I've been spending this term working and preaching through 1 John, and have previously preached a baptism sermon on 2 John. So with baptism approaching, I'm doing some work on 3 John (or, as other Anglophone countries might put it, Third John).
This is the shortest text in the Bible, at a lean 221 words, and forms a partner letter to 2 John, which is also short (a slightly bulkier 248w), and is similarly by "the Elder". But where 2 John is written to "the lady" (most likely a church community), 3 John is written to a person, Gaius. In that way, in 3 John we are reading someone else's mail (to steal a chapter title from Mike Bird).
As far as a book of the Bible goes, the structure is very straightforward, with an introduction and a conclusion, with the body in the middle. I reckon 4 paragraphs in the body, three of which begin with the vocative "Beloved" (often translated Dear Friend). I like translating it "Beloved" to maintain the lexical link with "love". We have the same issue in 1 John, where "love" is such a common word, but we might miss the link to "Dear Friends" if we aren't aware that it translates "Beloved".
The other paragraph is marked by the asyndeton "I wrote (something to the church)" as well as the change in subject.
Something I find fascinating is the difference between the verse count in English translations and the Greek. The Greek has 15 verses, but the English has only 14, combining the final two into one. It is of zero consequence, but it is nonetheless fascinating to me that they couldn't agree on how many verses there might be. I can think of only one time I noticed this (but can't remember where that was).
Key words:
- Love: The title beloved (4x), the verb I love (1x) and the noun love (1x) make this the second-highest grossing irregular word in the letter (not including conjunctions and articles). This carries on from 1 John, and is pointing us to Gaius as an exemplar of the love talked about in the larger letter.
- To beloved Gaius, whom I love in truth
- Beloved, ... they bore witness to your love
- Truth: The noun truth (6x) and the adjective true (1x) point to another theme carried over from 1 John.
- Gaius is loved in truth
- People bear witness to your truth
- You are walking in the truth
- My children are walking in the truth
- We might be coworkers in the truth
- Demetrius is born witness by ... the truth
- Our testimony is true
- Rather than an abstract idea, truth as a noun is always linked to action, to love which is lived out toward other people and toward God.
- Bear witness: this is the last idea I wanted to note, as this verb appears four times to describe a community and their response.
- They bore witness to your ... walking in the truth
- They bore witness to your love before the church
- Demetrius is born witness by everyone
- We also bear witness [to Demetrius]
A 1 Greeting
B 2-4 Well wishes in response to receiving a visitB` 5-8 Encouragement to continue in godly conductC 9-10 Being unwelcoming betrays a bigger heart problem (like Diotrephes)C` 11-12 Mimic the good instead (like Demetrius)
A` 13-14/15 Final greetings
The opening and closing frame the body well. The two examples at the end put forward the negative and positive cases. It's interesting to me that none of the three lexemes mentioned above (love, truth, bearing witness) occur in the negative panel (9-10). It's as if John would not let those words come into contact with such a one as Diotrephes lest they be sullied by merely being in the same paragraph.
I'm not sure if this is a thing or not, but it seems that there are lots of prefix lexemes in 9-10 - like the name Diotrephes! There's εκ, επι, υπο, another επι, and two more εκs, as well as a μη and ουτε. Again, this could be nothing, but I wonder if there's a deliberate collocation of these around the name Diotrephes which looks like a prefix form (διο-) to reinforce how far he has stepped out of line.
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