing into devotional sentiment (भक्ति/bhakti-style emotional surrender) that lacks a binding, obedience-shaped content.
Confession of Christ’s Incarnation as the Test of True Doctrine
Marathi name: ख्रिस्ताच्या देहधारणाचा अंगीकार — खऱ्या शिकवणीची कसोटी
Key terms: confess, incarnation, flesh
Review routing: Human theologian
ὁμολογέω functions here as the litmus test of true doctrine, in parallel to Romans 10:9’s Lordship confession in the baseline. अंगीकार करणे must be rendered as a decisive, public theological affirmation, not private opinion or generic assent, and must be consistently and firmly tied to the specific content being affirmed — Christ’s real coming in the flesh.
Hospitality and Doctrinal Discernment
Marathi name: आदरातिथ्य आणि सिद्धांतविषयक विवेक
Key terms: hospitality, greet, teaching
Review routing: Human theologian
This command directly overrides the deeply held Indian hospitality ethic अतिथी देवो भव (‘the guest is as God’), in which refusing any visitor hospitality is a serious social and religious offense. Marathi rendering and accompanying teaching must make explicit that this is a narrow, doctrine-specific exception concerning itinerant teachers who deny the incarnation and seek legitimation, not a general license for inhospitality, and must be distinguished from Romans 12:13’s positive hospitality instruction elsewhere in the curriculum.
Complicity in False Teaching through Endorsement
Marathi name: खोट्या शिकवणीत सहभागी होणे
Key terms: fellowship_negative, greet, deceiver
Review routing: Human theologian
सहभागी होणे shares its root with the Romans baseline’s positive term for Christian fellowship (सहभागिता, Low risk in that sense). Here it names wrongful participation in another’s evil works through mere greeting; every occurrence must be checked for polarity so this warning is never mistaken for or blurred with endorsed Christian fellowship.
Divine Election of the Elect Lady and Her Sister Congregation
Marathi name: निवडलेल्या बाईची व तिच्या बहिणीची देवाची निवड
Key terms: elect_lady, election, sister, children
Review routing: Human theologian
निवडलेली must reuse the baseline’s देवाची निवड root, preserving God’s sovereign, personal choosing and never echoing नशीब/दैव/कर्मफळ (fate, destiny, karma-determined status). स्वामिनी must be avoided for कुरिया/‘lady,’ since it risks Warkari/Vaishnav goddess-consort associations (e.g., Rukmini/Rakhumai as स्वामिनी beside Vitthal). The individual-vs-congregation reading must be a documented, consistently applied translator decision.
Medium Risk Doctrines
Full Reward for Persevering, Faithful Ministry
Marathi name: टिकून राहणाऱ्या सेवाकार्याचे पूर्ण प्रतिफळ
Key terms: reward, watch_yourselves
Review routing: Native speaker review
पूर्ण प्रतिफळ must be presented as the fruit/completion of persevering faithfulness, not wages that earn तारण or नीतिमत्त्व; without a careful gloss, this could be read as merit-based salvation, contradicting the Critical grace-versus-merit distinction established in the Romans baseline.
Eldership and Apostolic Authority
Marathi name: वडीलपण आणि प्रेषितीय अधिकार
Key terms: elder
Review routing: Native speaker review
वडील names a recognized, delegated congregational office; risk of collapsing into गुरू (self-attained teaching authority, already rejected in the Romans baseline for ‘apostle’) or into a merely generic sense of ‘an elderly person’ without ecclesial authority.
Low Risk Doctrines
Relational Joy and Warm Fellowship in Ordinary Ministry
Marathi name: सेवाकार्यातील आनंद आणि सहभागिता
Key terms: joy_fullness, send_greetings, face_to_face
Review routing: Automated review
The letter’s warm, ordinary closing (desire for face-to-face fellowship, full joy, freely sent greetings) contrasts with 1:10-11’s doctrine-specific restriction, confirming that restriction is narrow and exceptional rather than the community’s normal posture. Minor risk; standard vocabulary suffices.
Referenced passages