Support These Types of People - 3 John

3 John 1:8 (ESV Strong's)
Therefore we ought to support people like these, that we may be fellow workers for the truth.

Support People Like These

The book of Third John is a short letter to a church, someplace in Asia Minor.  We have no idea the exact location.   We have to remember, for all three of John’s letters, that the church was under great persecution at the time.   There was little doubt that a letter to an exact location would carry great risks.   However, we do know that John was writing to a church that had three individuals as part of their body:

1. Gauls - a beloved man who seems to be doing great things.

2. Diotrephes - a man who was doing evil things and even tried to stop other church members from doing good things.

3. Demetrius - another good man who had a great reputation in the church and was to be honored.

There is another group mentioned, however, not by name.  This is a group of “traveling” ministers who are doing the work of teaching the Gospel to various churches.    We know three things about them:

1. They have gone out to testify of the Gospel.

2. They are “strangers” to the church - which means no one knows them.

3. They are living off the offerings of ONLY the church and taking nothing from Gentile sources ... they are only supported by the Body of Christ; the Church.

John tells us that these are those we should consider to support.   It is intriguing the mindset of “taking nothing of the Gentiles.”    In our society today we see many churches teaming up with the world’s system to practice some work of the Gospel; done exclusively by the church, but co-funded by the “Gentiles.”    It is uncertain how that might work in the first century church, but John commends these teachers of the Gospel for relying exclusively on the believers they were teaching.    These, John says, at the type of people we should “support.”    God has outlined for us what and who He wants honored.   Since we get what we honor, we might want to follow this pattern in our own churches today.   When we honor those who, by faith, are supported by the Church, we will get more like them to go out and present the Gospel.