A testimonial and its rejection

The elder to the beloved Gaius. The opening, the prayer for Gaius' physical and spiritual health, the expression of pleasure at news recently received: all these can be paralleled in numerous private letters in Greek which have been preserved on papyrus in the sands of Egypt. The author is writing exactly as people frequently wrote to their friends in the ancient world. At the same time he is the elder, a senior and distinguished Christian (see above on 2 John 1); and he is writing to one whom he calls one of his children, that is (if we may assume that he uses this figure of speech the way Paul does), to a man whom he converted to Christianity himself or who once belonged to his flock. He uses a term in his greeting which, as in English, may be entirely conventional (meaning ‘truly’) but which evidently has a particular Christian resonance for him: in truth.

The writer is in touch with some fellow Christians (friends) who have been making a missionary journey and who depend for their sustenance (as was normal in the church), not on the non-believers to whom they may have been preaching, but on the hospitality of other Christians. Gaius has been host to some of these, and has treated them so well that the report of it has come back to the elder.