SIL Translator's Notes on 3 John 1:10

10a

if I come: (Meaning) Verse 14 makes it clear that John intends to come, so the word if here is probably indicating that he does not yet know when he will come. See Good News Translation, Living Bible.

come: (Lexical Problem) In your language it may be necessary to state where John was intending to come to, namely the place where Gaius and Diotrephes were.

10b

call attention to: (Lexical Problem) This means that John will tell openly what Diotrephes has been doing. In translation it may be necessary to state that the people who John will tell this to are the members of the church where Diotrephes was.

10c

his malicious slander: (Meaning) This means that Diotrephes had been making foolish and untrue accusations against John.

us: (Pronoun Reference) As in verse 9, John is here using the plural pronoun to refer to himself.

10d

And unsatisfied with that: (Logical Connection) This phrase is not literally stating anything about what satisfies Diotrephes. It is used to indicate something he does which is even worse than malicious gossip. In translation this can often be indicated by an idiomatic phrase. See Good News Translation, The Jerusalem Bible, Phillips’ New Testament in Modern English.

the brothers: (Pronoun Reference) As in verse 5, this refers to any of the traveling Christian preachers who came to him.

10e

who want to do so: (Ellipsis) This is a short way of saying, “who want to welcome the brothers.”

10f

putting them out of the church: (Meaning) This means that Diotrephes expels these members from the church in that place. He somehow prevents them from continuing to have fellowship with that church.

putting them out: (Pronoun Reference) This means that Diotrephes expels those church members who wanted to welcome the “brothers.” It does not refer to him expelling the “brothers” themselves.

© 2000 by SIL International®

Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0

All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible. BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.

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