3 John

Commends faithfulness and hospitality within the church.

Third Letter of John

WHEN CHURCH LEADERS ABUSE POWER

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The Gospels show you who Jesus is. Acts shows you what His Spirit started doing. Romans shows you how a person is made right with God. 1 Corinthians shows you how to live together as the church. 2 Corinthians shows you how to keep walking when it gets hard. Galatians shows you that you are free. Ephesians shows you who you are now. Philippians shows you how joy can be real even when life is not. Colossians shows you that Jesus is enough. 1 and 2 Thessalonians show you how to live with hope between Jesus' first coming and His return. 1 and 2 Timothy show you how the church is meant to live and how to finish well. Titus shows you what happens to people when the gospel is actually doing its work in them. Philemon shows you what the gospel looks like when it walks into one specific, costly relationship. Hebrews shows you that Jesus is better than everything you might be tempted to go back to. James shows you what living faith actually looks like in practice. 1 John shows you how to know that your faith is real. 2 John shows you how to hold love and truth together in one hand without dropping either.

3 John shows you what faithful Christian character actually looks like in the unglamorous, everyday reality of church life, and what to do when the people who should be leading well are doing the opposite.

It is the smallest book in the New Testament. Fourteen verses. Just over two hundred Greek words. It is also the most personal letter John ever wrote, addressed not to a church but to one man, a friend of his named Gaius. There are three real people in this letter. Gaius, who is doing it beautifully. A man called Diotrephes, who has taken over a local church and is doing it badly. And Demetrius, who is mentioned briefly as someone everyone speaks well of.

If you have ever joined a church and quietly noticed that not everyone in leadership behaves like Jesus, this letter was written for you. John knew exactly what that felt like. He wrote you a short letter for it.

This little letter speaks directly into a question many believers quietly carry. What does faithful Christian character actually look like in the everyday, institutional reality of church life, and what do I do when the people who should be setting the example are doing the opposite?

John's answer takes one short letter. He shows you what faithful character looks like by showing you Gaius. He shows you what unfaithful leadership looks like by naming Diotrephes plainly. And he gives one short line at the centre of the letter that you will carry with you for the rest of your life. Beloved, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good. The one who does good is of God; the one who does evil has not seen God.

This guide will not replace your Bible. It is here to walk alongside you while you read it. Open 3 John soon. It is so short you can read it in three minutes. Let what is said here send you back to the source.

Who Wrote It

The same John who wrote the Gospel of John, 1 John, 2 John, and the book of Revelation. The last of the original twelve disciples still alive when this letter was written, probably in the late AD 80s or early 90s. He was an old man by then, almost certainly based in Ephesus, watching over the churches in the surrounding region.

Like 2 John, he calls himself only the elder. He does not need to give his name. The believers in the region knew exactly who he was. He was the last living eyewitness of Jesus. When John wrote, the churches paid attention.

2 John and 3 John were probably written close together. They are the same length. They use the same opening. They share much of the same vocabulary. But where 2 John is about a doctrinal problem, false teachers turning up at the door, 3 John is about a relational and structural problem, a leader inside a church behaving badly. The two letters together give you a quiet picture of what John spent the last years of his life dealing with. Wrong teaching from outside. Wrong leadership from inside. He wrote both with the same calm voice.

Who He Was Writing To

Gaius. A real man, in a real church, who had become a real friend of John's. We do not know exactly which Gaius this was, because the name was common in the first century. But this Gaius was clearly someone John loved deeply. He calls him beloved four times in fourteen verses. He calls him a fellow worker for the truth (3 John 1:8). He has heard from travelling brothers about how Gaius had welcomed them, fed them, supported them on their way, even though he had never met them before.

That detail tells you everything you need to know about Gaius. In a culture where hospitality cost real money and real food and real space in your home, Gaius opened his door to strangers because they were brothers in Christ. He did it well. He did it consistently. He did it without expecting anything in return. He was the kind of believer the early church was built on.

Then John tells him something is going wrong elsewhere. A man named Diotrephes, who loves to be first in the church, is refusing to receive the travelling brothers, and worse, putting people out of the church who try to welcome them. Diotrephes is using his position to gatekeep who gets in and who gets shut out, based not on truth but on his own preferences and his own grip on power.

John writes to Gaius for two reasons. To encourage him to keep doing what he is doing. And to let him know that when John arrives, he will deal with Diotrephes directly.

The Tone of the Letter

3 John is warm and honest. It reads like a letter you would write to a close friend. John starts with an affectionate prayer for Gaius. He celebrates the joy of hearing that his friend is walking in the truth. He tells him plainly what he has heard, both the good news about the travelling brothers and the harder news about Diotrephes. There is nothing political in the writing. Nothing strategic. Nothing performed for an audience. Just an old apostle writing honestly to a friend about real people in a real church.

When John mentions Diotrephes, he does not soften the description, but he does not exaggerate it either. He names what is happening. He says he will address it when he comes. He does not stir Gaius up. He does not turn the letter into a campaign. He simply tells the truth and trusts Gaius to keep doing what is right in the meantime.

That is one of the quiet lessons of the letter. You can tell the truth about a difficult situation without becoming bitter, defensive, or dramatic about it. John has spent decades watching Jesus do exactly that.

Who Jesus Is in This Letter

3 John does not contain the soaring statements about Jesus that you find in 1 and 2 John. There was not room in fourteen personal verses. But Jesus is present everywhere in the letter, quietly, in the way faithful people are shaped by Him.

John writes the whole letter for the sake of His name (3 John 1:7). The travelling brothers had gone out for the sake of the Name. Gaius had welcomed them for the sake of the Name. The Name being spoken of is Jesus. The whole project of hospitality, mission, and faithful character in this letter is happening because of Him. He is the centre even when He is not the topic of every sentence.

And then there is one quiet line at the heart of the letter that tells you what Jesus has done to the believer.

Beloved, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good. The one who does good is of God; the one who does evil has not seen God.

3 John 1:11

Sit with this. The one who does good is of God. The one who does evil has not seen God. To see God, in the way John means it, is to be changed by Him. The one who has truly encountered Him begins to change, because Jesus is good and the seeing changes the seer. He is not just an experience. He is a transforming presence.

If you have encountered Jesus and have noticed that good things are slowly beginning to grow in you that were not there before, John says that is the evidence. You have seen Him. The life is real.

Two Portraits of Christian Character

The heart of 3 John is the contrast between Gaius and Diotrephes. John does not give you abstract principles about Christian character. He gives you two real men, and shows you what each one is actually like.

Gaius: Faithful in the Ordinary

Gaius is described doing nothing dramatic. He prays. He walks in the truth. He welcomes travelling brothers. He feeds them. He sends them on their way. He does this consistently, with strangers, for the sake of the Name. He is not famous. He is not a leader. He is not at the centre of anything. He is a believer in a church doing the quiet, costly, daily things that the Christian life is actually made of.

John celebrates this in 3 John 1:4. I have no greater joy than this, to hear of my children walking in the truth. The word for walking is peripateō, the same word John used in 2 John. The daily walk. The ordinary steps. The unglamorous obedience that adds up to a faithful life. That is what brings John joy. Not platforms. Not influence. Not visible success. The fact that his friends are quietly walking in the truth, day after day.

If you have ever wondered whether the small, unseen things you are doing as a believer matter, hear what John says about Gaius. The unseen faithfulness is the real thing. The Father sees it. John sees it from a distance. And it brings him more joy than anything else.

Diotrephes: The Warning

Then John names the problem. Diotrephes, who loves to be first among them, does not accept what we say. The Greek word for loves to be first is philoprōteuōn. It is used only once in the entire New Testament, right here, aimed at this one man. It means loving the first place, craving prominence, needing to be ahead of everyone else. John picks the word carefully. He is not describing a man with strong opinions or strong gifts. He is describing a man whose deepest motivation in church life is being on top.

And John lists what that produced. Diotrephes was not accepting John's words. He was unjustly accusing John with wicked words. He was refusing to welcome the travelling brothers. He was putting believers who wanted to welcome them out of the church. Four behaviours in a row, all coming from the same root. A leader who loved being first more than he loved Jesus, and the church around him was suffering for it.

If you have ever encountered a Christian leader who behaves like this, hear John carefully. He does not pretend it is fine. He does not tell Gaius to ignore it. He does not also tell Gaius to launch a campaign against Diotrephes. He says, when I come, I will call attention to the deeds he is doing (3 John 1:10). The matter belongs to the apostolic authority. Gaius's job is to keep doing what is right and to keep walking in the truth. John's job is to deal with the leader when the time comes.

This is important for you now. Not every wrong in the church is yours to fix. Some are. Some are not. Some belong to people further up the road who carry the responsibility to address them. Your job, like Gaius, is to keep being faithful in the place you are. Pray. Walk in the truth. Welcome people. Do not imitate what is evil. Imitate what is good. The Lord will deal with what He needs to deal with in His time and through His people.

Notice also what John does not tell Gaius. He does not tell him to leave the church because one man is behaving badly. He tells him to keep walking in the truth. If you have been hurt by a leader or burned by a community, that pain is real, and John would not pretend otherwise. But the answer is not to disconnect from the people of God altogether. The answer is to keep walking close to Jesus, in honest fellowship with the believers who are doing it well.

Imitate: The Word That Sits at the Centre

The hinge of the whole letter is 3 John 1:11. Beloved, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good. The Greek word for imitate is mimou. It is the root of the English word mimic. It means to copy, to pattern yourself after, to take as your model.

John is telling Gaius something simple. You will become like the people you copy. If you watch Diotrephes and quietly start copying him, you will become like him. If you watch the good ones and copy them, you will become like them. Whoever you imitate is who you will slowly turn into.

This matters for you now more than maybe any generation before. Your screens are full of voices and lives offering themselves to be imitated. Some of them quietly carry the spirit of Diotrephes. They love to be first. They crave a platform. They are loud and sharp and performing for the camera, gathering followers to themselves. Other voices, often quieter, are doing what Gaius did. Walking in the truth. Loving people. Welcoming strangers. Working for the sake of the Name. John says, choose carefully who you imitate. You will become like them.

Imitate the good. The one who does good is of God. Where you see goodness, faithfulness, kindness, honesty, and quiet love for Jesus in another believer, watch them. Learn from them. Pattern yourself after them. That is how Christian character forms. Not by trying to invent it from scratch. By copying the people who are already doing it well.

A Word About Verse 2

There is one verse in 3 John that has been misused for decades. The letter opens with John praying for Gaius.

Beloved, I pray that in all respects you may prosper and be in good health, just as your soul prospers.

3 John 1:2

Some teachers have taken this verse and built whole systems around it, claiming that financial wealth and physical health are God's promise to every believer. That is not what John is doing here. He is writing a personal greeting to a friend, expressing a wish for his wellbeing. The kind of thing people still write at the start of a letter today. I hope you are well.

Notice the order. John prays that Gaius would prosper just as his soul prospers. The soul comes first. The state of Gaius's inner life with God is the standard. John is wishing him that his outward circumstances would catch up with the health of his soul, not the other way round.

In the Old Testament, prosperity is consistently tied not to wealth but to walking with God. Joshua was told that if he meditated on the word of God day and night, he would make his way prosperous and have success (Joshua 1:8). Psalm 1 says the person who delights in the law of the Lord is like a tree planted by streams of water, and in whatever he does, he prospers. The biblical picture of prosperity is the soul rooted in God, bearing the fruit He produces. 3 John 1:2 fits that picture. It is a prayer about the soul first. Not a promise about wealth.

A Few Threads from the Old Testament

3 John does not quote the Old Testament, but the practice of welcoming strangers for God's sake runs deep in the Hebrew Scriptures. Abraham welcomed three strangers under the oaks of Mamre, and it turned out to be the Lord (Genesis 18). The law commanded Israel to love the stranger because they had once been strangers themselves (Leviticus 19:34). Hospitality was never a small thing. It was one of the marks of a people who knew their God.

Hebrews 13:2 picks up the same thread for believers. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it. That is Abraham's story echoing forward. Gaius was living in the same long tradition. The kindness shown to a stranger for the sake of God's name has been part of how God works in the world from the beginning.

How to Read 3 John

It is one chapter. Fourteen verses. You can read it in three minutes.

If you are not sure where to begin, here is something gentle to try. Read it through once, slowly, and notice the three names. Gaius. Diotrephes. Demetrius. Each one is a real person doing real things. Then read it again, asking which of the three you would most want to be like, and which patterns you can see in your own life already.

Read 3 John alongside 2 John. They are companion letters. 2 John deals with what to do when wrong teaching comes to the door from outside the church. 3 John deals with what to do when wrong leadership grows up inside the church. Together they give you a quiet, balanced picture of how the early Christians thought about both.

What 3 John Means for Your Life Now

If you have ever felt that the small, ordinary things you are doing as a believer do not matter, return to Gaius. John wrote a letter for him. The Holy Spirit kept that letter in your Bible for two thousand years. The unseen faithfulness is the real thing. The Father sees it. He does not miss any of it. The Kingdom of God grows mostly through unnoticed faithfulness.

If you have encountered a Christian leader who behaves badly, return to John's example. Tell the truth. Do not pretend it is fine. But do not become consumed by it either. Some wrongs belong to people further up the road to address. Your job is to keep walking in the truth, keep welcoming people, keep being faithful where you are. The Lord will deal with what He needs to deal with.

And hear this carefully. Diotrephes was real. John did not pretend otherwise. Bad leadership in a church does not mean Jesus is bad. It means churches still need people who actually follow Him. If a Diotrephes has hurt you, the answer is not to walk away from Jesus. The answer is to walk closer to Him, and to find the Gaius types He has placed in the body of Christ around you.

If you find yourself drawn to platforms, prominence, or being first, hear what John says about Diotrephes. He loved to be first. That love is what ruined him. The Jesus you encountered did not come to be first. He came to wash feet, to serve, to lay His life down. The character He is forming in you is the opposite of the character that ruined Diotrephes. Stay close to the Jesus who did not push to the front.

If you are wondering who to learn from in this faith, return to 3 John 1:11. Imitate the good. Find the believers around you who are quietly walking in the truth, loving people, welcoming strangers, working for the sake of the Name. Copy them. You will become like the people you copy. Choose carefully.

And if you wonder whether the Jesus you encountered is really at work in your daily life, look for the small, ordinary things. The willingness to welcome someone you do not know. The honesty in a hard conversation. The quiet prayer for someone who is unwell. The patience with the people in your church who annoy you. These are not small things. They are how Gaius lived. They are what brought John his greatest joy. Jesus is forming His character in you in the same ordinary places He formed it in Gaius. These are the marks of a believer in whom He is at work.