John prays a blessing on Gaius. Now verse 2 is beloved of prosperity teachers. Let’s be honest here, mostly they are making far too much of this verse than is merited. Look, the truth is this. God does want the absolute best for us; we are sinners living in a fallen world; we are being redeemed and sanctified; we share together with Christ’s sufferings in the work of building the kingdom. Any teaching needs to take into account all of these. To focus on any one of them to the exclusion of others leads to error. To focus on the blessings at the expense of others will give us a false and distorted view of life. Equally, to focus on suffering and sin part without the blessings will give an equally distorted and wrong view.
Gaius is then thanked for helping John’s workers, and is encouraged to continue doing so. Quite often in the various letters people are encouraged to continue doing good. We need to recognise that it is easy to become weary of doing good, there are times when we get discouraged, so we need to be continually encouraged.
Diotrophes was the bad leader. It is not clear what his exact role was, maybe he assumed a higher status than he actually had. Whatever the case, he was causing trouble, and had rejected John’s letters. He also slandered John and his co-workers. He was also refusing to accept Christian brothers who passed by. His behaviour was not good, and Gaius is urged to recognise what is good and what is not. He need have no fear that Diotrophes is doing God’s will, for his actions clearly demonstrated that he did not know God.
Conversely, Demetrius is commended for his good works and attitude. John again closes the letter with the desire to see Gaius personally, and then to say a lot more to him.
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