Thursday after the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity Sunday
Posted on October 3, 2024 by under
Scripture: 3 John 2-8 (NKJV)
2 Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers. 3 For I rejoiced greatly when brethren came and testified of the truth that is in you, just as you walk in the truth. 4 I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.
5 Beloved, you do faithfully whatever you do for the brethren and for strangers, 6 who have borne witness of your love before the church. If you send them forward on their journey in a manner worthy of God, you will do well, 7 because they went forth for His name’s sake, taking nothing from the Gentiles. 8 We therefore ought to receive such, that we may become fellow workers for the truth.
Devotion
Truly, as St. John says, there is no greater joy for a parent—including those our Confessions properly call ‘spiritual fathers’—than to hear that even when they are not personally overseeing them, their children walk in the truth!
In the Large Catechism, under the Fourth Commandment, Luther writes of the latter that “those who wish to be called Christians, are under obligation in the sight of God to hold as worthy of double honor, such as attend to the welfare of their souls, so as to manifest kindness and favors towards them, and to provide for them; for this purpose God will grant sufficient means. But here everyone resists and opposes, filled with fear that his body might perish” (Henkel translation). St. John is writing to Gaius, though, who gave such honor and support, matching perfectly the spirit of those who had brought God’s Word to the congregation, as they kept themselves from receiving the support of the ungodly and allowing any to think their message might be compromised.
This is a picture of Christ’s Church functioning properly—in spite of the fact that John will have to write in the next verses about those who would subvert it! It is a congregation in which pastor and people live for one another’s blessing and aren’t afraid that blessing one another will leave anyone lacking. As John prays for continued blessings there, we recall the beauty of the doctrinal unity our Lord prayed for in John 17 (cf. Ps. 133).
Collect: O God, forasmuch as without Thee we are not able to please Thee: Mercifully grant, that Thy Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
