3 John 1

4. Apostolic joy over young Christians.** It was in all probability at Ephesus, a busy city to which young men flocked from the country behind, that the aged John saw some of the children of this lady, and was pleased with their demeanor and conduct. In writing to her, he mentions this in words which must have filled her heart with pure motherly delight. “I rejoiced greatly that I found (some) of thy children walking in truth.” They were not young children, for they had left home, and had some occupation, as indicated by the expression “walking up and down,” or having their course of life in conformity with truth. But their Christian walk as young men might be traced to the Christian training they had received in childhood. It was therefore a fitting subject of congratulation in such an Epistle as this. The oldest and most experienced shepherds devote the most watchful care to the lambs, and the wisest as well as the kindest of our old pastors, teachers, and private Christians are they who attach most consequence to the religious training and development of children and of young men and maidens in the Lord. D. F.

5. What he meant was, that this is the paramount and crowning duty of the Christian believer. He did not say, “Agree with one another in doctrine.” He did not say, “Flatter one another, indulge one another.” He did not even say, “Teach one another, inform one another.” What he did urge was that difficult but necessary grace, “Love one another.” That is, love one another in spite of your differences, in spite of your faults; do what you can to serve each other, to lighten each other’s trials and inconveniences and burdens; above all, if we may turn the precept into its most practical form, make the best of one another. A. P. S.

6. As the teaching of this Epistle is opposed to the enforced seclusion of religious women from social and family life, so also does it repudiate all reliance on mere raptures and ecstasies as evidences of personal religion. Woman as well as man is to show piety by a steady, consistent obedience to the known will of Christ. “This is love, that we walk after his commandments.” When John wrote these words, he was an old and experienced man. He had seen many who once appeared full of fervent feeling and lofty aspiration turn aside from Christ; and now the only evidence of a vital Christianity on which he relied was that of a daily and hearty compliance with the commandments of God. D. F.

10. John, the apostle of love, as if to show us that this grace is entirely consistent with a hatred of evil, launches against the heretics of the day who depraved God’s truth by the denial of the incarnation this very pointed sentence of excommunication: “Receive him not, neither bid him God speed.” God’s truth is his great instrument for saving souls, and a person who seriously mutilates it in a vital part deprives it of efficacy, and thereby does his best to maintain the empire of sin. The apostle of love will have no truce with such a one; will not even harbor him under his roof. E. M. G.—Let not the direction of the apostle be misunderstood. It has no reference to a case of want or distress. No matter what a man’s opinions may be, when he is in danger, in pain, or in trouble, he ought to receive our good offices. What the Scripture before us really enjoins is, that we must not regard and treat as brethren those who are actively engaged in undermining the faith. So to do would be to encourage teachers who ought to be discouraged and disowned, and to involve ourselves in some complicity with the evil results that sooner or later ensue on false doctrine. Freedom of discussion is an important element of civilization, but the Church can not admit that a cardinal doctrine, like that of the person of our Saviour, is open to question. D. F.

1. THE elder unto the wellbeloved Gaius, whom I love in the truth. Beloved, I wish above 2 all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth. For I 3 rejoiced greatly, when the brethren came and testified of the truth that is in thee, even as 4 thou walkest in the truth. I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk 5 in truth. Beloved, thou doest faithfully whatsoever thou doest to the brethren, and to 6 strangers; which have borne witness of thy charity before the church: whom if thou bring 7 forward on their journey after a godly sort, thou shalt do well: because that for his name’s 8 sake they went forth, taking nothing of the Gentiles. We therefore ought to receive such, that we might be fellowhelpers to the truth.

9. I wrote unto the church: but Diotrephes, who loveth to have the preeminence among them, receiveth us not. Wherefore, if I come, I will remember his deeds which he doeth, prating against us with malicious words: and not content therewith, neither doth he himself receive the brethren, and forbiddeth them that would, and casteth them out of the church. 11 Beloved, follow not that which is evil, but that which is good. He that doeth good is of 12 God: but he that doeth evil hath not seen God. Demetrius hath good report of all men, and of the truth itself: yea, and we also bear record; and ye know that our record is true. 13 I had many things to write, but I will not with ink and pen write unto thee: but I trust I 14 shall shortly see thee, and we shall speak face to face. Peace be to thee. Our friends salute thee. Greet the friends by name.

THE two private letters of “the Presbyter” taken together show us the thoughts of an apostle regarding Christian womanhood and manhood for all generations. The woman is not to be a mere household drudge, but she appears to most advantage in the domestic sphere. Her best credentials are found in her children, nourished and trained in Christ from their earliest recollections, and, when they go out from her into the busy world, walking in the truth; and the beauty of her character and example is most impressively evinced in her love to the saints, and willing obedience to the commandments of God her Saviour. Then the essentials of Christian disposition are just the same in the man as in the woman; but his range is wider and more exposed to view. It is in his power more than in that of a woman to further or hinder the cause of the gospel in the place where he dwells. The model for both the woman and the man is Jesus Christ. He bore witness to the truth at every risk, and obeyed and suffered in perfect love. Let none but Christ “have the preeminence.” Let the thought of his sublime ascendancy suppress and put to shame all petty ambitions among his disciples. Jesus is the Perfect Man, in whom all are complete; for “neither is the woman without the man, nor the man without the woman in the Lord.” She who would be as “the elect lady” must look not so much to even the best of women as to Jesus. He who would be kind as Gaius, or exemplary as Demetrius, must look not to saints and apostles so much as to Jesus. He who would shun the offensive spirit of Diotrephes should look steadfastly to Jesus, and consider the self-abnegation and humility through which he passed to glory. D. F.

THE third letter of John resembles the second. It has the same style, same length, same recognition of the truth and of Christian life as a walk in truth, the same mode of beginning—the writer not naming himself, but sufficiently indicating himself as “the presbyter”—and the same statement at the end of a preference for personal intercourse and conversation over communication by means of paper and ink. There is also that combination of tenderness with sternness which we always trace in the apostle John. But the position of his correspondents differs. The letter to the lady recognizes her in family life, and warns her against the admission of pernicious teachers into her domestic circle. The letter to the man refers more to public standing and responsibility as “before the Church.” Three men are brought before us in this Epistle: Gaius, to whom it is addressed; Diotrephes, who is blamed; and Demetrius, who is praised.

2. From the reports which he had received of the conduct of Gaius toward brethren in the Lord, John infers that his soul was prospering, or moving in a right way, and therefore prays that in all respects it may go as well with him as it does in his spiritual life. Alas! how seldom can we put it thus! We see many a hale and prosperous man for whom we can fervently wish that his soul prospered as much as his body and his outward estate; but we do not often see spiritual prosperity, as in Gaius, the most prominent and indisputable characteristic of the man. D. F.—Such a measure of outward and general progress as their souls are making in inward and spiritual things would be no great advancement to many. It would be more natural and true to the facts with many to express one’s kindly desires in this form: “I wish thy soul may prosper even as thy body, or business, or family prospers.” J. Hall.

4. Walk in truth. There are some men who walk in falsehood. You might write their biography in a tombstone epitaph that might almost make the marble blush—“a thirty-, forty-, fifty-, seventy-years’ lie.” It is false to God, false to conscience, false to the reality of things, false to the eternal laws of duty and righteousness. It starts with a false principle, and ends in false results. E. H. G.

5-8. Certain disciples on a missionary tour had come to the town where Gaius lived. We learn that when those missionary volunteers had been haughtily disowned by Diotrephes (v. 10), Gaius kindly received them, although they were “strangers” to him, or personally unknown. When they reached Ephesus, they made a missionary report to the church there, and, in doing so, mentioned this timely act of Christian love. The apostle thereupon wrote to Gaius to commend his conduct, and to encourage in him the disposition to welcome such brethren, and so to bear himself as a “fellow-helper for the truth.” The spread of the gospel among the heathen, now as then, can not be conducted by the whole Church, but it ought to engage the attention and interest of the whole Church on earth. All Christians are not required to leave their homes and go out on this errand; but those who do, whether for a shorter or a longer time, should have encouragement and aid from those who do not render personal service.

It is well to observe that Gaius is thus honored in Holy Scripture, and embalmed in blessed memory, not for any surpassing powers he possessed, any social influence, or any qualities of intellectual eminence, but for truth and love in daily life, and for a simple, unpretending act of kindness. These are the things which men often neglect, thinking it necessary to show their religion in more ambitious and conspicuous ways. But there is really no better proof of personal Christianity than that which Gaius furnished in his adherence to the truth at a time when many departed from it, and his brotherly kindness to those who had no other claim on him than their service to the Lord whom he loved. Always and everywhere that man is to be highly esteemed in the Church who combines firm convictions with a generous heart, who walks in holy truth and heaven-born charity. D. F.

Feeling that we each are members of the Church, that it is our highest country, to which we are bound with a far deeper love than to our earthly country, is not its welfare our welfare, its triumph our triumph, its failures our shame? Church questions are all questions in which God’s glory and man’s sins or duties are concerned; all questions in the decision of which there is a moral good and evil; a grieving of Christ’s Spirit, or a conformity to him. And in such questions as concern the Church, in the more narrow and common sense of the word, seeing that we are all members of the Church, we should not neglect them, as the concern of others, but take an interest in them, and act in them, so far as we have opportunity, as in a matter which most nearly concerns ourselves. T. A.

9,10. Diotrephes was the reverse of Gaius; a man ambitious, domineering, and ungracious. It does not appear whether he held any recognized office in a congregation, or was one who pushed to the front from mere willfulness and a desire to dictate to others. Either because he was a Jewish Christian and disliked the Gentiles, or because he had no hearty zeal for the truth, he felt no interest in missions to the heathen. If strangers came on such errands, he let them alone, and would not give them any reception or recognition in the Church. D. F.—Even the venerable John encountered opposition in his own churches. The spirit of this opponent John puts in one Greek word which it may be hard to match perfectly in our tongue; yet we might call him a power-loving man, whose master passion was to be first everywhere. Consequently he must needs oppose whatever counterworked his ruling passion. This Diotrephes would not receive those whom John commended to the Church by letter. They not being his men, nor working under his control, he was bound to oppose. Worse still, he slandered the aged apostle; would neither receive the brethren he sent nor let the Church receive them, and seems to have had power enough to expel them. John writes: “If I should come, I will remember his deeds”—said apparently with reference to some infliction of physical evil—judgment from God—a form of miraculous power which seems to have been lodged in the hands of the apostles to meet cases of this sort. H. C.

12. Demetrius was, like Gaius, a man after the apostle’s own heart. Perhaps he was the leader of the missionary band. Perhaps he was the bearer of this letter. In either case, John sends to Gaius a very high testimonial in his favor. Not only did all the brethren who knew him testify to his character; not only did the apostle add the emphatic expression of his own good opinion; but the truth itself bore testimony to Demetrius. He so walked in it that it was familiar with his footsteps, and knew him well. He so reflected it in its influence on his character and life that, while he bore witness to the truth, the truth in turn bore witness to him. This man was an epistle of Christ known and read of all. D. F.

WE stand on the declaration of the giver of the word himself, when we consider the progress of Christian doctrine in its communication from God as extending, not only over one stage in which it was delivered by the Lord in the flesh, but through a second stage in which it was delivered by the same Lord through the Spirit. We have the revealed truth presented to us in the Epistles, not only as a communication from God, but also as an apprehension by man. The great transition from the one stage to the other is exhibited before our eyes as already effected. We have the gospel as it existed in the mind of Peter and of Paul, of James and of John. It is thus presented to us in combination with the processes of human thought and the variations of human feelings, in association with peculiarities of individual character, and in the course of its more perfect elaboration through the exigencies of events and controversies. On the gospel doctrine itself, which is thus confirmed, a fresh light seems to be thrown by the spirit of these precious Epistles, the faith expounded by Paul kindling into fervent hope in the words of Peter, and expanding into sublime love

in those of John. At the same time the reader can not fail to note how these writings of the original apostles, by express references, by borrowed language, and by their whole spirit, seem to bind the doctrine which the Epistles have developed to the gospels in which it first began to be opened.