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Introduction
The author is John the apostle.
Like John’s other writings, this letter appears to have been written relatively late in his life. This would be sometime from the 60’s to the 90’s AD.
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3 John 1
3 Jn 1:1 – As in 2 John, John identifies himself in this letter only as “the elder.” So, they obviously knew the letter was from him without his writing his having to write his name in it. ***** Unlike 2 John, 3 John contains three personal names, the first being the letter’s recipient. Although there is a “Gaius” mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 19:29; 20:4) and in two of Paul’s letters (Rom 16:23; 1 Cor 1:14), Gaius was a very common Roman name (like “John Smith” to us) and I know of no way to determine if this is the same Gaius. The good news is that we don’t really need to know if it is the same person to understand the letter. ***** Although John has addressed the letter to Gaius, it seems the same sort of public communication as we see in John’s other letters so we can presume it was written to be read in the church to which Gaius belonged and which he apparently led. That said, the letter’s truths are relevant to us whether it was intended for public or private consumption. The same is the case with Luke addressing his Gospel and Acts to Theophilus (Lk 1:3; Acts 1:1).
3 Jn 1:2 – Note John’s priorities: prosperity of the soul comes before financial prosperity and health. Note also that John wants to see all three in those he loves. This point of view comes from Jesus.
Matt 11:28 “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.
Matt 11:29 “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS.
Matt 11:30 “For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
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Mark 8:36 “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul?
Mark 8:37 “For what will a man give in exchange for his soul?
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Matt 6:33 “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
3 Jn 1:3-4 – And you will have no greater joy than learning that your children are walking in the truth.
3 Jn 1:5-6 – Regard for strangers is a value promoted from one end of the Bible to the other.
Ex 23:9 “You shall not oppress a stranger, since you yourselves know the feelings of a stranger, for you also were strangers in the land of Egypt.
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Matt 25:44 “Then they themselves also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?’
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Heb 13:2 Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it.
3 Jn 1:7a – We see in this verse that the two previous verses were not just extolling hospitality to strangers in general, but specifically to preachers and teachers of the gospel who were coming through Gaius’ church. And what is this Name of which John speaks?
Acts 4:11 “He is the STONE WHICH WAS REJECTED by you, THE BUILDERS, but WHICH BECAME THE CHIEF CORNER stone.
Acts 4:12 “And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.”
John was standing with Peter the day Peter said this. Paul speaks similarly:
Phil 2:9 For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name,
Phil 2:10 so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
Phil 2:11 and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
And John himself wrote this:
1 John 5:11 And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.
1 John 5:12 He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life.
1 John 5:13 These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.
Finally, notice that Jesus Himself said that it was not the Father’s name that mattered, but rather it was the name that the Father gave the Son that mattered.
John 17:11 “I am no longer in the world; and yet they themselves are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep them in Your name, the name which You have given Me, that they may be one even as We are.
Therefore, let there be no doubt about whose name John is referring to when he says “the Name.”
3 Jn 1:7b – John is writing this letter in the final days before the coming of the Lord (the Second Coming). The apostles are dying off – Peter and Paul having already departed in the mid-60’s AD. The church began as an entirely Jewish movement, but once the door of faith was opened to the Gentiles in Acts 10 by Peter’s preaching, it was only a matter of time before Gentile believers would vastly outnumber Jewish ones. It was in this phase of things that the institutional church lost its way because Gentiles did not have the cultural heritage of having had access to the word of God going back to the time of Moses for the written word (15th century BC) to the time of Abraham and Noah for preservation of the spoken word. Jewish minds therefore had an enormous advantage over Gentile minds in the same way that an older man much wiser than his younger self.
Rom 3:1 Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the benefit of circumcision?
Rom 3:2 Great in every respect. First of all, that they were entrusted with the oracles of God.
Jews – the greatest generation of all – carried the leadership of the church as far as it could. In the end, Gentiles carried it forward, but they did so prioritizing self-preservation of the church over the life of Jesus Himself. Yet this, too, was incorporated in God’s plan, for just as He used Jewish rejection of the Messiah to bring about the resurrection, so He used Gentile focus on self-preservation of the church to preserve the writings that document that resurrection: what came to be called “The New Testament.”
As the Second Coming came and went, unbelieving Jews coalesced around the Old Testament while believing Jews and Gentiles coalesced around the New Testament (though they denied the coming of the kingdom of God). Thus to this day, Jews are known for not believing that their Messiah has come and Christians are known for not believing He has come again.
Yet Jesus Christ has already come again, and this is thoroughly documented in the book The Biblical Case for the Second Coming as Accomplished Fact.
3 Jn 1:8 – When you support a true preacher of the New Testament – which is to say a true preacher of the Bible – you become a co-worker with him.
3 Jn 1:9-10 – Diotrephes is a “man of lawlessness” for sure (2 Th 2:3). What gall to not accept the words of an aged and proven apostle! Especially if you’re a Gentile (for Diotrephes is a Gentile name) and the one whose words you’re rejecting is a Jew who walked with Jesus Himself. The hubris is almost beyond comprehension. Yet it shows the sad state of the church in last days before the Lord came that a church leader could behave this way and hold his post. This dramatic deterioration in church vitality at that time is more thoroughly documented in the book of Revelation (Rev 2-3) that John himself wrote. Of course, it was prophesied by Jesus that things would play out this way.
Matt 24:9 “Then they will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations because of My name.
Matt 24:10 “At that time many will fall away and will betray one another and hate one another.
Matt 24:11 “Many false prophets will arise and will mislead many.
Matt 24:12 “Because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold.
Matt 24:13 “But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved.
Matt 24:14 “This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.
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Matt 7:13 “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it.
Matt 7:14 “For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.
Few are those who received the kingdom when it came, and the overwhelming majority of churchgoers who did not receive it would have no reason to preserve the testimony of those who did. Over the two thousand years since, many church members have done good things for the Lord and His kingdom, but those good things came from their love for the Lord, not church membership. Ancient Israel was the caterpillar, the New Testament church was the pupa in the cocoon, and the kingdom of God was the butterfly.
3 Jn 1:11 – This is John being John. (If you’re familiar with his writings, you know what I mean.)
3 Jn 1:12 – Demetrius and Gaius are proof that Gentile church leaders were not all like Diotrephes. Most meant well. Just as most mean well today. I meant well, too, when I was a pastor of a church. Like the tabernacle and the temple, it’s a vehicle God once used but needs no longer.
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