Chunks: The Letters of John

In this final episode on John’s letters, we explore a theme that seems to unite all three letters: truth. John has insisted that some things about Jesus are true, and to deny these truths is to deny the gospel. More than this, however, he has insisted on the importance of “walking in the truth,” living in a way that befits that gospel. Can we do that, when we live in a world where “truth” so often...

Third John, as we’ve seen, is the shortest book in the Bible, and there is only so much that can be said in so few words. As he did at the end of 2 John, the apostle says that he hopes to have a face-to-face conversation to finish talking things out. He also gives final greetings, in a way that may remind us of the letters of Paul. But as we’ll see, John’s wording is a little different, suggesting...

Third John was written to encourage Gaius to keep giving hospitable support to the work of the gospel. It also serves as a letter of reference for Demetrius, the man whom John is sending to Gaius for hospitality. But who was Demetrius? In this episode, we’ll look at one interesting possibility, and explore the triple testimony John gives to his character.

As we’ve seen throughout John’s letters, the apostle often has some very direct and harsh things to say. If we’ve been taught to only say nice things, his words may make us uncomfortable; is the “apostle of love” supposed to say stuff like that? It’s good and right for us to be careful and kind with our words. But as we’ll explore in this episode, we also need to remember that love is not the same...

In 3 John 11, the apostle urges Gaius to “imitate” what is good, not what is evil—which may be his way of saying, “Don’t act like Diotrephes.” In this episode, we explore how important it is for leaders of all kinds—including parents!—to be good models to others.

Good leaders inspire the respect and loyalty of others; bad leaders inspire fear instead. Though we know very little about Diotrephes, the way John describes him suggests that he was a poor leader who ruled through intimidation. We can give him the benefit of the doubt by allowing that he may simply not have known better—but he still makes a good case study in how not to use power as a Christian l...

Like myself, many people seem to enjoy a good superhero movie. Indeed, we may resonate with any kind of heroic story in which the protagonist finds the strength to overcome his or her challenges. But we should be wary of reading biblical stories in heroic terms, because we’re not meant to engage in ministry or mission alone—we need the faithful support of people like Gaius.

We may be used to treating personal names like labels, but they’re much more than that. God revealed his name to Moses at the burning bush, and over time, that name was taken as too holy to say aloud. As Christians, we’ve been taught to pray in the name of Jesus, as Jesus himself taught his disciples to do. But do we have a sense of what we’re doing when we say “in Jesus’ name”? That’s important t...

These days, hospitality is a profit-making industry, in which we pay good money for the right hotel or dining “experience.” But in John’s day, hospitality was a much needed virtue in the fledgling church. Traveling missionaries depended on other believers for their food and lodging. Gaius was known for his hospitality, and John was sending a man named Demetrius to him. How would Gaius respond, and...

Third John follows the ancient customs of letter writing more closely than 2 John, and much more closely than 1 John. Such customs included not only naming the recipient of your letter but wishing them well. John’s well-wishes in verse 2, however, have been famously taken out of context and made to say something they weren’t meant to say—to support what’s known as the prosperity gospel .

Second John was addressed, a bit mysterious, “to the lady chosen by God and to her children.” Third John, by contrast, is addressed concretely to a man named Gaius whom he also loves “in the truth.” But who was Gaius? The name appears several times in the New Testament. Is John writing to one of the Gaiuses mentioned elsewhere, or to someone else?

Unlike 2 John, 3 John is addressed directly to an individual, a dear friend of John’s named Gaius. It’s the shortest book of the Bible, but also one of the most personal; reading it feels a bit like reading someone else’s mail. In this episode, we begin our study of 3 John by sketching the situational background that helps us make sense of the letter.

There’s only so much that can be said in as short a letter as 2 John; at the end of the letter, the apostle expresses the desire to meet and talk with his readers in person instead. He suggests that to do so would bring him joy. But this is not necessarily the joy of being reunited with long-lost friends. Rather, it’s the joy of meeting people who are your brothers and sisters in Christ, even if t...

In the previous episode, I introduced the distinction between bounded and centered sets as they might apply to congregations. The ideas complement each other. Though there may be times in which we need to draw hard boundaries, this is secondary to our commitment to embodying our shared core convictions. Without a balance between the two, we may fall too easily into the human tendency to make in-gr...

In this episode, we come to one of the harshest statements in the letter, in which John advises his readers to not even let the secessionists into their homes. By this, he probably means to not let them participate in their house churches, so as not to give them a platform for their false ideas about Jesus. But can we draw such hard lines in a way that still embodies a gospel of love? We’ll begin...

Innovation is important. Many of the technologies we take for granted and use constantly are the result of someone thinking outside the box. But not every innovation is progress, especially in the world of ideas and doctrine. Thinking about the beliefs and teaching of the secessionists, John warns that they have gone too far, running ahead and leaving behind the true gospel, and with it, their rel...

When someone shouts “Watch out!” we’re immediately on the alert. Some danger is near, and we need to take immediate action. With the secessionists on the loose spreading false ideas about Jesus, John writes the letter we know as 2 John to tell others to watch out for them and their teaching. But as I’ll suggest in this episode, it might be better to translate his warning as “Watch yourselves ,” be...

What does it mean to be a "Christian"? Is it about believing the right things? As we’ve seen already, it’s important to know and believe the truth about Jesus. But authentic faith is more than a matter of right belief; it’s a matter of living in a way that embodies that belief. John’s metaphor for this is “walking.” As he says in 2 John 4-6, walking in the truth of the gospel means walking in obed...

John’s community had gone through much pain and confusion, and he wanted to spare other communities the same heartache. That’s the purpose of 2 John, and some of what he says there seems harsh. How do you tell people something they may not want to hear? Start by saying something nice; ancient letters often began by establishing some goodwill between the sender and the recipient. But in trying to e...

“True love” is one of our favorite cultural tropes; it’s shorthand for our romantic hopes. But when John addresses the “chosen lady” at the beginning of 2 John, and does so with love, we need a different interpretive context. Against the background of what we’ve already seen in 1 John, it’s clear that when John says he loves the chosen lady “in the truth,” he means the kind of love that befits and...

Second John is a much shorter letter than 1 John, but the connections between the two letters are easy to see, even on a quick reading. Unlike 1 John, however, 2 John reads much more like a conventional letter, identifying not only the person writing the letter, but to whom the letter is addressed. But both of these are a little mysterious. Who is the “chosen lady” to whom John writes?

As we begin our study of 2 John, I want to take one episode to sketch the background to the letter. As we’ve seen, 1 John was written to the people who remained in his community after the secessionists left. Second John, by contrast, is written to one or more other communities. But some of the issues are the same, because the letter deals with the aftermath of the split. Those who left his communi...

Here is 1 John 5:21, the last sentence of the letter: “Dear children, keep yourselves from idols.” On a casual reading, it seems to come out of nowhere, as if John had one more thing to say but forgot to include it earlier. But as I’ll suggest in this episode, it’s possible to read that verse as John dropping the mic, ending the letter with a pithy and completely appropriate punchline to the rest...

As we’ve seen, the theological core of the conflict between the secessionists and the rest of John’s community was the truth about the identity of Jesus. As he begins to wrap up the letter, John emphasizes not only what we know, but whom. We must know the truth about Jesus, but we must also know that Jesus is himself the Truth: “the true God and eternal life” (1 John 5:20).

In a well-known phrase from Romans 6:23, the apostle Paul writes that “the wages of sin is death.” But as we’ve seen, John writes that “there is a sin that does not lead to death” (1 John 5:17). Is this a contradiction? It sounds like it if the verses are read by themselves. But as I’ll suggest in this episode, the contradiction disappears if we read the verses in their proper context.