 This course is concerned. We have completed the first John, the five chapters in the last class we've gone through second John. So today we will touch on third John. We'll do a quick recap of second John and then the third John today. We'll see how it goes. If we don't complete it then we will complete it by next class but by next class definitely we will start off from the the book of John which is one of the Gospel accounts. So I would request somebody to please pray and then we can take this forward. So anyone like to volunteer to pray? Yeah, go ahead. Thank you for this time. Thank you for this time. Thank you for ma'am and all the students. Father God, give your blessing and give your wisdom and knowledge. Father God, that we are going to study. Father God, the John, the third, Father God. Father God, give your revelation more. Father God, an understanding. Father God, take upcoming time. Father God, thank you Father God for everything. Almighty Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Thank you. Thank you for praying today. So we will have a quick look at the second John, the book of second John and I know in the last class we covered it but then you know just a recap. So John is writing, Apostam is writing to an elect or elect is usually you know somebody who's in a position of leadership and authority and I told you that it's a lady that he's actually addressing this letter to and in this episode he doesn't give his name. So he just introduces himself as the elder. I told you generally in Paul's writings Paul used to give that you know Paul and Apostle Paul and Apostle and God servant of Christ. So the letters would begin that way because sometimes the letters would be very long and so having the name at the end of it would you know delay the reader from knowing who has written it. So they would write it up front in the beginning of the letter. So here John is just saying the elder okay but we know as these books have been studied I told you when we started off that a lot of the disciples of John and those who had been mentored by the disciples of John they all gave witness to the fact that this was written by Apostle John and he probably wrote it to the churches in the region. There were seven specific churches that you know he addressed the book of Revelation to as well. So there seems to be a kind of an apostolic oversight over these churches. So in these three letters he's writing to these churches these communities and it seems like this particular episode is written to one such community where there is an elder who's a lady and so or elect he calls her elect lady and he writes to her and he uses himself as the elder okay so as one of those spiritual leaders of the community and then there are some common themes which we saw which are the repetitions from one John. So things like you know he says that some of the people are walking in the truth so he encourages people to walk in the truth. Now truth is a key thing that John holds on to you will also see this in the gospel of John and here he comes back to the subject of walk in the truth and you know the truth is Christ and we as believers we not only profess the truth but we also have to live by the truth. So we see that here now he encourages the believers to live in the truth and he also is happy he notices that there are people who are walking in the truth so he says okay I'm so happy that you know your children are walking in the truth and by this by children walking in the truth he probably was referring to you know the believers in the church okay overseen by this elect lady and then he continues and he says that you know when we say that we love God it's about loving one another that again is a repetitive team that comes through then he says walk according to his commandments remember earlier in one John he said that if we say that we love God we must keep his commandments so again a repetition about the life that needs to be lived and not just the faith that needs to be professed then again another very important theme here he says you know there are a lot of deceivers who have gone into the world and they don't confess Jesus as coming in the flesh and I've told you repeatedly that during their times there was Gnosticism where they did not deny the deity of Christ but they denied the humanity of Christ both of which you know if you deny either of it Christ Jesus is not Christ so it was acute it was kind of targeting the fact that Jesus was Christ so he is confirming and he's saying look Jesus is the Christ but there are people who teach that he was never really fully a man and he talks about the spirit of the Antichrist, deception, deceiver and so he encourages the believers you see in a believer's life the important thing is to start well but more importantly to finish well so he says that if you're not going to take care if you're not going to be careful look to yourselves he says okay so look to yourselves really be careful be careful to preserve the faith to preserve the testimony to preserve you know your relationship with God and your relationship with people so basically your faith right and everything that makes up your faith from doctrine to your conduct to your character to everything so he says look to yourselves why because you don't want to use those things because if we are careless you see there are all the dangers in the world okay there are shifting standards and now he is emphasizing deception and he says that you have worked right in our journey with the Lord we have come a long distance so he says you have worked for these things and if you will take care right or you will be careful then you will receive a full reward so again what a encouragement that for the believers reminding them you know keep pressing on in this journey because God has a reward for us you know how Hebrews tells us that when what God is a reward of those who diligently seek Him okay so Hebrews 116 so we have a reward and with that he's encouraging the believer in saying that you know don't let go of your faith don't listen to deceivers and then he comes back right and he says that if you're finding the people who are deceived in this manner quite strictly he says he says that do not receive him into your house not greet him because John knows how dangerous this is who is the center of our faith who is the center of our faith who is the center yes Jesus is the center so if that is a doctrine which says that Jesus Christ is not God then is that dangerous or not yes it is very very dangerous and John realizes the danger of this and so you find him wanting the believer he just doesn't say don't listen to such people but he goes to the extent of saying don't receive that person into your house don't greet him okay so it is that dangerous we cannot afford the foundations of our faith to shake so when you when you smell deception don't go in that direction okay so be careful because we don't want to lose what we have remember that Matthew 25 parable where you have the five virgins who have the oil and the five who don't have the bridegroom comes in the night and then what happens you know the ones who don't have they come asking the ones who have it now the ones who have it lose what they have how will they go with the bridegroom so they say are we are so sorry we can't give it to you because there was enough time given for everyone to gain their own oint okay or that would be our intimacy with God develop that intimacy develop that relationship with God and that relationship with God should never be compromised that is the primary thing and John you know they call him the apostle of love because you write so much about you know the love of God for us and the way we should love him back the way we should love one another the apostle of love and here you see that apostle of love is very strictly saying don't even call that person to your house don't greet him so we might ask the apostle where is your love apostle John how can you be so strict how can you be so rude okay but even in this there is a love that apostle John is talking about and that love is to preserve the faith of the believer and you know I'm sure that you know apostle must have been stuck with them much about how to take care of such an individual how to lead them to Christ but once they have gone way beyond okay and they have become deceivers he's saying you know it is now time to protect yourself so don't even go close to that person and he says for you greets him shares in his evil deeds so that bad if we interact with this kind of a person and we ignore that they are denying Jesus as Christ he says what are we doing we are sharing in his evil deeds okay so we want we want and in the last days we have to be wrong we have to be very careful the reason is people may be spreading falsehood out there but we don't want to be deceived ourselves we have to reach the finish line and then we reach the finish line we are told there is a full reward don't miss out on your full reward so he's encouraging the believers live like this live in the truth follow his commands love one another stay away from deceivers hold on to your faith and then he closes up the this letter to the elect lady and he seems to be a proponent of meeting people in person as compared to writing a letter so he says look I have written these things to you and I have you know many other things to write to you but I don't want to write this on like you know the team can those days and he says it is better I hope to come to you and speak face to face that our joy may be full you know the way we feel right online classes but this is the anyway somewhat face to face however you know John was the kind he wanted the in-person experience on campus experience of meeting the community so he says you know this charge group I'd rather see you in person and then there are other issues also which I want to talk about many things which are on my heart which I want to share with you and he just closes it and he says the children of your elect sister greet you so it seems like there was another community of believers and he says your elect sister okay elect sister could be referring to another leader okay another leader or it could be another church but that's kind of the reference that he has here so he closes off with a greeting and some may ask the question why isn't Apostle John putting the name of these elect people or why isn't he writing his own name clearly John the Apostle he could have done that isn't it but seems like these were great times of persecution we have seen how he has mentioned time and again about the spirit of the Antichrist the Antichrist deceivers so within the church and outside the church there seems to be a lot of turmoil and there is persecution so it is possible that he was trying to protect himself he was trying to protect the people that he was writing to and that is why we don't know the names of the people who he is writing to and here in this especially in this episode or second John so yeah so that is about second John and if this is all right then we can move on to third John is that okay everyone or anything that you you want to discuss ask yeah it's okay it's uh it's very simple right to understand okay it's okay it's okay look aren't they yeah so i think we've got a good um hang of uh one John and second John and we're in a good position to move on to third John okay wonderful all right so as we have seen there are two letters which John wrote and this is the third letter which he's writing to the people and let us see who he's writing this to what are the feeds that he's covering uh in this letter uh and obviously uh this is also written during the time of persecution so you know we may not see uh a lot of details in here so he starts off again hiding his name but uh he writes the name of the individual uh to whom this is addressed so he says the elder that is himself he's introduced himself as the elder uh then he says to the beloved gays who i love in truth okay so uh we find here that there is a gays who seems to be the leader of this community of churches uh he says beloved gays so there is a good relationship that he has with this individual and the person gays is um uh seen in the book of acts in a couple of places acts 1920 you would find a reference to a person called gays again Paul refers to gays in first corinthians one uh and verse 14 and then again roman 16 and verse 23 now are all these gays is the same not very sure of it however uh uh john is writing to a leader by the name of gays so he writes to this person and uh he continues his greeting he says whom i love in truth uh what does that mean i love in truth what would be your understanding of that your own words your own explanation look it up and share with me maybe in the next class next seven next week okay can do some research look it up in different translations look it up in your esau maybe you know read a few commentaries and let me know what it might mean to love somebody in the truth and here john is saying that you know some my beloved gays whom i love in the truth okay now uh the greeting sort of continues and he says beloved i pray that you may prosper he's writing to gays but i'm sure it's extended the blessing the greeting is extended to this community he says i pray that you may prosper meaning the community also may prosper in all things and be in help just as your soul prosper so uh this verse it's a greeting and this is like saying shalom uh in hebrew the word shalom refers to wholeness it refers to bless being blessed spirit soul and body so uh pronouncing shalom you know when they pronounce shalom over uh each other when the priest pronounce it over the people it's like saying you know the lord bless you and keep you make a space shine upon you it's a blessing which is spoken over them in incompleteness so john is extended a greeting of blessing here and he says that uh i want you to be blessed in all things and he uses the term prosper but you know we know what it means it's not just like a material kind of uh increase but it has to do with the fullness the abundance of god is a spirit and he refers to sorry soul and he also refers to help that you may prosper in everything in everything in your soul soul has to do with mind will emotions okay uh it is important for god that we are strong in every way so should uh i'd be strong mentally emotionally uh you know in my decision making capacity yes internally god wants us to be blessed so if there is anything affecting our health or the health of our soul god is concerned about it and we know that uh jesus has not only paid the price for our physical healing but he has also paid the price for our emotional our soulish wealth so he says just as your soul transfers so because jesus has paid the price for our soul we can be whole in uh you know in our uh soul man so you know i can go into the depths of that but i'm just trying to avoid doing that uh and you are all aware you're all aware we have done this earlier in the human soul we have a course on that so uh it is important for a person's soul also to be prosperous and of course you know john adds health here and he says that you may be in health just as your soul prosperous so uh he the way this has been put is that the internal health is important and hopefully that will reflect okay on to our external health so uh he has jump over alpha healing our soul as well as our bodies so this is the blessing that john pronounces over the people then he says for a just greatly when brethren came and testified of the truth that is in you just as you walk in the truth i have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in the good so it's a water of exhortation earlier in the previous episode as well remember he told the electric lady i'm so happy that your children are walking in the truth or the church people are living the truth of god here again he says that uh there is testimony i've heard that people in your community they are good people they are following the word of god they're keeping the commandments okay and uh and how does it affect the leader to know that people are actually living out the truth it makes the leader joyful so he says i have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth so this seems to be a real father enjoy the uh uh truthfulness of his children and he is proud that whatever has been imparted to the people whatever has been taught to the people uh is of good use and the people are actually living out the truth of god's word so uh these are the blessings that he speaks over the people and uh you know he is uh happy about this particular community now let's go ahead and see what other teams he is going to cover so we are at verse eight now and he says we love it uh you do faithfully whatever you do for the brethren and the strangers who have worn witness of your love before the church so again exhortation it seems like this is a good community and he's saying that you people you are sincere whatever you do not just for the people among you but that's where the early churches you refer to the believers as brethren so you do for the brethren and for the strangers so not just for the believers community but for the outsiders as well where you are um faithful you are sincere okay uh and you have borne witness of your love before the church so it talks about a very you know how do i like just think about it for any leader this would be incredible to have people who have heard the truth they are walking in the truth and they are uh sincere in the ministry which they uh you know which they put out so John is encouraged about this community and he's encouraging that community starting off with you know great words that will bless them then he says if you send them forward on their journey in a manner worthy of God you will do well because they went forth for his namesake taking nothing from the Gentiles so he's talking about visitors he's talking about um travelers who are serving God and in those times whenever people used to go doing the work of the ministry like if you study about God and um these teammates uh they would just go and uh stay with some believer in a given city okay so uh the hospitable family would take care of them uh and wherever possible of course you know Paul was a tent maker so he used to do his bit to to um survive in in that place but in general there would be people who would open up their homes and open up you know um open up their hearts be ready to give up their resources to take care of those who are visiting and particularly for those he says went forth for his namesake so you know people who go and preach people who do the ministry people who serve you know in any way that God's called him to serve so uh towards kind of people he says that uh there are those who are traveling and when you take care of such people you will do well so he's talking about hospitality when you uh are hospitable it's a good thing and in those times it seems like they were not taking anything from the gentiles so within the community of believers the resources were distributed the resources were um given up to those who were in need so it's a loving community okay and people were in need so he's encouraging hospitality the reasons we therefore ought to receive such that we may become fellow workers for the truth so again his way of talking is like saying that when we profess the truth it should be seen in our lives so in addition to everything else that he has already mentioned in one jar second jar he is talking here about hospitality he says there are people who are serving God and they are not getting any resources you know from the world out there he says gentiles or uh those who don't know about the kingdom of God we are the ones who have to take care of them so you will do well to take care of God's people so receive such people and he says when we do that what do we become you know this term uh just like Paul you know Paul was a person who engaged in teamwork and wherever he went there were people serving alongside Paul in many places he uh you know that was to them as fellow workers uh you know in Christ similarly John is also saying that when we are hospitable to those who are serving God we do become fellow workers for the truth so it's like saying uh you and I may not go and preach but when we help the person who is serving God what are we doing we are fellow workers we are sharing the truth but we are also helping in serving sharing the truth of God's will so there's a great encouragement for hospitality and now he's addressing a particular person okay um and he brings up the name of this individual he says I wrote to the church but diatriphus so he's mentioned about this man who loves to have the preeminence of them does not receive us so he spoke about hospitality and now he's referring to an individual who himself does not um receive this word about hospitality and he says he seems to be somebody who wants or he says loves to have preeminence okay so preeminence is uh like prominence in a place like you want to be noticed you want to be um uh you know like you want to be the center of attraction you want to be that person uh you know who everybody else is talking about so preeminence prominence so diatriphus seems to be an individual who loves fame okay and he is not receiving the instruction of john and thereby he says he does not receive us or he is also the kind who um is not hospitable okay neither is he giving any value to the apostle's words or is he giving uh showing his faithfulness, sincerity through hospitality so he says therefore if I come I will call to my deeds which he does writing against us with malicious words so it seems like there was an individual who went deep into pride okay and uh we have talked about this earlier about how pride can lead lead to self deception how pride can lead to a place in in an individual's life where they think they're doing right but you know they're actually uh going against god and they are dishonoring the people of god and in his pride what did this diatriphus end up doing john has already said he's not listening to the words he's not doing uh the work of hospitality and now he says you know he is creating damage so pride makes us do things like that isn't it he says writing against us with malicious words so diatriphus was speaking in of apostle john and maybe some of the co-workers also and I don't know whether diatriphus realized that apostle john knows but apostle john knew to the extent that in all the loving words that he wrote the apostle of love has spoken an individual's name to diatriphus so sometimes you wonder is it loving to uh publicly disgrace an individual okay like this where there is a an accusation being put on diatriphus he's he likes faith he doesn't uh listen to our words he's not hospitable and you know the things that he does these are misdeeds includes intrusive of accusing the apostle and his co-workers so is it okay to publicly uh talk about somebody's mistake that's my question to you what do you think any dealer who's doing wrong should we stand at the pulpit and say oh you know uh so and so okay let's talk to the person john john is like this be careful of john would we do that or if we are doing it what is the right context okay this is definitely not from the pulpit but how would you address it in that case let's say someone is uh you know doing something wrong how would you address it how would you deal with that negative person in the congregation uh sometimes uh the person is we can speak to a person individually but if the person is a problem headache for the whole congregation without mentioning the name we can uh tell what is the problem we're creating that so we can tell the congregation to avoid that problem so indirectly that person is doing something but we are not uh uh choking that person but what is the issue we are explaining but we are uh suggesting the congregation to stay away from that kind of things like that we can do that for us okay okay uh okay thank you thank you Thomas for sharing that I just want to know the thoughts of others as well what do you think there's somebody who is doing something wrong uh should we address it from the pulpit what do the others mean no ma'am personally we can sit with them and leave them to write with but not uh like like so like uh and share to other person like third party only two between okay okay okay so you're gonna say that we have to deal with it uh with that person not to bring it up before others okay uh how about the others because uh I'm sure all of you are going to step into the ministry right so that's why I'm asking you how should we deal with it do you know of any scriptures that will help us in this situation ma'am can you hear me right yes yes yes we should not do uh in the congregation but uh I I'm talking practically if we do like this talking in uh talking about somebody in our congregation so others will also think like if uh if I do like this uh in some other days next time he will tell my name also so yeah yeah uh some people may what uh they will go away from the church so we should not do that okay okay okay fine fine sure thank you for sharing your opinion here and uh Dave says he or she is taking believers away from that faith then we should uh address from the pulpit uh yeah Kiran uh go ahead Kiran yes ma'am once uh just want to say just one minute once uh here in my church it happened many times uh my uh over here like uh with uh David said the that person and they used to give like a one and two three times to like improve and something different and if they will not understand then they used to take like meeting and then after they used to say to everyone this this happening so we are so be careful you know this is mistake and the other leaders and other the youth they are coming they will learn like a bad manners and also yeah sure sure Kiran sure so uh yeah so she is talking about warning them talking to them right initially yes yes ma'am okay fine fine all right so uh you see we can go back to Matthew chapter 18 okay I will post some um yeah I'll post a scripture here in our chat okay Aaron says we might hurt their sentiment too okay yeah you are right so we have to be careful about that okay so here is it we got it in some simple version so Matthew 18 verse 15 through 17 um Thomas can you please read it if you can see the chat okay no worry I'll I'll quickly read it for us it says if your brother sister sins go and point out their fault just between the two of you if they listen to you you have won them over but if they will not listen take one or two others along so that every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses if they still refuse to listen tell it to the church and if they refuse to listen even to the church treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector so uh I think there's a clear progression isn't it so basically there is a way of dealing with people who are sitting in the church they are doing wrong and first step is we have to talk to them personally so here John has brought out the name and he said oh diet rufus so obviously the apostle of love knows this progress and hopefully you know he and the elder gays and others would have engaged in this kind of interaction with diet rufus so meet the person in private talk to them tell them they said if they listen well and good if they don't listen you take one or two more of your elders okay not to intimidate the person but you know you all are witnesses to the fact that you're speaking the truth to this individual so you speak to that person hopefully he will correct himself right if he doesn't correct himself then so there is a stage you can't just go directly tell the whole church this is the problem no many chances have to be given to this individual so one chance second chance third chance what happens he's not listening so to those three others also if they still refuse to listen then you can tell the church why tell it to the church the way they said you know there are certain sins which you cannot like condom okay because it can spread like some you know this can spread like a disease within the church so we have to be careful if we don't deal with it if we just try to hide it and say it's okay only some people are saying that Jesus is not Christ what will happen nothing will happen but these kind of things will cause the entire church to get polluted or there's some division you know in the church Paul addressed a man who was in a sexual sin okay so things like this they have to be addressed if they are not addressed then it can be dangerous for the entire church and that is the reason you know in this case we find Apostle John directly dealing with this man called Beatrice it seems like he's somebody who's not willing to change he's set in his proud ways to the extent that he is speaking malicious words or in other words you know he's accusing wrong things accusing of wrong things even though things about the apostle okay and that is the reason because if this man he's not spoken about he might corrupt the faith of other believers and that is what Apostle John had to mention and you know there are other scriptures also that clearly command us that you know if there are people who cause divisions right that they must you must deal with them in a public way so this is Romans 16 17 I will just read the verses for us I urge you brethren not those who cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which you learn and avoid them so that basically you avoid such people and in 2nd Timothy 4 Paul writes verses 14 and 15 Alexander the coppersmith did me much harm so Paul is also publicly putting somebody's name there Alexander the coppersmith he did much harm to me may the Lord repay him according to his works you also must be aware of him for he has greatly resisted our words so there were these two people because of their attitudes which they were unwilling to correct I'm sure after intervention they were unwilling to change and that is the reason the apostles were addressing them by name and warning the other people and saying you know please you know stay away from such people so he says he this person is not practicing hospitality okay beloved do not imitate what is evil but what is good so he says you don't be like that in Christmas he's not a good example of a believer but you be a hospitable person there are all these traveling ministers why don't you give them space when you are serving them in whatever capacity that you can who are actually admiring together in the truth of God's work then he says he who does good is of God but he who does evil has not seen God so you see John the apostle he is about practical faith if you say I love God and you cannot love your brother your sister whom you see God you cannot see you know what kind of a faith are you practicing so he's saying show me the proof show me the action then I will tell you whether you have the proof or not and even James said that we can say I have faith but if there are no actions then there is no connection okay that's a very unfortunate way of living a believing life only words no action okay so he who does good is of God he is kind of submit up like that so we say we are born of God right we belong to God we are in Christ Jesus but what should that person be doing do good so those who are born of God you know we said we overcome the world this is our victory even our faith all the you know powerful verses there but in lifestyle he who does good is of God but he who does evil he has not seen God okay so another thing you notice here remember John was saying fellowship our fellowship is with the father the son holy spirit and he said that the life of the God yet flows through us so if we are connected with the Godhead or if we have seen the Godhead the goodness that comes from there will flow out of the life so our knowledge of God also is very very important so if you don't know and then I say no it's not just knowing the verses knowing you know how to pray knowing okay how to do this how to do all the spiritual activities those activities must help us have a real work with the Lord so when we know God in a deep way in an intimate way we are able to do good but when we don't know the nature of God it becomes difficult because we don't have a standard God is good remember he said this also because he is you be he is the truth you walk in the truth so when we know God that flows out of our life so he is leaving a word of encouragement for the believers and he's saying look don't be like the evil doers and especially diet rivers who is not a hospitable individual okay so we will pick up from this point right after the break so let's go ahead let's take a tentative break and we'll come back we will meet at 10 o'clock okay and resume this lecture all right okay class see you soon thank you