All your efforts for these brothers

David Nettles
Aug 8, 2017 · 2 min read

Beloved, it is a faithful thing you do in all your efforts for these brothers, strangers as they are, who testified to your love before the church. You will do well to send them on their journey in a manner worthy of God. For they have gone out for the sake of the name, accepting nothing from the Gentiles. Therefore we ought to support people like these, that we may be fellow workers for the truth.
3 John 1:5‭-‬8

The words the apostle John uses to describe the contribution and service Gaius should give makes a deep impression on me. He encourages him to send the brothers “in a manner worthy of God”.

John does not specify money or economic resources explicitly, but it seems clear that, through John’s commendation, the Holy Spirit is urging him to make sure these brothers are equipped and prepared, sufficiently and practically provided for in their journey. Gaius, dear to John as a child through the faith, is commended as faithfully walking in step with the truth through his hospitality and generosity, which is shared in love, even as unto the Lord himself. Indeed let everything we do be done, and let every gift we offer, be as unto the Lord Jesus who held not back his own life, who even now has richly supplied us with his various endowments of grace, more than that with the full and overflowing abundance of the Holy Spirit, that the whole of creation might be immersed in the glory of his Name

Even more interesting to me is that these brothers, who gave a good report to the church and the apostle John, are noted as strangers to Gaius. Though they were foreign or previously unknown to him, together with him they knew communion in Christ and His labor for the truth. Though they were strangers, they were familiar in Christ, becoming co-laborers together with God according to the grace given each of them.

You will do well…” writes John. The faith and courage of Gaius to bless them — if for no other reason than for the sake of the Name (for what else would he have to go on?) — is indeed commendable. So, for the sake of the Name these brothers went out in faith, and, likewise for the sake of the Name, Gaius is encouraged to share provision in faith, even “in a manner worthy of God”.

Together we are each sent, John and Gaius and the brothers and us, even as Christ was sent by the Father. Together we are in the world, though not of the world, and for the sake of the Name walking according to and laboring for the truth.

Hendiadys

“For Ezra had set his heart to study the Law of the Lord, and to do it and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel.” Ezra 7:10

David Nettles

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"The words of the wise in quietness should be heeded more than the shouting of a ruler among fools." — Qoheleth

Hendiadys

Hendiadys

“For Ezra had set his heart to study the Law of the Lord, and to do it and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel.” Ezra 7:10

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