3 John 1:1-4

1:1-4 The Elder to Gaius, the beloved, whom I love in truth.

Beloved, I pray that everything is going well with you, and that you are in good health of body, as it goes well with your soul. It gave me great joy when certain brothers came and testified of the truth of your life, as indeed you do walk in the truth. No news brings me greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.

No New Testament letter better shows that the Christian letters were exactly on the model which all letter-writers used in the time of the early church. There is a papyrus letter from Irenaeus, a ship's captain, to his brother Apolinarius:

Irenaeus to Apolinarius his brother, my greetings. Continually I

pray that you may be in health, even as I myself am in health. I

wish you to know that I arrived at land on the 6th of the month

Epeiph, and I finished unloading my ship on the 18th of the same

month, and went up to Rome on the 25th of the same month, and the

place welcomed us, as God willed. Daily we are waiting for our

discharge, so that up till today no one of us in the corn service

has been allowed to go. I greet your wife much, and Serenus, and

all who love you, by name. Good bye.

The form of Irenaeus' letter is exactly that of John's. There is first the greeting, next the prayer for good health, after that the main body of the letter with its news, and then the final greetings. The early Christian letters were not something remote and ecclesiastical; they were the kind of letters which people wrote to each other every day.

John writes to a friend called Gaius. In the world of the New Testament Gaius was the commonest of all names. In the New Testament there are three men with that name. There is Gaius, the Macedonian who, along with Aristarchus, was with Paul at the riot in Ephesus ( Acts 19:29 ). There is Gaius of Derbe, who was the delegate of his church to convey the collection for the poor to Jerusalem ( Acts 20:4 ). There is the Gaius of Corinth who had been Paul's host, and who was such a hospitable soul that he could be called the host of the whole church ( Romans 16:23 ), and who was one of the very few people whom Paul had personally baptized ( 1 Corinthians 1:14 ), and who, according to tradition, became the first Bishop of Thessalonica. Gaius was the commonest of all names; and there is no reason to identify our Gaius with any of these three. According to tradition he was made the Bishop of Pergamum by John himself. Here he stands before us as a man with an open house and an open heart.

Twice in the first two verses of this little letter John uses the word beloved. (The well-beloved and beloved of the King James Version's first two verses translate the same Greek word, agapetos, Greek #27 .) In this group of letters John uses agapetos ( Greek #27 ) no fewer than ten times. This is a very notable fact. These letters are letters of warning and rebuke; and yet their accent is the accent of love. It was the advice of a great scholar and preacher: "Never scold your congregation." Even if he has to rebuke, John never speaks with irritation. The whole atmosphere of his writing is that of love.

3 John 1:2 shows us the comprehensive care of the good and devoted pastor. John is interested both in the physical and the spiritual health of Gaius. John was like Jesus; he never forgot that men have bodies as well as souls and that they matter, too.

In 3 John 1:4 John tells us of the teacher's greatest joy. It is to see his pupils walking in the truth. The truth is not simply something to be intellectually assimilated; it is the knowledge which fills a man's mind and the charity which clothes his life. The truth is what makes a man think and act like God.