The Dear Lady Of 2 John

It might not receive a great deal of attention in general American church circles, but the book of 2 John is outright addressed to a woman.  "To the lady chosen by God and to her children," John writes in verse 1, identifying the primary addressee as a woman.  He also calls them "dear lady" in verse 5.  Near the end of the book, John goes on to express his eagerness to see and converse with her face to face in one of multiple affirmations of platonic interaction between men and women in the New Testament, which receives absolutely no censure in either Testament to the discomfort of some. 

So it is plain that a New Testament book is written primarily to a female contemporary of John the apostle, which simply would not be part of the Bible if women are supposed to be kept to the sidelines of Christian community by men.  With this sort of thing, absence would not mean that John believes the opposite or that Judeo-Christianity contradicts gender egalitarianism in any way.  That is, if this and every other New Testament book was addressed to men, this alone would not logically entail a denial of women's equality with men with all of its ramifications.

The significance is still immense, and not only for how it contradicts cultural norms of the time, but also for how it defies things like the gender segregation that infests plenty of modern churches outside of primary services—at least churches in my country.  Men and women are treated as if they are different species of unrelatable beings, rather than as individuals with somewhat biologically different bodies.  So much for not yielding to culture as evangelicals clamor to avoid with other issues!  This of course by logical necessity invalidly burdens men in gender-specific ways as well, but if men and women are separated and men are placed in positions of hierarchical authority, women are kept from those positions.

All of this is in part why 2 John might shock some people who call themselves Christians as they hold to an illogical philosophy of gender at odds with pure reason and Biblical doctrines alike.  John treats the "dear lady" as an equal and an intimate friend who shares the same (probably correct) theological worldview.  Again, while there would be nothing inherently anti-egalitarian about the mere absence of women being the direct addressees of any book of the Bible, that even one is written to a woman, and in a celebratory way, is of great importance.  On its own, this contradicts some tenets of evangelical complementarianism altogether.

But, 2 John is not even the only book of the New Testament specifically written to a woman.  Paul includes his spiritual sister Apphia in the people addressed at the beginning of Philemon.  After mentioning Philemon, the man whose name is that of the epistle, he brings up Apphia.  Paul frequently mentions women by name in his New Testament writings (throughout Romans 16 and in Philippians 4:2-3, Colossians 4:15, etc.), and in the case of Philemon, he writes one of his letters to a woman.  All the New Testament is written for women as well for men, of course.  The Old Testament before it is likewise for women as well.  However, for multiple reasons (the linguistic flexibility of male nouns and pronouns, the logically necessary applicability of doctrines to both genders, and so on), New Testament epistles are written to and/or for women.  And all are for men, including 2 John.