Context No. 461 of 4322 · 3 John
Context · Reflection
3 John 1:1-8: in context
1The elder to Gaius the beloved, whom I love in truth. 2Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be healthy, even as your soul prospers. 3For I rejoiced greatly when brothers came and testified about your truth, even as you walk in truth. 4I have no greater joy than this: to hear about my children walking in truth. 5Beloved, you do a faithful work in whatever you accomplish for those who are brothers and strangers. 6They have testified about your love before the assembly. You will do well to send them forward on their journey in a way worthy of God, 7because for the sake of the Name they went out, taking nothing from the Gentiles. 8We therefore ought to receive such, that we may be fellow workers for the truth.
This little letter opens with a greeting that is warm and ordinary until you look at it closely. The elder writes to his friend Gaius, and prays, Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in good health, even as your soul prospers. It sounds at first like a standard well-wish, hoping a friend is doing well. But notice the standard of comparison he uses. He prays that Gaius's outward life, his circumstances and his physical health, would go as well as his soul is going. The soul is the reference point. The prayer is, in effect, may your body and your affairs be as healthy as your inner life already is.
That is a startling thing to pray once you turn it on yourself, because it quietly assumes something about Gaius that we might be afraid to have assumed about us: that his soul was the flourishing thing, the part of him in the best condition. For Gaius, that assumption was safe. The letter goes on to rejoice that he walks in the truth, that his love has been testified to by others, that he faithfully cares for traveling missionaries who go out for the sake of the Name and take nothing from outsiders, so that supporting them makes him a fellow worker for the truth. His soul really was thriving, and so it was a genuine blessing to pray that the rest of his life would rise to meet it. But for many of us, the same prayer would be alarming. If my body suddenly matched the condition of my soul, if my circumstances rose or fell to the level of my inner life, would I be better off, or considerably worse?
That is the question the greeting quietly puts. We instinctively pray for outward prosperity, for health and success and good circumstances. John prays that the outward would merely catch up to the soul, assuming the soul is the healthiest thing there is. It presses on me: is my soul actually the flourishing part of me, the thing I would gladly have my whole life measured against, or have I let my inner life quietly fall behind everything else, so that I would not want my circumstances to match it at all?