Be Outward In Your Faith & Hospitality
Word-Of-The-Day: ‘(2) Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well. (3) It gave me great joy when some believers came and testified about your faithfulness to the truth, telling how you continue to walk in it.’ (3 John 1:2-3)
3 John is the shortest book in the Bible with 14 or 15 verses (depending on the version, verses 14 and 15 in several are combined), and just over 210 words (again varying slightly in count depending on the version). It is a ‘pep talk’ that the Apostle John provides to his friend Gaius due to Gaius’ hospitality and love shown to Believers who he did not know, unlike a another ‘Christian’, Diotrephes, who is running his church as an ‘exclusive membership’ and chases the outside Believers out (3 John 1:9-10).
The key to Gaius’ love to others, especially his fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, is his Faithfulness in Christ. His wisdom comes from his walk; Gaius understands that He is not walking with Jesus out of fear or compulsion but out of desire to be like Christ. John sees this in Gaius, and recognizes him in this brief letter and encourages him to continue to imitate Jesus. (John says he would have written more but didn’t want to waste ink or paper – he may have been an Apostle but he was also quite frugal, apparently.)
The opposite is true of Diotrephes, who John calls out. He identifies with Christ, but is going against the Spirit by being inhospitable to those outside of his ‘social circle’. It is understandable to be defensive with those who you are in fellowship with, but that cannot override the responsibility a Believer has in being hospitable to those outside of it. In many ways, Diotrephes represents the ‘dead church’, the church that is inward-focused, never reaching out to others. Such a church can never grow as it never seeks to find and add members to its collective, or form a network of fellow churches to help each other.
Gaius represents the ‘living church’, which is outward-focused. Gaius reached out to these strangers, who happened to be Believers, but I suspect he would also help those who were not. Going into a city, travelers would not necessarily know anyone in particular but they likely were given a name of a representative of a particular like-minded group, or the name of the group itself. In the late 19th century into the early 20th century, it was common for men traveling across the US and Europe to be told to stop into the YMCA (which stood for Young Men’s Christian Association) where they could rest for an evening, fellowship with Christians evangelically, and in some be given a meal before departing.
It was a YMCA mission to provide the Gospel to those may not have heard it, though today is has strayed from that mission. Gaius was possibly the early Christian version of the old 19th-century YMCA; his name was given to these travelers, who came as strangers to him but left in fellowship and friendship as he provided hospitality to them, I am certain he also provided the Gospel message with his hospitality.
May we be Faithful and follow the example of Gaius with others who we encounter, and reject the leanings of Diotrephes, who shut his church’s doors when people needed to come in.
