Full Transcript

At Share the Word, we bring you the big ideas of the New Testament chapter by chapter. We’re a Great Commission project, and in today’s episode, we focus on Third John and address the critical topics of truth, hospitality, and humility. And to tie it all together, we welcome back Margie Biasato. Hello, I’m Margie, and welcome to Share the Word. Today we’re going to cover Third John, titled Heroes and Villains. I recently read this funny little letter about three people: an English schoolteacher, a Swiss landlord, and a Swiss parish priest.

The English teacher was going to take a sabbatical in Switzerland, and after researching, she found and secured what appeared to be appropriate accommodations. Later, however, she realized that she had not seen a bathroom. To put the matter to rest, she wrote the landlord to inquire about the location of the water closet, which she abbreviated as the WC. The Swiss landlord, receiving the inquiry, had never heard of the expression WC and was a little confused. So he took the letter from the English schoolteacher to the local parish priest for clarification. However, instead of water closet, they assumed that she must have meant wayside chapel, and this is the answer she received: Dear Madam, the WC is located nine miles from the house.

It’s set in the heart of a beautiful grove of trees. It will seat 150 people at one time. It’s open on Tuesdays and Thursdays and Sundays. It might interest you to know that my daughter met her husband at the WC. I will close now with the desire to accommodate you in every possible way, and I will be happy to save you a seat, either down the front or by the door as you prefer. Well, Third John is also a little letter and about three different people.

It is just as entertaining, but it is a lot less confusing. The Apostle John identifies himself as the elder, probably because he is old at this point. Scholars put his age between 90 and 95. But the reference of elder is also to establish his authority and the authenticity of this little letter. Third John is the shortest book in the Bible. Like Second John, Third John most likely experienced a limited circulation compared to other books in the New Testament.

Even though the earliest Christian writers did not quote from this book extensively, they never doubted who wrote it. The general consensus named the Apostle John as its author, since the language and the style are classically his. Because of that, the place and date of authorship are most likely the same as First John and Second John, which means it was written from Ephesus sometime around A.D. 90. Now, no one seems quite sure which church was the actual intended recipient, but it is assumed that it was directed to one of the churches in Asia. Now we may not know which church this was specifically written to, but we do know who the recipient was.

Drumroll, please. Our first hero, Gaius. Now I’m going to do a little side note here on Bible names and pronunciations. There are two commonly used pronunciations for the name G-A-I-U-S: Gaius or Gaius. I’m picking Gaius because he is a good guy for us to emulate. That second joke’s for free.

So the three different people addressed in this letter are our heroes, Gaius and Demetrius, and our villain, Boehus Diotrephes. The three different topics addressed in this little letter are truth, hospitality, and humility. John is writing to our hero Gaius, a man who he clearly loved and cared for deeply. His greeting is so tender, honest, and real. He addresses Gaius as the beloved. John describes his feelings for him as one whom he loves in truth.

These phrases give us an idea of their deep Christ-like relationship. Most likely, one reason John wrote this note was to encourage Gaius. Gaius was probably either the leader or a predominant member of one of the Asian churches. In verses one through four, John addresses all three of the critical topics: truth, hospitality, and humility. So let’s start with truth. In verse 1, John says, To my dear friend Gaius, whom I love in truth.

In verse 3 he says, It gave me great joy when some believers came and testified about your faithfulness to truth and how you walk in truth. And then in verse 4 John says, There is no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in truth. Truth is so important to John that in this tiny book he mentions it six different times. Now, the opposite of truth is, of course, a lie. In the Gospel of John, John quotes Jesus clearly contrasting between the origins of each. Jesus said, Satan was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to truth, for there is no truth in him.

When he lies, he speaks from his own nature, his native tongue, for he is a liar and he is the father of lies. From the beginning, Satan has been a liar, whereas Jesus, in John 14:6, claimed to be the way, the truth, and the life. Apparently, not all of the church members practiced walking in truth. The apostle John mentions the great offender, ba ba ba bum, our villain Diotrephes. John accuses him of being a gossip and a slanderer. In verse 10, John says, He is spreading malicious nonsense about us.

And John had every intention of straightening that boy out upon his arrival. John pointed out that Diotrephes unjustly accused him of wicked words. He gossiped about John. He was lying about John and the other believers that were coming to the church. Again, the opposite of truth, and we know the origin of Diotrephes’ lies. He was not following the Word of Truth, but following the father of lies.

Before I became a Christian, I was a liar. I told whoppers, and I justified it with, Hey, everybody lies. My Nana, wagging her finger, would quote Shakespeare, Oh, what a tangled web we weave when at first we practice to deceive. Not being a particularly bright child, my response was usually, Huh? But when I became a Christian, I wanted to walk in truth. I did not want to be a woman of the world any longer.

I wanted to be a woman of the Word, a woman of truth. I actually prayed that God would convict my heart and teach me to be a truth teller. He honored those prayers. Whether I exaggerated or told a little white lie, I instantly felt a very odd and specific conviction. Therefore, I developed a habit of confessing to God and to others immediately. Eventually, I just decided it was easier to tell the truth from the get-go.

I also began praying for my children to be people who walked in truth like Gaius, not just because they were representing me, but more importantly, because they were representing God. They were children of God. Therefore, they should be children of truth. And as a mama and a grandmama, I agree with John. There is no greater joy than this, to hear that my children are walking in truth. The next topic that the apostle John hits is hospitality.

Maybe that surprises you. You expect that kind of rhetoric from Martha Stewart. But the Bible? Yep. It is a very important biblical principle that is rarely addressed. So please listen up.

Once again, Gaius is our hero. Whoop whoop. In verses 5 through 8, he is commended by John. Dear friend, John says, you are faithful in what you were doing with the brothers and the sisters, even though they are strangers to you. And then he adds, we ought to show hospitality to such people so that we may work together for the truth. John was in the habit of giving teachers and evangelists special permission to go out on missionary journeys.

He expected the believers in the outlying territories to welcome these traveling teachers of the name, meaning the name of Jesus, and to host them warmly and graciously. John encourages the generosity and the faithfulness of the local brethren to offer hospitality to the traveling teachers of truth who were needing somewhere safe to stay as they shared the gospel. In those days, staying in the inns was dangerous and possibly immoral, as frequently those establishments were houses of prostitution. John wanted to protect the itinerant workers by arranging to give them safe places to rest and to be kindly received. Now, dear Gaius often hosted the brothers in the name of Jesus Christ. He threw the doors of his house and of his heart wide open for them.

Though it cost Gaius time and energy and resources, he stayed available for them. Not only did Gaius provide them with food and a room, but usually made arrangements for them to be guided to the next community, where he had also set up safe accommodations for them. Nowadays, it seems like hospitality is a lost art. People rarely sit down to dinner with their own families, let alone invite others over. Hosting can be inconvenient and expensive, but it is so worth it for the sake of the gospel to be spread. John is saying that Gaius’s generosity and hospitality shows his great love for Christ by showing great love for others.

Truly, that should make the heart of every believer pound. To know that our willingness to simply be hospitable can reflect the love of Christ. Once again, our villain, Diotrephes, is called out by John in verses 9 and 10. He says he does not welcome us. He refuses to welcome believers, and then he even stops those who want to do so and puts them out of the church. This guy is bad news.

Diotrephes did not show hospitality and forbade others in the church to do so, even to the point of threatening to kick them out of the local church. Diotrephes apparently did not allow our other hero, Demetrius, housing or hospitality. Shamefully, Diotrephes rejected Demetrius. He rejected the truth he represented, and he rejected the apostle John’s authority. John assures Gaius and the other readers that when he visited, and he hoped to do so, that he would personally address these problems with the villain Diotrephes. By not allowing others to host the evangelists, Diotrephes was hindering the gospel message from being heard and received.

The great Washington, D.C. hostess, Pearl Mesta, was once asked how she was able to influence so many rich and famous people to attend her parties. She said, Oh, it’s all in the greetings and goodbyes. As each guest arrived, she met them with, At last, you are here. As each left, she expressed her regrets with, Oh, I’m so sorry you have to leave so soon. Well, obviously, the hospitality that the apostle John is referring to does not have much to do with hosting parties. Nevertheless, the story of Pearl Mesta reveals the attitude for the meaning of hospitality.

Webster defines hospitable as receiving and entertaining guests generously, kindly, and liberally receptive. Hospitality then becomes a habit of treatment, reception, and disposition. Hospitality holds the practical meaning of ministry to the needy and to the body of believers by giving them safety, care, and truth. Although Third John’s primary application is hospitality for folks we call missionaries, its scope can certainly be brought to include all Christ followers. Besides the theme of truth versus lies and the second theme of being hospitable versus inhospitable, there is a third theme in this little letter. Humility versus pride.

Once again, Gaius is our hero, and Diotrephes, boo hiss, is the villain. The apostle John has already described Diotrephes as a liar, an inhospitable, and now he calls him arrogant. In regards to his arrogance, John said in verse 9 that Diotrephes loves to be first. Remember, the apostle John followed and traveled with Jesus for three years. John had heard the truth directly from Jesus in regards to pride and jockeying for position. To the disciples, Jesus said, If anyone wants to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all.

To the religious leaders, Jesus proclaimed, The greatest among you will be your servant. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. Humility, not arrogance, is the hallmark of Christ and should be the hallmark of his followers. A missionary was doing translation work among a particular tribe and was finding it difficult to translate the word pride. He finally stumbled on the idea of using words that described the ears being too far apart. It’s difficult to find a better illustration of pride than an inflated head.

One of Teddy Roosevelt’s children said of him, Father always wanted to be the bride at every wedding and the corpse of every funeral. Both of these stories can help us understand how the apostle John felt about Diotrephes. Because this man’s pride was annoying, but not just annoying, it was causing the church to split. A true servant leader is humble and subjects himself to the authority of others, especially in the body. But Diotrephes would not lay down his personal wants and rights for the best interest of others. The essential violation of love is to put oneself first.

The British missionary in China, Hudson Taylor, once said, Of all God’s greatest giants have been weak men who did great things for God because they reckoned on God being with them. In other words, they were humble, not arrogant, and they relied on God’s help for success. They had an accurate assessment of themselves and who they were apart from God. Well, Diotrephes, boo hiss, did not have an accurate assessment of himself. He put himself above the apostle, and that disobedience manifested itself as a lack of love for Christ and the church. Finally, in verse 12, John mentions our second hero by name.

Whoop whoop, Demetrius. Demetrius may have been the bearer of this little letter. He was one of the men carrying the ministry for truth with the apostle’s blessing and authority. Therefore, as an itinerant, Demetrius was one who was in need of hospitality, hospitality that our hero Gaius so generously offered and our villain, boo, Diotrephes, so arrogantly refused. At the very end of this little book, John commends Demetrius, saying that he had received good testimony from everyone. And then he added, Demetrius had also received a good testimony from truth.

John was personifying truth, as though truth itself was giving Demetrius a recommendation and an accommodation. In other words, if truth could speak, he would have given Demetrius rave reviews. What a wonderful way to be remembered. Well, unlike our opening letter, this little letter is clear, understandable, and straightforward. When we are following the Lord, our character is revealed, and we have a choice. We can be remembered like our heroes of faith, Gaius and Demetrius.

Yay! By exhibiting love of the Lord to the other believers, practically by representing truth, and by being humble and hospitable. Or we can be like the villain, Diotrephes, and shun the truth, be arrogant, and be inhospitable. The choice is ours. Thank you for joining us today at Share the Word. This is Margie, encouraging you to be a hero.

Thanks, Margie. As simple as truth, hospitality, and humility sound, these three topics can end up being the stumbling blocks used by the prince of lies to keep you away from following the Lord. It starts by being, Oh, it’s only a small lie, or It’s not a good time for guests because the house is a mess. And if you hear yourself saying, After everything that I’ve done… If you’re sounding more like that, then perhaps you should be praying the Psalm of David, Psalm 139. Search me, O God, and know my heart.

Test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life. I challenge you to search your heart and meditate on whether truth, hospitality, and humility are a real part of your life, used to further the kingdom of God, or simply tools you use to achieve on this earth.