<p>1:8 <em>Look to yourselves, that we do not lose the things which we have done but that we receive a full reward</em>- The letter is addressed to Kyria personally, the hostess of the house church; and she is asked to look to her converts, that they do not lose the spiritual position to which they had attained. We see here how a woman has pastoral responsibility, especially over her &quot;children&quot;, her converts. The &quot;yourselves&quot; and &quot;we&quot; are different. The things &quot;done&quot; by John and his preaching team were the spiritual creation, under the Lord's influence, of Kyria and her house church of converts. This is our work for the Lord, what a man should 'do' in his life, the only labour that abides beyond our graves, the only career worth anything eternally.</p><p>But 'the things done' could also refer to their faith in the Lord Jesus. To believe in Him is described by John as a &lsquo;work&rsquo; that has to be laboured at- with even more effort than that expended by the crowds who walked around the lake to get to Jesus and the free bread He appeared to be offering (Jn. 6:27; 2 Jn. 8). It is this &lsquo;labour&rsquo;, this hard mental effort to know Him and believe in Him, which will have a &lsquo;full reward&rsquo; (2 Jn. 8). John here is alluding to the LXX of Ruth 2:12, where a &lsquo;full reward&rsquo; is given to Ruth for working hard all day gleaning in the fields. It may be that this allusion was because &ldquo;the elect lady&rdquo; addressed by John was in fact a proselyte widow, like Ruth. But the point is, we have to <em>labour</em>, as much as one might work hard walking around a lake or gleaning in the field, in order to know the Lord Jesus Christ and bring others to that knowledge. The &quot;full reward&quot; may be reference to the fact that if we ourselves are saved but our converts or spiritual children fall away, then we have as it were lost the fullness of reward which there could have been for us. The fullness of reward is that not only we are saved, but our spiritual children too.</p>