3 John 13-14-The Meaning of the Term 'Friends' in John's Final Greeting (Doctrinal Bible Church in Huntsville, Alabama)
Doctrinal Bible Church
Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom
Sunday May 14, 2023
Third John: Third John 13-14-The Meaning of the Term “Friends” in John’s Final Greeting
Lesson # 10
3 John 14 I hope to see you soon, and we will talk face to face. Peace to you. The friends here send their greetings. Greet the friends there by name. (NIV84)
3 John 14 Instead, I am absolutely certain and confidently expect to see you very soon, that is, to speak face to face. May peace continue to exist in you. The friends give their regards to you. Please, you yourself give regards to the friends individually. (Pastor’s translation)
The term “friends” speaks of Christian fellowship.
As we noted, John considered his friends to be those who were obedient to his apostolic teaching, however, Diotrephes was not a friend and he was a brother in Christ but not a friend because of his disobedience.
This was not a personal problem that John had with Diotrephes since disobedience to his apostolic teaching constituted disobedience to the Holy Spirit, the Lord Jesus Christ and the God the Father and John’s instructions to support itinerant teachers and evangelists and their families was the Father’s will.
The Spirit communicated the Father’s will through John’s teaching.
The support of these traveling teachers and evangelists and their families would be in obedient to the Lord Jesus Christ’s command to love one another.
Thus, Diotrephes’ disobedience to his apostolic teaching was in fact opposition to the Father’s will and in disobedience to the Lord Jesus Christ’s command to love one another and in disobedience to the Holy Spirit who communicated the Father’s will through John’s ministry.
Those whom John’s calls friends were obedient to the Father’s will, the Lord’s command to love one another and the Spirit’s voice who was speaking through the apostle John.
The term “friends” thus indicates that these Christians were experiencing fellowship not only with John but also with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Today, in the twenty-first century many Christians do not have a biblical understanding of the concept of “fellowship.”
The Scriptures teach that Christian fellowship which is biblical has two directions: (1) Vertical: God (2) Horizontal: Body of Christ.
Today, I want to emphasize the horizontal aspect of Christians fellowship because when John employs the term “friends” in 3 John 14, he is speaking of this.
A study of two word groups (koinōnia [κοινωνία] and metochos [μέτοχος] that are employed in the Greek New Testament to denote the concept of fellowship, express four related and essential elements that describe what fellowship involves.
There are four critical concepts that are derived from these two meanings according to New Testament usage.
The New Testament usage according to sentence construction refers to:
(1) the thing shared in common in some way by all parties involved as relationships, blessings or burdens, privileges, or responsibilities (all believers in Christ share many things in common);
(2) the person(s) doing the sharing with others;
(3) the person(s) with whom there is sharing; and
(4) an abstract quality of the concept of fellowship, with no object, used alone as in Acts 2:42.
Based on the meanings and uses of these words, four key ideas develop that are important if we are to grasp the richness the New Testament’s teaching on “fellowship.”
If we understand these four concepts we will begin to have a grasp of the doctrine of fellowship and its implications and demands on our lives.
Since fellowship is extremely important and forms an essential foundation for understanding the ministry we are to have with one another, let’s look at these four main concepts of New Testament fellowship.
Christian Fellowship denotes the following concepts:
(1) Relationship with Christ: We are all permanently united together by the common (eternal) life that we share as a result of regeneration and the baptism of the Spirit (Acts 2:42; 1 C. 1:9; 1 Jn. 1:3).
(2) Partnership: We are to work together for a common purpose to obtain common objectives for the glory of God and the gospel of Jesus Christ (cf. Phil 1:27; Phlp. 1:5; Gal. 2:9; Heb. 1:9).
(3) Companionship: We are to communicate with one another and have fellowship with one another sharing with one another the things (viewpoint and thinking) of Christ (Acts. 2:42; Heb. 10:25; 2 Tim. 2:2; 1 Thess. 5:11; Rom. 1:11-12; 2 Tim. 2:2; 1 Thess. 5:11; Philem. 6).
(4) Stewardship: We must recognize that all we have belongs to the Lord and has been given to us as trusts from God to invest for His purposes.
An English dictionary can shed a lot of light on the Bible if we would use it in our Bible study.
The translators chose English words according to their real and exact meanings.
When we study our Bibles, we assume we understand the full significance of a word, but often our ideas are very incomplete and this is particularly true of the word “fellowship.”
Webster’s English dictionary can add to our understanding of the concept of fellowship.
They provide the following definitions for the word “fellowship:
(1) companionship, company, associate (vb.)
(2) the community of interest, activity, feeling or experience, i.e., a unified body of people of equal rank sharing in common interests, goals, and characteristics, etc.;
(3) partnership, membership (an obsolete usage but an important one. It shows what has happened to our ideas of fellowship).
There are three key ideas that come out of this:
(1) Fellowship means being a part of a group, a body of people and is opposed to isolation, solitude, loneliness, and our present-day independent kind of individualism.
(2) Fellowship means having or sharing with others certain things in common such as interest, goals, feelings, beliefs, activities, labor, privileges and responsibilities, experiences, and concerns.
(3) Fellowship can mean a partnership that involves working together and caring for one another as a company of people, like a company of soldiers or members of a family.