1"The elder to the beloved Gaius, whom I love in truth." Third John is the shortest book in the New Testament, small enough for a single sheet of papyrus, and the most personal. It is addressed to one man, it names two others, and it follows the conventions of an ordinary first-century letter more closely than anything else in the New Testament. It is the only book in the New Testament that never names Jesus or Christ, though the gospel shapes every line. That plainness shows what the faith looked like between two friends in a church in conflict.
2"I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health." This is the most misused verse in the letter. Some have built a theology of guaranteed health and wealth on it. It is a standard greeting formula of the ancient world, the equivalent of our "How are you?" The verse expresses John's warmth and makes no promise about anyone's bank account or blood pressure.
Travelers had reported on Gaius, and the report gave John joy. 4"I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth." Truth keeps the same meaning here that it carries in 1 and 2 John. It is something a person walks in, a life, and a creed alone could not hold it. John's joy as a spiritual father is measured by the walking of the people he taught.
Then comes the heart of the commendation. 5"It is a faithful thing you do in all your efforts for these brothers, strangers as they are." The brothers were traveling missionaries, sent out by John, and they were strangers to Gaius. He opened his home anyway, and the gesture cost something, because in his own church a man named Diotrephes was refusing them. 6"Send them on their journey in a manner worthy of God," John says, which refers to equipping traveling workers with food, money, and company for the next stage of the road.
7"They have gone out for the sake of the name." The phrase is used without explanation, as though it needed none, and for John's readers it meant Jesus. These missionaries refused support from unbelievers so that nobody could say the gospel was for sale, which left them dependent on fellow believers.
8"We ought to support people like these, that we may be fellow workers for the truth." The Greek for we ought is the debt word from 1 John, used for the last time in these writings. The Greek for fellow workers, *synergoi*, is a word Paul loved for partners in the gospel. The people who host a missionary or fund one become part of the work. Gaius could not go out himself, and through his spare room and his generosity he could stand beside those who did.
It is a humble picture of how the gospel moves. Gaius was no apostle. He had a home and a willingness to open it, and John calls that fellow work in the truth.
Ask who in your life has opened a door for the gospel, and whom you could help on their way.
Prayer
Father, we thank you for those who walk in the truth and for those who open their homes and resources to the work of your name. Make us generous toward those who go out for the sake of your name, and let us be fellow workers for the truth. In Jesus' name, amen.