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 seems relative?

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 yet another way that he wants to encourage Gaius.

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 as niceness, and that sometimes the truth isn’t nice.

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 leader.

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 to what John wants Gaius to understand about the significance of hospitality.

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 why?

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 they live many miles away.

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-groups and out-groups.

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 exploring that question using the concept of bounded versus centered sets.

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 relationship to God.

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,” because it may make an important difference in our attitude.

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 obedience to the command of Jesus. And the command that John emphasizes is for the followers of Jesus to love one another.

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 encourage obedience to the truth, was John paying his readers a left-handed compliment?

“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 embodies the gospel.

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 community have begun taking their false teaching elsewhere, and John wants to warn others not to give them a platform for their harmful views about Jesus.

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).

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 of the letter.

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.

We may be used to sharing prayer requests with each other—but only rarely are those prayer requests about our struggle with sin. John seems to think that we should indeed pray for one another when we see such struggles. But he also suggests that we don’t need to pray about sin “that leads to death” (1 John 5:16-17). What did he mean?

The final verses of 1 John read a bit like an executive summary of what came before. But it’s not just for the purpose of conveying information more efficiently. The pastoral purpose of the letter is to provide spiritual comfort to people who were rocked by the conflict that split the community. Thus, even as John pushes his readers to take sin seriously, he also wants to reassure them that they are indeed God’s children, kept safe from the devil’s clutches.

Churches can divide over issues that may seem trivial to an outsider—but to an insider, they’re anything but. Before we begin our exploration of the final verses of 1 John, therefore, I want to suggest five lessons we can draw from what we’ve already seen, general principles that I hope would help us do a better job of faithfully approaching and navigating church conflict.

John is approaching the end of the letter we know as 1 John. Though the letter contains theology, it is not a theological treatise; it was written to give pastoral reassurance to his readers. He’s just said that the secessionists stand condemned for their false teaching and beliefs; in the wake of the conflict, are his readers anxious about their own salvation? “Don’t worry,” John seems to say in verse 13 of chapter 5; “if you truly believe in the name of the Son of God, you have eternal life.”

When we were kids, we wanted what we wanted. And sometimes, even as adults, we want things from God. There’s nothing wrong with that in itself—unless we presume that God has promised to give us anything we ask. Indeed, John seems to suggest that in 1 John 5:14-15, a text which echoes something Jesus said in the Upper Room. But is that what John means? Is that what Jesus meant?

As we explored in the previous episode, John uses courtroom language to talk about the testimony of the water, the blood, the Spirit, and God himself to the truth about Jesus. But the imagery is fluid, shifting in a way that suggests it’s the secessionists themselves who are on trial for their false teaching. And in that trial, God, the Judge and Lawgiver, takes the stand before the final verdict is delivered.

If you enjoy watching legal dramas—or have ever served on a jury!—you know how important it is to a case to have not only a competent attorney, but witnesses who give credible testimony. In 1 John 5, the apostle draws upon legal metaphors to insist that the truth about Jesus has been established on the testimony of the best of witnesses: not only the water and the blood, but the Holy Spirit and God himself.

Chances are, when we read the Bible, we have our go-to translation, even though we know that other versions exist. Most of the time, the differences between translations are minor. But not always, and 1 John 5 is a case in point. In this episode, we explore the strange tale of the so-called “Johannine comma”—words that appear in the King James Version of the letter but not in other translations.

John has emphasized the importance of right belief about the identity of Jesus. But in chapter 5, he says something oddly confusing about Jesus, insisting repeatedly that he came by “water and blood” (vss. 6-8)—probably as a rejoinder to something taught by the secessionists. As you might guess, the statement has generated a great deal of scholarly speculation, and in this episode, we’ll explore what John may have meant.

We love heroic stories, stories of ordinary people overcoming extraordinary odds. But in the wake of a church split, people may feel particularly un-heroic, wondering how things could go so badly when they’re trying to be faithful. John seems to know that his community needs encouragement. They are loving one another even if they don’t do it perfectly, and faith itself is already a sign of overcoming the world.

Throughout his letters, John seems to think back continually to what Jesus told his disciples in Upper Room on the night he was arrested. He remembers the repeated commandment to love one another, and emphasizes that over and over as he writes. But let’s face it: some people are easier to love than others, even within our own families, even within the church. John thinks of the believers in his community as family; do they think that way of each other? Or do they feel defeated?

Hang around Christian congregations long enough, and sooner or later you’ll probably hear people refer to the church as a “family.” That’s a biblical way to think, of course; believers are brothers and sisters under one heavenly Father. But we need to take care, because the word “family” itself carries with it a lot of cultural and emotional baggage. John takes us back to basics: to believe that Jesus is the Christ is to be born of God the Father, and we should therefore love our siblings (1 John 5:1)—even when it isn’t easy.

As we’ve seen, the issue that divided John’s community was the identity of Jesus—and the question was already a live one during Jesus’ earthly ministry. Think, for example, of Peter, who famously acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah, then turned right around and showed he still didn’t understand the full meaning of that confession. What does it mean to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ? That was the question for John’s fractured community, and it’s still the question today.

John has already said that to love one another is to live like Jesus and to make God’s character visible. The uncomfortable implication of this—and one that seems to apply to the secessionists who riled up the community—is that a person might claim to love God, but if they don’t love their brothers and sisters, it’s a lie.

As the apostle Paul famously wrote, “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). John knows this too. He might counsel his readers to love one another, but is under no illusions that this is just a matter of drawing on the better angels of their nature. Rather, any ability we have to love one another truly has its origin in God, who took the initiative: “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19).

If someone says, “I believe in Jesus,” does that make them a Christian? Not necessarily. One of John’s litmus tests is that a true believer must “acknowledge” that Jesus came in the flesh (1 John 4:2) and is the Son of God (4:15). But as the story from John 9 shows, that acknowledgment has to be more than just lip service. Is a person willing to stand up for the truth about Jesus, even if doing so has a cost?

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught his followers that they were to become perfect like God, especially in the matter of love. But who is perfect in love? John doesn’t mean that our love must be flawless. Rather, while none of us loves with perfect and flawless consistency, the point is that we are growing up to be more and more like our heavenly Father and his Son in love. And hopefully, we can see that maturing process played out in our relationships to our brothers and sisters.

John has already told his readers that when they love one another, God’s love is being “made complete” in them (1 John 4:12), an idea that he repeats a few verses later. Jesus himself taught that the whole moral teaching of the Old Testament, boiled down to its essence, was to love God and neighbor wholeheartedly. To say that love is being made complete is to say that we’re growing up, maturing. And that, it seems, was the plan all along.

In the Upper Room, Jesus commanded his disciples to love one another. Already in chapter 4, John has reminded his readers of that command twice. But he doesn’t just say this because it would be a nice thing to do. As he’ll suggest in 1 John 4:12, it’s because the love between believers is what makes the character of the invisible God visible.

Reading between the lines of John’s letter, we can sense how the controversy that split the community had shaken the confidence of those who remained. Indeed, the very purpose of the letter is to help them regain that confidence. He’s already told them that they must love one another as Jesus commanded. And now he reassures them: when they see that love in action, they know they’re living like Jesus, and that’s the basis of their confidence for when Jesus returns.

As Christians we are familiar with the idea, expressed in John 3:16, that the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross was a demonstration of God’s love. Sometimes I wonder, though, if we have become too familiar with the idea, to the point that it ceases to amaze us. John would have been raised to know of the love and mercy of God—but could he have imagined such a concrete expression of love as the cross?

Ask someone what the Bible says about love, and they’re likely to point to 1 Corinthians 13. But if you read what Paul says carefully, he doesn’t define what love is, but what love does and doesn’t do. We need to understand John similarly. Yes, love involves emotion, but it is more than that—and we know what love is by what God has done through Jesus.

Some of the best-known verses in John’s letter, here in chapter 4, have to do with love. But what is love? John doesn’t try to define the word and then apply it to God. Rather, we need to read the meaning of what he says the other way around: whatever love truly is, it’s defined by the character of God. Everything else is imitation.

As mentioned in a previous episode, Jesus told his disciples that he had “overcome” the world, and John told his readers that they had “overcome” the trouble stirred up by the secessionists. The verb John uses, when expressed as a noun, is nike—the goddess of victory and the name of what may be the most recognized brand of sportswear in the world. In our world, the NIKE brand is associated with “crushing the competition.” But despite his language of overcoming, John is about to emphasize something different: love.

Everyone in John’s community had heard the gospel; they all knew what John had taught. But some, unfortunately, only heard what they wanted to hear. This is another of John’s litmus tests: do people heed the gospel as taught by the apostles or not?