Theopedia

Third Epistle of John

“I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.”

— 3 John 4

Overview

Third John is the shortest book in the New Testament, a personal letter of only fifteen verses from “the elder” to a believer named Gaius.1 It belongs among the Catholic, or general, epistles alongside 1 and 2 John, though unlike most of that group it addresses a single named individual rather than a church, closer in form to a private letter of commendation than to a doctrinal treatise.

Author and Date

Early testimony to 2 and 3 John’s apostolic authorship, from Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Dionysius of Alexandria, and Jerome, is on the whole satisfactory, even though Origen and Eusebius had counted both short epistles among the church’s disputed writings.1 The author identifies himself only as “the elder” (3 John 1), a self-designation Barrows judges consistent with the same John’s habit, in the Gospel and First Epistle bearing his name, of not naming himself directly (compare 1 Pet. 5:1).1 Tradition holds this elder to be the apostle John, writing in old age from Ephesus. No data fixes the epistle’s date precisely; it is traditionally placed in the late first century, alongside 1 and 2 John.1

Historical and Literary Context

Third John is a personal letter, not a circular addressed to a congregation. The elder writes to commend Gaius for his hospitality toward a group of traveling missionaries, strangers to the region, who had gone out for the sake of Christ’s name accepting nothing from unbelievers (3 John 5-7). The elder had already commended these same brothers to Gaius’s own church in an earlier letter, but Diotrephes, a leader within it, hindered their reception and drove out members willing to receive them.1 The letter’s third named figure, Demetrius, receives a good testimony from everyone, including from the truth itself, standing in implicit contrast to Diotrephes (3 John 12).

Structure

  • Greeting and prayer for Gaius (1-4)
  • Commendation of Gaius’s hospitality to the missionaries (5-8)
  • Rebuke of Diotrephes’s refusal to receive them (9-10)
  • Commendation of Demetrius (11-12)
  • Closing and greetings (13-15)

Major Themes

Hospitality to gospel workers is a mark of walking in the truth. Gaius supported missionaries who “for the sake of the name” accepted nothing from outsiders, so that, in the elder’s own words, believers “ought to support people like these, that we may be fellow workers for the truth” (3 John 7-8). Strauch cites this same commendation among the New Testament’s calls to hospitality toward traveling gospel workers.2

Diotrephes’s self-seeking pride led him to abuse his position in the church. Diotrephes, “who likes to put himself first,” refused to acknowledge the elder’s authority, spoke against him with “wicked nonsense,” turned away the missionary brothers, and expelled from the church anyone who tried to welcome them (3 John 9-10). Strauch treats Diotrephes as the paradigm case of “the autocratic church leader, the strong man, the narcissistic pastor who builds the church around himself,” tying his fault to a Greek term for a self-willed, arrogant spirit that gratifies itself without regard for others.3

Demetrius’s good testimony stands as a model of faithful Christian character. The elder commends Demetrius as receiving “a good testimony from everyone, and from the truth itself” (3 John 12), setting him alongside Gaius as an example of the same “walking in the truth” the elder rejoices to see in his spiritual children (3 John 4).4

Canonicity

Third John’s brevity and its address to a single individual rather than a church left it, together with 2 John, among the New Testament writings Origen and Eusebius classed as disputed in the early centuries of the church, even while external testimony to its apostolic origin remained substantial.1 The question was resolved in the epistle’s favor well before the confessional era: the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession’s own list of the canonical books of the New Testament includes John’s epistles among those received by the churches as given by inspiration of God.5

Related Doctrines

References

  1. Elijah Porter Barrows, Companion to the Bible (New York: American Tract Society, 1867), 499-501. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6

  2. Alexander Strauch, Biblical Eldership: Restoring the Eldership to Its Rightful Place in the Local Church, 4th ed. (Littleton, CO: Lewis and Roth Publishers, 2017), chap. 13, “1 Timothy 3:2-3-Sober-Minded… Not a Lover of Money,” 141-150: “John praises the believers who provide hospitality to traveling missionaries (3 John 5-8).” ↩

  3. Strauch, chap. 22, “Titus 1:7-8-The Biblical Qualifications for God’s Steward,” 225-232: “Diotrephes is the paradigmatic, autocratic church leader, the strong man, the narcissistic pastor who builds the church around himself and often for himself.” ↩

  4. Strauch, chap. 27, “Hebrews 13:17-They Keep Watch Over Your Souls,” 275-284. ↩

  5. The Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (1677/1689), chap. 1, “Of the Holy Scriptures,” para. 2. ↩