← Back to the chapter index

On the Greek text. The Greek throughout follows the standard critical text — uniform in its main wording across the modern editions (NA28, SBLGNT, THGNT), and itself an ancient, public-domain text; NA28's distinctively copyrighted critical apparatus is not reproduced.

The Third Epistle of John — Interlinear: Themes, Outlines & Translation Notes

A consolidated companion to the 3 John data set: the single chapter of 3 John (1) rendered as a six-tier Greek reverse-interlinear (Greek · gloss · parsing/case · syntax · semantic force · lexical note), with per-verse discourse analysis and a chapter argument-outline.

This document gathers the theme, the argument outline (the outline movements authored into each data file), and the translation / textual / exegetical notes (the text_note of each file, reproduced verbatim) — followed by a summary of the major translation and interpretive cruxes that were deliberately annotated rather than silently resolved. It is part of the same project as the other volumes; 3 John is the elder's personal note commending Gaius's hospitality and rebuking the domineering Diotrephes. (Its verses follow the NA28/SBLGNT numbering of 15; the Majority/KJV tradition counts 14.) The Greek follows the standard critical text (uniform across NA28 / SBLGNT / THGNT in its main wording, and itself an ancient public-domain text); the copyrighted NA28 apparatus is not reproduced.

Scope

Chapter Verses Words annotated Outline movements
3 John 1 15 219 5
Total 15 219 5

Each annotated word carries Greek, a working gloss, color-coded grammatical case, parsing (Tense·Voice·Mood·Person·Number + lemma), a Wallace-style syntactic-function label, an aspectual semantic-force label (verbal forms), and a condensed lexical note.

The argument of the book

The major movements of this single-chapter letter, under which the verse-by-verse detail below unfolds. (Section divisions are interpretive; the more common analysis is generally followed.)

Chapter-by-chapter

3 John 1 — ΙΩΑΝΝΟΥ Γ′ Α′

Theme. The elder commends Gaius for his faithful hospitality to traveling missionaries and urges him to keep supporting them 'worthily of God,' over against Diotrephes who loves preeminence and refuses the brethren — bidding Gaius imitate the good (Demetrius) rather than the evil.

Outline.

Translation & textual notes. The Greek follows the standard critical text of 3 John, uniform in its main wording across the modern editions (NA28, SBLGNT, THGNT) and itself an ancient, public-domain text; NA28's distinctively copyrighted critical apparatus is not reproduced. 3 John is a single-chapter letter; its verses are here numbered as '3 John 1' for consistency with the multi-chapter volumes. The critical editions (NA28/SBLGNT) divide the closing greetings into two verses (vv.14–15), yielding 15 verses, whereas the Majority/Byzantine text and the KJV tradition combine them into a single v.14, yielding 14 verses; this edition follows the 15-verse numbering, the verse-count difference being one of versification only, not of text. Verse punctuation is editorial and conventional. Where editions differ trivially (e.g. ἀληθείᾳ / τῇ ἀληθείᾳ in v.1, or the spelling of proper names), the more widely printed reading is given without a marginal note. Exegetically the letter is built around the keyword ἀλήθεια (vv.1, 3 ×2, 4, 8, 12) and the verb of (refused) reception ἐπιδέχομαι (vv.9, 10); the close (vv.13–14) is nearly verbatim with 2 John 12.

Major translation & exegetical cruxes

Where the Greek legitimately admits more than one rendering or reading, the point was flagged in the lexical notes and chapter text_notes rather than decided silently; the more common analysis was generally taken and the alternative noted. The principal cruxes in 3 John:

Reference Crux Discussion
1:6 προπέμψας ἀξίως τοῦ θεοῦ — 'send on worthily of God' προπέμπω is semi-technical for provisioning missionaries for the next stage of travel; ἀξίως τοῦ θεοῦ sets God's own generosity as the standard of the send-off.
1:8 συνεργοὶ … τῇ ἀληθείᾳ — 'fellow workers with the truth' The dative is read as association ('co-workers with the truth,' the truth personified as partner) rather than advantage ('for the truth'); the nuance is flagged.
1:9 ὁ φιλοπρωτεύων — 'who loves to be first' A NT hapax pinpointing Diotrephes' vice (the craving for primacy); the nature of his authority and the prior letter the elder 'wrote to the church' remain debated and are left open.
1:14–15 versification: 14 vs 15 verses NA28/SBLGNT split the closing peace and greetings into vv.14–15 (15 verses total); the Majority/Byzantine text and KJV combine them into one v.14 (14 verses total). This edition follows the 15-verse numbering; the difference is one of versification only, not of text.

How the data set is organized

The interpretive tiers (syntactic function, semantic force, discourse structure, and the proposed argument outlines) are interpretive by nature; where readings legitimately differ, the more common analysis was generally chosen, and the lexical notes are condensed orientation rather than a substitute for a lexicon (e.g. BDAG) or a full commentary.