Third Epistle of John

Second John has just 13 verses.

Third John has one more verse, but fewer words.

The book of Jude, only 25 verses.

Some books of the Bible are very long.

And then about 100 years after those, we have Codex Alexandrinus and Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus, bound volumes of the New Testament.

And there are also 5th century codices like Codex Washingtonensis that has the four Gospels, or Codex Bese, which has the four Gospels and also the Book of Acts, with some gaps, along with a fragment of 3 John.

So for those people who say, oh, but the Bible could have accumulated many errors over the thousands of years that it was transmitted.

Well, no, because we have documents that are only within a few hundred years of when the text was first written.

That your life will be an overall reflection of the quality of life.

of your spiritual life the quality of your soulical health the bible says it in third john john has only one chapter the third third john one now and verse two it says beloved i wish above all things are we still together that ye prosper And be in help.

Third John.

I wish above all things.

Above what? I wish above your prospering financially.

1 Timothy 3 and 3 John.

1 Timothy chapter 3 and then the book of 3 John.

Once you get there, you've only got one option as far as chapters.

It's a one chapter book.

And according to 1 Timothy 3, far too often the very same thing happens in church.

where a man seeks to take the place that only Christ deserves or a group of men seek to take the place that only Christ deserves or a set of teachings is substituted in the place of Jesus Christ and given prominence and given authority that belong only to the one who is the head of the church.

Now look at 3 John in chapter number 1 because there was an example of this in Scripture in the early church in the first century but it's played out over and over and over again.

Throughout the church's history, 3 John 1, verse number 9, see if you recognize this name.

Like, it was women who ran the churches in the New Testament times, right? We have Lydia, we have Nympha, we have the church that met in, I think it was Mark's mother's home.

Third John was written to the esteemed lady who we think was just a leader of a church, some biblical scholars think, but you have all of these women across the areas where the missionaries went, and they were leading these churches, and they were the ones who were seeding into that first generation of Christians.

Yeah.

And we don't know if any of them are mothers or not.

You have James, written by James.

You have First John, Second John, Third John, written by John.

Do you know? Uh, what again do we have? And the rest.

But of, of all Paul's 13 epistles, I think they're 13, if I'm not mistaken, of all his 13 epistles, there isn't [laughs] there is none of them that, um, there's none of his epistles that actually talks, um, that, you know, that is named after his name.

I mean, we can always say, oh, when you get to church, you wanna read the Bible, you say, "Okay, so today we're going to be reading from the Book of Ninth Paul." [laughs] You'll be reading from the Book of Ninth Paul, chapter five, uh, from verse 13, and then after that we'll go and check out the Book of 12th Paul, uh, chapter four verse one.

You know, [laughs] we could easily do that, right? So th- because there, there's literally, um, the only book of the Bible that has more than, uh, more than three installments, or more than two, two, two installments, let me put, let me call it like that, or, or two series, is John.

Because we have First John, Second John, and Third John.

And in fact, three of those books, I think it's only First John that has more than one chapter, if I'm not mistaken now.