AUTHOR
The Third Letter of John begins, “The elder to Gaius the beloved, whom I love in truth.”
As with 2 John, the author of this letter identifies himself simply as “the elder”. There is both internal evidence and external evidence that leads scholars to associate this letter with 1 John and 2 John as well as with the Gospel of John and Revelation. The internal evidence consists of a common language. As we saw in 1 John and 2 John, love and truth were dominant topics. So also, here in 3 John, those topics are introduced from the get-go.
Pastor David Jackman summarizes the external evidence for the authorship of this letter…
From the earliest times the letter has been attributed to John the apostle, but not without debate. The early evidence is sparse, though the Muratorian Canon, a fragmentary list of New Testament books known at Rome about AD 200, certainly includes the first two letters. Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons (c. 175—c. 195), quotes from 2 John, but Eusebius (c. 265—c.339), in his Ecclesiastical History, mentions 2 and 3 John as books which were disputed by some but generally accepted in the church (a view expressed also by Origen and Jerome). Following a passage in Papias (c. 60-130), bishop of Hierapolis in Phrygia, who was said to have heard the apostle John, several scholars have attributed the two short letters to ‘John the presbyter (elder)’—a different person entirely.
Much depends on whether John the apostle might not also be known as ‘the elder’, and the scholarly debate continues on this issue.
So, the author of this letter appears to be the same as the author of 2 John, may be the same as the author of 1 John, and may in turn be the same as the author of the Gospel of John and Revelation. Or it may be that all these books are the product of a community that gathered around the Apostle John as his disciples in the first century.
DATE
This letter was probably written around the same time as 1 John and 2 John, sometime in the last decade of the first century.
THEMES
The three letters of John have a sort of “zooming in” effect. The First Letter of John has the broadest appeal. It could, in many ways, have been addressed to any church in the first century. Perhaps that is why the Church at large has found, out of the three letters of John, the greatest relevance in this first letter, not only in the first century, but down to the twenty-first century.
However, in his second letter, John is clearly writing to a particular church, “the elect lady”. We don’t know for certain where this church was, but it was probably in Asia Minor. There are several personal references in John’s second letter that do not appear in his first letter.
In his third letter, John is writing to one church leader, someone called Gaius. We do not know which church Gaius belonged to, nonetheless I think we can learn some valuable lessons from this letter which John wrote to him.
STRUCTURE
3 John gives us a great example of what a typical letter in the first century was like. It had four parts:
- The Greeting (1)
- The Prayer for Good Health (2)
- The Body of the Letter (3-12)
- The Final Greetings (13-14)
KEY CONCEPT: TRUTH & LOVE
“Truth” is an important word in this brief letter. This is the shortest book in the Bible. It contains just 219 words in Greek. Yet, the author uses the word “truth” seven times. John talks about…
- Gaius whom he loves in truth. (1:1)
- Bearing witness in the truth. (1:3)
- Gaius walking in the truth. (1:3)
- No greater joy than to hear that his children are walking in the truth. (1:4)
- Christians being coworkers in the truth (1:8)
- Demetrius who is well spoken of by everyone, even by the truth itself (1:12)
- His witness which is true. (1:12)
The word in for truth in Greek is ἀλήθεια. It is used 109 times in the New Testament. In ancient Greek culture, this word was synonymous with reality as the opposite of illusion.
Love, ἀγαπη, is another key word in this letter. Forms of ἀγαπη are used twice in the first verse. John writes to Gaius, the beloved, whom I love in truth. John calls Gaius beloved again in the second, fifth, and eleventh verses. And John talks about others who bear witness to Gaius’ love in verse six. All together John uses forms of the word ἀγαπη six times in this brief letter.
John also uses another Greek word for love in this letter—φίλος. This word is used twice in verse 15. John closes this brief letter with these words: “The friends here send their greetings. Greet the friends there by name.”
Isn’t it interesting how the words ἀλήθεια and ἀγαπη, truth and love, are used together throughout the Letters of John? John seems to suggest that truth and love should always be found together. Paul suggests the same thing. Paul writes to the Church at Ephesus, the same church that John may later have been serving. In Ephesians 4 Paul writes…
Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.
Speaking the truth in love—that’s what Christians are called to do. God doesn’t want us to speak the truth without love. And God doesn’t want us to love without speaking the truth. In fact, it is questionable whether you can really have truth without love or love without truth.
It has been said that before we speak a word to someone else we should ask four questions of ourselves:
- Is it true?
- Is it kind?
- Is it necessary?
- Is it helpful?
That is good advice!
You have probably known, as I have known, churches that try, consciously or unconsciously, to emphasize truth more than love and vice versa. There are churches that major on truth (doctrine) and then there are churches that seem to focus on love without much attention to truth. There are individual Christians who seem to lean into one extreme or the other. It seems like we are always bumping up against the guardrails of the Christian life. We tend to veer to extremes, rather than driving down the middle of the road. But I think what God wants is for us to be truth AND love Christians.
It is interesting to track the history of this church in Ephesus. This church had an amazing succession of teachers: Paul, Apollos, Timothy, John. And yet, you know what? There is no church in Ephesus today. Ephesus itself is in ruins. What went wrong?
Well, for one thing, there was a geographical change. The harbor at Ephesus silted up over time, so that Ephesus was no longer a viable port city on the western coast of Turkey.
But what happened to the church? John gives us a hint in the book of Revelation. Ephesus was the first of seven churches that Jesus sent a message to in Asia Minor, and this is what he said…
“To the messenger of the church in Ephesus write:
These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands. I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not and have found them false. You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name and have not grown weary.
Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place. But you have this in your favor: You hate the practices of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.
Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.
Ephesus was a church that held on to truth, but they let go of love, they forsook their first love: Jesus. They were no longer passionate about Jesus. And when they lost their passion for Jesus their doctrine became empty, and they gave up love for their fellow human beings. If the church of Jesus Christ is going to persevere and thrive, not just survive, then we must hold on to both truth and love. That was the message that Paul spoke to the Ephesians, and it was the message John was still speaking to the Church at Ephesus and to leaders like Gaius, many years later. It is a message that is still just as relevant for us today.
Let’s look a little bit more deeply for a moment at how truth and love operated in the life of one person—Gaius. Who was this Gaius to whom John wrote this letter? William Barclay explains that one Gaius in the New Testament was a Macedonian who, along with Aristarchus, was with Paul at the riot in Ephesus (Acts 19:29). According to tradition, the Gaius to whom John addressed this letter was made the Bishop of Pergamum by John himself. So, the Gaius to whom this letter was addressed may have become the leader of one of the seven churches mentioned in the book of Revelation.
Gaius must have been a spiritually healthy person. John prays for Gaius that he may enjoy good health and that all may go well with him, even as his soul is getting along well. I wonder, would you want someone to pray for you like that? Would you want someone to pray that your body would be as healthy as your soul? I see a lot of people in our culture today paying a lot of attention to the health of their physical bodies. I am not so sure that people in our culture pay equal attention to their soul health.
John calls Gaius the ἀγαπητῷ, the beloved. In the three letters of John, the author uses this word no less than ten times.
John says that he loves Gaius in truth. This letter could hardly be more personal. And the love that is expressed here is the same love we ought to have for one another in the church.
Furthermore, John says that he has heard from other believers of Gaius’ faithfulness to the truth. It would be difficult to think of a higher compliment given to a Christian than this: that they are faithful to the truth. I think that in relationships God cares more about love and faithfulness than he does about anything else. Faithfulness to a spouse, faithfulness to one’s children, faithfulness to one’s church—all of these are important. But I believe what should come first in our lives is faithfulness to the truth. As Christians we believe that truth is embodied in a person, Jesus Christ. Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
Thomas à Kempis once wrote:
Without the Way, there is no going,
Without the Truth, there is no knowing,
Without the Life, there is no living.
It is interesting to me that 3 John is the one book of the New Testament that does not mention the name of Jesus. But even though John doesn’t mention the name of Jesus, he is talking about Jesus all the time. John calls Jesus “the truth”.
Furthermore, John says, “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.” Gaius was not John’s physical son, but he was, obviously, his spiritual son. This may mean that John had led Gaius to personal faith in Jesus Christ. And John was thrilled to hear the report from others that this spiritual son was walking in the truth.
Several years ago, I heard from someone whom I had taught in Sunday School at La Jolla Presbyterian Church back in the early 1980s. Brandt found me through Facebook and at the time he found me I was about to make a trip to the West Coast. So, Brandt and I got together for dinner. I met Brandt’s wife and children. I later gave a talk on C. S. Lewis at Brandt’s son’s school. But when we met for dinner, Brandt reminded me of something I had forgotten. He told me of the time when I was his summer camp counselor at Indian Village in the San Bernardino Mountains of Southern California. Brandt remembered the night I gave each of the campers in our teepee an opportunity to receive Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. Brandt prayed to receive Jesus into his life that night and he never forgot that commitment. He thanked me for leading him to faith in Jesus. And there we were, having dinner together thirty years later, and Brandt, like Gaius, was still walking in the truth. I agree with John, there is no greater joy than to hear that your children are walking in the truth.
The truth that is found in Jesus Christ is not simply something we believe intellectually. It is something we must give our whole selves to. We must entrust our lives to Jesus, put our lives in his hands. We must immerse ourselves in the truth, bathe in it, walk in it, live in it.
What evidence was there that Gaius was walking in the truth? James says that faith without works is dead. Indeed, true faith in Jesus Christ will always show itself in action. What was the evidence that Gaius was walking in the truth?
John tells us that Gaius was faithful in what he was doing for the brothers and sisters even though they were strangers to him. What is John talking about?
Well, in those days, when Christian missionaries travelled from place to place, they needed places to stay, just as missionaries do to this day. But in the first century, inns were notorious as unsafe places. So, when a Christian missionary would travel from his or her hometown to another place, they were dependent on other Christians opening their homes in hospitality. In fact, Christianity never would have grown to become the worldwide faith that it is today without Christians opening their homes to missionaries, and Christians opening their homes for worship, because of course, the early church did not even have church buildings as we do today. They had to worship in homes.
So, apparently, Gaius had opened his home for various missionaries to stay with him while they were carrying out their ministries. That is one way that Gaius’ faith, his walking in the truth, was demonstrated in action.
I wonder, how might we demonstrate our faith in action, even this week? How might we show to a watching world that we are walking in truth and love? Opening our homes and our hearts in hospitality is one way we can show God’s love to a watching world.
Gaius was a first century Christian who walked in truth and love; he opened his heart, his mind, and his home to others. May we as twenty-first century Christians do the same.
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