Teaching Tuesday: 3rd John

Series: The Last Eyewitness
Sermon: 3rd John (10.6.24)

Happy Tuesday, all.

This past Sunday’s sermon wrapped up our three week look into the Apostle John’s epistles (letters) outlining his theology of Christian love and discipleship. 

These three letters - 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John - are likely written by the same author and should be read as a group. We’ll get more out of them individually when we study them together as part of one, coherent and complimentary section of scripture. 

And when we read them together we can see a through-line that moves from one letter to the next. 

1st John was written to a group of congregations scattered throughout Asia Minor, in modern day Turkey. 

2nd John was written to “the elect lady and her children” which could either be a local church body or could actually be a woman and her kids, we’re not exactly sure. 

But 3rd John is much more specific and direct; John is writing to a particular person, his friend Gaius. 

There are actually a few Gaius’s mentioned in the New Testament. It was a fairly common name in this time period in Rome. So it can be kind of confusing when we read and this name pops up in multiple places. 

Acts 19:29 mentions a Gaius as one of the Apostle Paul’s friends or at least acquaintances. It says he was his “traveling companion.” Paul mentions other Gaius’s in Acts 20, Romans 16, and 1st Corinthians 1, but these are different guys than John’s Gaius here in 3rd John. 

We don’t know hardly anything about this Gaius. We don’t know where he’s from, what his backstory is, what he does for a living…the only thing we know is that he’s a “dear friend” or a “beloved friend" of the Apostle John (3rd John v. 1).

And we also know he was probably the leader of a house church and was a faithful adherent to the truth. This faithfulness in truth is the through-line and synchronizing theme through all three letters. 

A couple weeks ago our guest speaker Matt preached from 1st John. In 1st John the point is belief in the power of Christ Jesus to provide eternal life. We can believe and follow and pursue the truth of this claim and what it means for our lives by the power of the Spirit because John says “the Spirit is the truth” (1st John 5:6).

Last week Craig preached on 2nd John and emphasized the fact that John cares very much about the importance of walking in the truth, especially in the face of opposing philosophies and worldly temptations. John says in his second letter that it brings him joy when his brothers and sisters in Christ are following God’s commands and pursuing truth. 

And here in 3rd John the author writes to his friend Gaius and hits on this even harder:

It gave me great joy when some believers came and testified about your faithfulness to the truth, telling how you continue to walk in it. I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth (3 John v. 3-4). 

By now you guys are probably starting to catch on that I like to help us think about not just what the Bible says but what the Bible is, because understanding what the Bible is helps us understand what it says and what to do about it. 

And one of the ways we can get at what the Bible is is by asking the question: Why is this in the Bible? 

When we’re reading a book or a passage of scripture ask: why is this in here? Why did God inspire these words and why are they included in our holy scripture? 

Sometimes the answers are more obvious than others. 

For those of you who remember me talking about melodic lines through the text a few weeks ago, this is our melodic line through 3rd John and maybe even through all three Johannine (a fancy, Bible-scholar way of saying “John-written”) letters.

If the melodic line is Truth = Good and Important, then what does that look like? Why is 3rd John in the Bible? 

The answer seems to be this: because walking in the truth matters and that one of the ways we do that is by showing hospitality to others. 

We ought therefore to show hospitality to such people [strangers, especially Christians] so that we may work together for the truth (3 John v. 8). 

To “walk in the truth” is to allow the reality of the gospel to be the single most significant aspect of our lives, the fulcrum on which our lives rest. To show hospitality is to extend brotherly love to strangers and foreigners. 

So John is saying here that one important aspect of our faith is to love (show generosity and kindness) even those we don’t know in the name of Jesus. 

We probably all agree on this. But practicing this kind of love is hard. Why? Our self-centeredness and our pride. 

Loving other people takes time, effort, and requires sharing resources we don’t always want to share. Showing hospitality to others means risking someone having a negative opinion of our home, which we equate to them having a negative opinion of us. 

Both of these are obstacles to living out God’s call on our lives as Christians to mirror the love of Christ on the cross in our relationships with each other and our willingness to serve even strangers. 

Jesus said even more directly than John, in Mark’s gospel, chapter 12: 

One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”

“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

Study for this coming Sunday: Revelation

Know Him and make Him known!
- Pastor Brady