Welcome to the 10-Minute Bible, where we look at one book of the Bible in 10 minutes. Well, give or take 10 minutes. In this session, we're going to look at the little book of 3 John. As I've often heard me say in this series, there are three things you need to understand as you begin looking at any book, but especially a book in the Bible. The first is, what is the subject? Which is nothing more than the answer to the question, what's the author talking about? Now, what gets a little confusing is that any book of any length will deal with a number of subjects. But there is one overall subject, and those other subjects are subdivisions of the overall subject. So when I say subject, I mean what's the overall subject of the book? The second thing you need to know is what is the structure of the book. That is, how does the author develop the subject he's talking about? Now, in a book outside the Bible, there is a table of contents, and that will give you some idea, sometime, not always, of what the author's doing. And there's no such thing as that in the Bible, but if you have a good study Bible, there will be an outline at the beginning. And that outline, if it's done well, will give you a great idea of how the author is developing that subject. The third thing you need to know is what is called the situation. Now, this is particularly true of the Bible, more so than other books normally. Virtually, not all, but virtually all the books in the Bible were developed because of a situation that arose. In other words, the question is, why did that author write on that subject to that original audience? What was the situation that provoked that? Another word would be purpose. At any rate, this situation is broken down into three parts. The first is, who is the author? And the second is, who is the recipients? And the third is, that purpose. Why did that author write to that audience on that subject? If you knew those three things, that's the situation. But then if you knew the subject, the structure, the development of the subject, and the situation, which includes the author, the recipients, and the purpose, you would be a long way down the road to understanding any book you read, but especially any book in the Bible. Now, with that in mind, let's apply it to the little book of 3rd John. What is the subject of 3rd John? And the answer is love. He talks about love, but he goes a little further than that, and the specific of love in this case is hospitality. As you dig into the book, you see that it really revolves around hospitality. The structure of the book is an ancient letter. And as you've heard me say, as we got to the epistles, that consists of a salutation, a thanksgiving, a prayer, then the body of the book, and then it ends with personal greetings and a benediction. This book follows that, except it leaves out the thanksgiving. But it opens with a salutation, then there's a prayer, and then there's the body of the book. The body of the book is divided into three parts. He confirms Gaius, that's the person to whom he's writing, And then he condemns a fellow named Diotrephes. I'll explain a little more about that in a minute. And he commends a fellow named Demetrius. So there's a sense in which this little book revolves around three people. And he's commending two of them and condemning the third. Now, what's going on? Well, we'll get to that as we look at the situation. But first, let's talk about the author. He identifies himself as the elder, And virtually everybody would say that that was the Apostle John. What is the date? And the truth is, we don't know. That in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John, we really don't have enough information to nail down a date. However, putting what little information together that we have, it's probably reasonable to assume that it was written Most would say somewhere between 67 and 90 AD, and so I just picked a date right out of the middle and said, okay, 80. So I'd give it that kind of a date. So the author is the Apostle John calling himself an elder, and he's writing, let's say, around 80 AD. Now, the recipient is a fella named Gaius. And now this gets into what's going on in the book. It is obvious that John sent teachers to the church where Gaius was. When they arrived, a fellow named Demetrius would refuse to let them speak. And then on top of that, he wouldn't, if anybody put them up, this is the hospitality issue. and for traveling preachers, that's what everybody did. But in this case, those who gave hospitality to those traveling preachers were put out of the church. So John is writing and saying, Gaius, you've done what's right. Good for you. And when I get there, I'll deal with diatrophies. That's basically what he's saying in this book. So he wrote the recipient is to Gaius, who apparently is a wealthy man who did extend hospitality and he's commending him for it. So, that brings us down to what is the purpose? Why was this book written? And the answer is, he says in the middle of this book, imitate that which is good, not that which is bad. And so, that comes down to imitate Gaius and not diatrophies. There's also, there's a fellow named Demetrius that gets in here, and he just may be the mailman. One author calls this little book the postcard of the Bible. So this Demetrius may be the mailman of the postcard. And so, Part of the purpose is to commend him and say to Gaius, now you need, the implication is you need to extend to him the hospitality. The issue comes down to what he calls love. He uses that word several times in the book in verses two and three and four and seven. And he uses the same thing in 1 John. Those are the references I gave. And so he's really talking about love and specifically the application of it in this book is hospitality. Diotrephes did not exercise it because he loved to have the preeminence and Gaius did exercise it and so this is a great example of love. So if I were going to put the book together in one sentence I would say that the real point of the book, that overarching big subject is that you should continue practicing love through hospitality. That's inescapable, the point of the book. So then I always end by saying, well, what does that have to do with us? How would we apply that to us? And the answer is, I would say that the use of your home, hospitality, is an important form of love. Now I need to hedge that a little bit because I think that was more important in the first century than it is today. I've been invited hundreds of times to speak in churches. I've traveled for 13 years doing just that. And sometimes they put me up in a home, but they really thought that the best thing to do was put me in a motel. So today we wouldn't be as quick to do this as they were in the first century. But using what you have, to minister to other people is the practical point of this book. And in this case, it's hospitality. In our case, it may be something else, but we need to love by serving.