The writer's goal in penning this epistle was to encourage and strengthen the faith of his Jewish Christian audience. They'd suffered hardship and deprivation and were being ostracized by their Jewish countrymen who accused them of forsaking the true God and His Torah by following a false messiah. They needed to be assured that Jesus is indeed God's Messiah. But even more importantly, they needed to understand that the totality of Israel's covenant relationship with God had been fulfilled and transformed in Him. Mosaic Judaism had served its role in God's purposes, and there was nothing to return to. The first proof of this is Jesus' supremacy as God's ultimate and final prophet.

The epistle to the Hebrews is arguably the most magnificent treatment of Jesus the Messiah in the entire New Testament. For the writer traced out his portrait of Him against the sweeping background of Israel's history and life with God. In that way, he brought into sharp focus what the Old Testament prophets only sketched in rough outline, which is that Israel and all of the particulars of its covenant life were destined by God to find their fulfillment and ultimate meaning in His Messiah. This insight into Jesus the Messiah brings great reward to the reader, but also a formidable challenge, for it demands that he be familiar with the Old Testament as it tells the story of Israel, the Abrahamic people, chosen to bring God's blessing to all the earth's families.

John immediately followed his exhortation to Gaius with a commendation of a man named Demetrius. John gave no explanation, but it seems this man was soon to pay a visit to the community of believers of which Gaius was a part, and John wanted to be sure he received the welcome and provision he deserved.

After commending and exhorting Gaius, John turned his attention to a man named Diotrephes. But he wasn't moving on to a different topic. Rather, Diotrephes was at the center of John's reason for writing. John wrote to Gaius to encourage and exhort him regarding hospitality toward the brethren, but with a view toward it providing a corrective to Diotrephes' error until he could come and address it in person.

Unlike the first two epistles, Third John was written to a particular individual named Gaius. And John wrote to him as a beloved brother, both to commend him for his loving, faithful hospitality toward Christ's saints, and to exhort him to continue in that practice as an example to his fellow Christians.

John's third epistle closely corresponds to his second one. Both speak to the Christian obligation to -walk in truth,- and both treat that -walk- as consisting in faith and love. But whereas Second John focused on the need to guard Christ's Church from antichrist influences working their way into it, Third John addresses the problem of brothers being kept out of the Church. Though the issues were very different, the answer was the same- Christ's saints must -walk in the truth,- which involves -faith working through love.-

John's closing provides a bookend with his opening greeting. For both point to John's central theme of the Christian's new identity in Christ and the relationships that result from it. Christians are true children of God, and therefore brothers and sisters who share in Christ's life and are bound together in faith and love. This is who they are, and this informs their obligation to -walk in truth.-

John's focus in his second epistle is the Christian's responsibility to -walk in truth,- which is to live out one's life in Jesus authentically and with integrity. He treated this responsibility in terms of the two obligations of love and faith - specifically, love for the brethren and faithfulness in holding fast to the truth of Jesus the Messiah. Most importantly, John showed that such love and faith are inseparable- faith works through love, and love is the ministration of the truth that faith embraces and upholds.

-Walking in truth- is the central theme of John's second epistle, even as it was his primary concern and motive in writing. John was zealous for his children in the faith to walk in the truth as it is in Jesus the Messiah, and this involves living a life of love and faith. This message examines the obligation of love - specifically here, love for one's brothers and sisters in Christ.