The New Testament · Hebrews and the Catholic Letters · Book 71 of 73
3 John
The shortest book of the New Testament, a personal note from “the Presbyter” to his friend Gaius about hospitality and a quarrel in a local church. It contains no prophecy, and this page says so plainly. What it does show is the Church's ordinary life of truth and welcome.
The book at a glance
“The Presbyter to the beloved Gaius whom I love in truth” (verse 1). Gaius has welcomed traveling missionaries who “set out for the sake of the Name” (verse 7). The Presbyter praises him and asks him to keep helping them, “so that we may be co-workers in the truth” (verse 8). A certain Diotrephes, “who loves to dominate” (verse 9), has refused them and expelled those who would receive them; Demetrius, by contrast, “receives a good report from all” (verse 12). Tradition attributes the letter to St. John the Apostle; many scholars think the Presbyter is a leader of the Johannine community, likely the author of 2 John as well. The Church receives it as inspired Scripture either way.
Why no prophecy
3 John has no oracle, no vision, no promise about the last things and no type that the New Testament or the Fathers develop. Unlike 2 John, it does not even mention the antichrist or the false teachers. This site does not read prophecy into a text that does not claim it, so this page has no passage cards.
What it shows of the Church walking in the truth
The letter still belongs to the story told elsewhere on this site. The Church that Revelation sees at the end, gathered “from every nation” (Revelation 7:9), is built in the meantime out of small acts like the ones in this letter: strangers fed and sent on their way, a good report given, a quarrel faced honestly. The Presbyter's joy is simple: “Nothing gives me greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth” (verse 4).
His counsel is just as simple: “Beloved, do not imitate evil but imitate good” (verse 11). He ends, like 2 John, hoping to come in person: “I hope to see you soon, when we can talk face to face” (verse 14). That is not a prophecy. It is the ordinary hope of friends, and it echoes, in a small way, the hope of the whole Church to see the Lord face to face (1 Corinthians 13:12; 1 John 3:2).