The We've been We live in a success-driven world where we're encouraged to take advantage of every

opportunity to advance our careers, to seek the top prize.

When we see others prosper then, it can be a challenge.

How do you respond to the success of others in a Christ-like manner? That's one of the

questions Alistair Begg addresses today on Truth for Life.

Well, we're in three John, having completed second John, the two shortest and arguably

most neglected letters in the New Testament.

In coming to them, you may find yourself, as I have done, saying, well, how do we identify

the immediate points of application given that we're distanced by some 2,000 years or so

from the events that John is addressing in the historic context.

And as I was mulling that over, I was helped by a brief observation on the part of someone, Gresham

Machen, who was a professor at Princeton many, many years ago and then at Westminster Seminary and in some brief comments on Three John he says this.

Despite its individual address and private character, Three John is not an ordinary private letter. Like all the

books of the New Testament, it has a message for the entire church. The devout reader rises from the perusal of it

with a more steadfast devotion to the truth and a warmer glow of Christian love. So here then,

according to Machen, will be two identifiable features in the life of the individual who has given an honest perusal to the

text and who has been impacted by the text. Someone seeing you during the week

will say to you you know you seem to be steadfastly devoted to the truth and you will then say

that must be because we've been thinking about what it means to walk in the truth

we've been studying two and three John or someone might say you know you

seem to have a glow about you and it's almost a glow of Christian love and you say well

perhaps Macian is right that one of the evidences of the word of God making an impact

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