- Chapters
- 1
- Verses
- 0
- Where it sits
- The Catholic Epistles
What it is
A private letter from the elder to a man named Gaius, thanking him for putting up travelling missionaries. And then the complaint: a man named Diotrephes, who likes to put himself first, will not receive them, talks nonsense about the elder, and throws out anybody who does welcome them.
There is no doctrine in it. It is a first-century church politics problem, with the names left in.
Known for
Verse 4. Verses 9–10, on Diotrephes.
Where it sits
Same author and same open question as 2 John, and grouped with it among the disputed books. Its brevity and its purely local, non-doctrinal content are the likeliest reason the ancient Church took a while to settle it. It is absent from the Syriac Peshitta, along with 2 Peter, 2 John, Jude and Revelation.
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