Core Glossary
Core Glossary — 3 John
This glossary consolidates every load-bearing term identified in analysis/07_semantic_analysis.md, covering the entire book of 3 John (1:1–14). Risk tiers follow the baseline Romans Language Package’s methodology and definitions exactly (Critical / High / Medium / Low; see the baseline doctrine_risk_registry.json for the shared definitions). Terms already established in the baseline translation memory are marked Baseline reuse and rendered with the identical baseline wording; all other terms are new entries proposed for this curriculum’s own translation memory.
Risk Summary for 3 John
| Tier | Count | Terms |
|---|---|---|
| Critical | 4 | truth, love, church (baseline reuse), God (baseline reuse) |
| High | 9 | elder, stranger(s), the Name, Gentiles/pagans (ethnikos), loves to be first (philoprōteuō), gossip/malicious accusation (phlyareō), casts out (ekballō), evil (kakos, vv.10-11 binary framing), true (alēthēs) |
| Medium | 17 | beloved, faithful thing, prosper/euodousthai, soul, brothers, testify/testimony, walk, joy, children, does not receive/welcome (epidechomai), fellow worker (synergos), imitate (mimeomai), good (agathos), has seen (horaō), hope (elpizō), peace (baseline reuse), I will remind/expose (hypomimnēskō) |
| Low | 15 | pray/wish, be in health, rejoiced, work/do, worthily, ought, support/receive (hypolambanō), forbids (kōlyō), deeds/works (erga), Diotrephes (proper name), Demetrius (proper name), ink, pen/reed, friends (philos), greet (aspazomai), by name (kat’ onoma), mouth-to-mouth idiom |
Glossary Table
| # | English Term | Greek Original | Transliteration | Doctrine Category | Risk Tier | Baseline Reuse? | Translation Risk Rationale |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | elder | πρεσβύτερος | presbyteros | Church Leadership | High | New | Collides with the Latter-day Saint missionary title “Elder [Surname]” and with modern denominational “elder” church-office structures (Presbyterian, Baptist, non-denominational elder boards); requires explicit note that this names personal apostolic-era authority, not a modern office or missionary title. |
| 2 | beloved | ἀγαπητός | agapētos | Truth and Christian Fellowship | Medium | New | Mildly archaic obsolescence risk (mainly heard in wedding/funeral liturgy); low active-misreading risk once glossed as a term of deep affection. |
| 3 | love (verb/noun) | ἀγαπάω / ἀγάπη | agapaō / agapē | Truth and Christian Fellowship | Critical | New | English “love” is maximally polysemous (romantic, culinary, casual preference, committed self-giving); without explicit qualification (“in truth,” v.1) readers default to vague warm-feeling sense rather than covenantal, truth-grounded love. |
| 4 | truth | ἀλήθεια | alētheia | Truth and Christian Fellowship | Critical | New | Dominant contemporary “your truth”/“post-truth” relativized-truth discourse is a strong, confidently-held competing frame; 3 John’s shared, objective, apostolically-defined “truth” must be explicitly distinguished on first use, paralleling the baseline’s treatment of “justification” and “election.” |
| 5 | prosper / go well | εὐοδοῦσθαι | euodousthai | Hospitality to Traveling Ministers | Medium | New | Risk of collision with contemporary “prosperity gospel” teaching (health-and-wealth doctrine); clarify this is a personal well-being wish calibrated to spiritual health, not a doctrinal material-increase promise. |
| 6 | be in health | ὑγιαίνειν | hygiainein | (supporting term, v.2) | Low | New | Stable; no significant competing meaning. |
| 7 | soul | ψυχή | psychē | (supporting term, v.2) | Medium | New | Popular usage (“soul music,” “bare your soul”) diffuses the term toward general emotional authenticity rather than the whole inner person before God. |
| 8 | rejoiced / joy | χαίρω / χαρά | chairō / chara | Truth and Christian Fellowship | Medium | New | Contemporary “happiness” wellness-culture vocabulary can flatten joy (grounded in others’ faithfulness to truth) into a circumstance-dependent mood. |
| 9 | brothers | ἀδελφός / ἀδελφοί | adelphos / adelphoi | Hospitality to Traveling Ministers; Truth and Christian Fellowship | Medium | New | Live contemporary gender-inclusive Bible-translation debate (“brothers” vs. “brothers and sisters”); this curriculum should state its rendering choice explicitly. |
| 10 | testify / testimony | μαρτυρέω / μαρτυρία | martyreō / martyria | Truth and Christian Fellowship; Commendation of Faithful Witness | Medium | New | Courtroom register is a mild asset (reinforces factual reliability); minor risk of unintended “martyr” (suffering-unto-death) association via shared root. |
| 11 | walk (conduct) | περιπατέω | peripateō | Truth and Christian Fellowship | Low-Medium | New | Idiom for “manner of life” is unusually well preserved in English Christian usage (“walk with the Lord”); minor risk for readers with no church background hearing it as literal ambulation. |
| 12 | children | τέκνα | tekna | Truth and Christian Fellowship | Medium | New | Contemporary individualist culture may read spiritual-fatherhood language as infantilizing or authoritarian rather than the era’s normal warm mentor-disciple idiom. |
| 13 | faithful thing / faithfully | πιστός (adj., πιστόν) | pistos | Hospitality to Traveling Ministers | Medium | New | Shares root with baseline’s High-risk “faith” entry; this curriculum should make explicit that faithful action here flows from and expresses faith, not a separate, unrelated virtue. |
| 14 | work / do | ἐργάζομαι | ergazomai | Hospitality to Traveling Ministers | Low | New | Stable, concrete; no significant competing meaning. |
| 15 | stranger(s) | ξένος / ξένους | xenos / xenous | Hospitality to Traveling Ministers | High | New | Contemporary Western “stranger danger” safety culture trains default suspicion of the unknown, directly in tension with the text’s commendation of hospitality to strangers; note also that the abstract noun “hospitality” (philoxenia) itself never occurs in 3 John’s text — the virtue is shown only through concrete verbs. |
| 16 | love | ἀγάπη | agapē | Truth and Christian Fellowship; Hospitality to Traveling Ministers | Critical | New | See entry #3; note KJV’s now-archaic “charity” rendering here is narrower than the Greek and should not be revived without a gloss. |
| 17 | church | ἐκκλησία | ekklēsia | Church Leadership and Pride | Critical | Baseline reuse — “church” | Reused exactly per baseline. Supplementary note: 3 John’s own text contrasts healthy communal testimony (v.6) against Diotrephes’s exclusionary control (v.10), a textual case study for the baseline’s institutional-authority-distrust concern. |
| 18 | send forward / send on their way | προπέμπω | propempō | Hospitality to Traveling Ministers | Low-Medium | New | Rare in ordinary speech (obsolescence) but no strong competing secular meaning; concept of practically funding/provisioning travel is not likely to be actively misread. |
| 19 | worthily | ἀξίως | axiōs | Hospitality to Traveling Ministers | Low | New | Stable; no significant competing meaning. |
| 20 | God | θεός | theos | (multiple doctrines) | Critical | Baseline reuse — “God” | Reused exactly per baseline’s bible_term_registry.json Critical designation. |
| 21 | the Name | τὸ ὄνομα | to onoma | Truth and Christian Fellowship | High | New | 3 John’s only (indirect) Christological reference — “Jesus”/“Christ” never appear in the letter; readers may miss the referent entirely, and the secularized idiom “in the name of ___” risks a vague or merely rhetorical reading. |
| 22 | Gentiles / pagans | ἐθνικός (ἐθνικῶν) | ethnikos (ethnikōn) | Hospitality to Traveling Ministers | High | Caution — do not simply reuse baseline “Gentiles” | Distinct Greek word from Romans’ ἔθνη, with the opposite nuance from the baseline’s warning against equating “Gentiles” with “non-believers” — here the referent genuinely is religious outsiders/pagans. Recommend “pagans” or “those outside the faith” for this verse, with an explicit note distinguishing it from Romans usage. |
| 23 | ought | ὀφείλω | opheilō | Hospitality to Traveling Ministers | Low | New | Financial-debt undertone is a helpful asset reinforcing genuine obligation, not mere suggestion. |
| 24 | support / receive | ὑπολαμβάνω | hypolambanō | Hospitality to Traveling Ministers | Low | New | Stable; continues vv.5-7 hospitality vocabulary without added risk. |
| 25 | fellow worker(s) | συνεργός / συνεργοί | synergos / synergoi | Hospitality to Traveling Ministers; Truth and Christian Fellowship | Medium | New | Contemporary corporate “synergy” buzzword flattens the term toward organizational efficiency; distinguish from the text’s genuine, spiritually-credited gospel partnership. |
| 26 | loves to be first | φιλοπρωτεύω | philoprōteuō | Church Leadership and Pride (Diotrephes) | High | New | NT hapax legomenon; contemporary leadership/personal-branding culture often celebrates self-promotion as virtue, colliding directly with the text’s condemnation — connects to the baseline’s celebrity-pastor/toxic-leadership cultural-current note under “church.” |
| 27 | Diotrephes | Διοτρέφης | Diotrephēs | Church Leadership and Pride | Low | New | Proper name; standard transliteration, no theological weight in the name itself. |
| 28 | does not receive / welcome | ἐπιδέχομαι | epidechomai | Church Leadership and Pride; Hospitality to Traveling Ministers | Medium | New | English translations vary (some render as rejecting “authority,” others simply “welcome”); note the range per the baseline’s ambiguity-handling rule rather than silently choosing one. |
| 29 | I will remind / expose | ὑπομιμνήσκω | hypomimnēskō | Church Leadership and Pride | Medium | New | KJV’s “I will remember” is an obsolescence risk, sounding like mere recollection rather than intentional public confrontation/exposure; modern renderings resolve this. |
| 30 | deeds / works | ἔργον / ἔργα | ergon / erga | Church Leadership and Pride | Low | New | Stable general term for actions. |
| 31 | evil (malicious) | πονηρός | ponēros | Church Leadership and Pride | Medium | New | Contemporary therapeutic culture’s softening of strong moral-guilt language (cf. baseline “sin” doctrine) applies here too; stronger than v.11’s κακός. |
| 32 | gossip / malicious accusation | φλυαρέω | phlyareō | Church Leadership and Pride | High | New | NT hapax; casual English “gossip” understates the seriousness of deliberate false/malicious accusation undermining legitimate authority; render as “malicious/false accusation” or “slander,” not “gossip” alone. |
| 33 | forbids / hinders | κωλύω | kōlyō | Church Leadership and Pride | Low | New | Stable; no significant competing meaning. |
| 34 | casts out | ἐκβάλλω | ekballō | Church Leadership and Pride | High | New | Direct textual instance of church-authority abuse (excommunication for personal control); intersects the baseline’s Critical “church” entry and its abuse-scandal/“cancel culture” cultural-distrust note. |
| 35 | imitate | μιμέομαι | mimeomai | Imitating Good rather than Evil | Medium | New | English cognate “mimic” carries an unwanted mocking connotation; prefer “imitate”/“follow the example of.” |
| 36 | evil | κακός | kakos | Imitating Good rather than Evil | High | New | Contemporary moral relativism (“no absolute right or wrong”) directly resists the text’s binary good/evil framework; connects to the baseline’s Critical “universal human accountability” doctrine treatment. |
| 37 | good | ἀγαθός | agathos | Imitating Good rather than Evil | Medium | New | Contemporary “good person” self-assessment culture can flatten this into subjective self-evaluation rather than conformity to God’s character. |
| 38 | does good / does evil | ἀγαθοποιέω / κακοποιέω | agathopoieō / kakopoieō | Imitating Good rather than Evil | High | New | The binary diagnostic framing itself (not only the individual words) is what pluralistic culture most resists; must be preserved without softening per doctrinal-preservation rules. |
| 39 | has [not] seen | ὁράω (ἑώρακεν) | horaō (heōraken) | Imitating Good rather than Evil | Medium | New | Johannine idiom for genuine relational knowledge of God, not literal physical sight (cf. John 14:9); risk of overly literal reading without a brief clarifying note. |
| 40 | Demetrius | Δημήτριος | Dēmētrios | Commendation of Faithful Witness | Low | New | Proper name; standard transliteration. |
| 41 | has been testified of | μαρτυρέω (μεμαρτύρηται) | martyreō (memartyrētai) | Commendation of Faithful Witness | Medium | New | Perfect tense stresses settled, ongoing reputation; note the vivid personification “the truth itself” bears witness, which could be missed if “truth” is read only abstractly. |
| 42 | testimony | μαρτυρία | martyria | Commendation of Faithful Witness | Low-Medium | New | Stable; continues testimony vocabulary. |
| 43 | true | ἀληθής | alēthēs | Commendation of Faithful Witness; Truth and Christian Fellowship | High | New | Same “post-truth”/relativized-truth cultural collision as ἀλήθεια (#4); claims objective factual reliability, not merely sincere personal conviction. |
| 44 | ink | μέλαν | melan | (supporting term, v.13) | Low | New | Concrete, descriptive; no doctrinal weight. |
| 45 | pen / reed | κάλαμος | kalamos | (supporting term, v.13) | Low | New | Concrete, descriptive; brief cultural-context note on ancient writing materials is sufficient. |
| 46 | hope | ἐλπίζω | elpizō | (supporting term, v.14) | Medium | New | Contemporary casual “I hope” often signals mere wishfulness; distinguish from the weightier theological hope found elsewhere in the NT (e.g. Romans 5:2), while noting this instance is closer to ordinary usage. |
| 47 | mouth to mouth (face to face) | στόμα πρὸς στόμα | stoma pros stoma | (supporting term, v.14) | Low | New | Idiom correctly and safely rendered as “face to face” in virtually all English translations; literal rendering risks unintended comic misreading. |
| 48 | peace | εἰρήνη | eirēnē | (epistolary closing, v.14) | Medium | Baseline reuse — “peace” | Reused exactly per baseline; note this is an epistolary greeting/blessing sense, distinct from (though not contradictory to) Romans 5:1’s specific forensic “peace with God.” |
| 49 | friends | φίλος / φίλοι | philos / philoi | (epistolary closing, v.14) | Low | New | Stable, positive; notable stylistic shift from “brothers” (family language) to “friends” in the closing greeting. |
| 50 | greet | ἀσπάζομαι | aspazomai | (epistolary closing, v.14) | Low | New | Standard ancient letter-closing convention; stable in English rendering. |
| 51 | by name | κατ᾿ ὄνομα | kat’ onoma | (epistolary closing, v.14) | Low | New | Ordinary, non-technical use of “name,” distinct from v.7’s weighty Christological “the Name”; should not be conflated with it. |
Doctrine-to-Term Cross-Reference
Hospitality to Traveling Ministers (1:5-8): faithful thing, work/do, stranger(s), love, church, send forward, worthily, God, the Name, Gentiles/pagans, ought, support/receive, fellow worker(s), brothers, does not receive/welcome
Church Leadership and Pride (Diotrephes) (1:9-10): church, loves to be first, Diotrephes, does not receive/welcome, I will remind/expose, deeds/works, evil (ponēros), gossip/malicious accusation, forbids/hinders, casts out, brothers
Imitating Good rather than Evil (1:11): imitate, evil (kakos), good (agathos), does good/does evil, God, has [not] seen
Commendation of Faithful Witness (Demetrius) (1:12): Demetrius, has been testified of, testimony, true, truth, testify (recurring)
Truth and Christian Fellowship (1:1-4, 6, 8, 12, and throughout): truth, love, beloved, brothers, testify/testimony, walk, joy, children, fellow worker(s), true, the Name
End of core glossary. See analysis/07_semantic_analysis.md for full verse-by-verse exegetical support for every entry above.
Critical Risk Terms
Church
Approved rendering: church
Transliteration: church
Doctrine: Church Leadership and Pride
Original: ἐκκλησία
Category: Church Leadership
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE, unchanged. 3 John 1:6, 1:9, 1:10. Supplementary note for this curriculum: 3 John supplies its own first-century worked example of the baseline’s institutional-distrust concern — v.6’s healthy communal testimony before the church contrasted with v.10’s exclusionary abuse of authority (Diotrephes casting loyal believers out of the church). Use this textual contrast as a teaching bridge, per the baseline’s own recommendation for ‘church,’ rather than let readers project only contemporary scandal narratives onto the term.
God
Approved rendering: God
Transliteration: God
Doctrine: Imitating Good rather than Evil
Rejected alternatives: a higher power, the universe
Original: θεός
Category: God
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE, unchanged. 3 John 1:6, 1:11 (×2). Serves as the moral standard against which hospitality (v.6) and habitual conduct (v.11, ‘is of God’ / ‘has not seen God’) are measured.
Love
Approved rendering: love
Transliteration: love
Doctrine: Truth and Christian Fellowship
Rejected alternatives: charity (KJV’s now-archaic rendering, narrowed in modern English to institutional/charitable giving)
Original: ἀγαπάω / ἀγάπη
Category: Truth and Christian Fellowship
3 John 1:1 (ἀγαπῶ), 1:6 (ἀγάπῃ). CRITICAL FALSE-FRIEND DRIFT: English ‘love’ is the single most semantically overloaded word in the language (romantic attraction, food preference, generic warm feeling, vs. committed self-giving). The text’s own qualifier ‘in truth’ (v.1) must be made explicit every time or readers will default to a vague warm-feelings sense. KJV’s ‘charity’ (v.6) should not be revived without a gloss distinguishing its Elizabethan sense from modern ‘charity’ = institutional donation.
Truth
Approved rendering: truth
Transliteration: truth
Doctrine: Truth and Christian Fellowship
Rejected alternatives: your truth / my personal truth (the dominant contemporary competing sense — a subjective, individually constructed narrative)
Original: ἀλήθεια
Category: Truth and Christian Fellowship
3 John’s dominant term, occurring at least seven times in fourteen verses (1:1, 1:3 ×2, 1:4, 1:8, 1:12 ×2). CRITICAL FALSE-FRIEND DRIFT: contemporary English ‘your truth’/‘my truth’/‘post-truth’ discourse treats truth as personally constructed and subjective, directly opposing 3 John’s shared, objective, apostolically-defined reality that believers ‘walk in’ and are ‘fellow workers with.’ Requires the same explicit first-use clarification the baseline gives ‘justification’ and ‘election.’ This is the single highest-priority mandatory clarification in this curriculum.
High Risk Terms
Faith
Approved rendering: faith
Transliteration: faith
Doctrine: Hospitality to Traveling Ministers
Rejected alternatives: faith in humanity / a leap of faith
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE, unchanged, included here for cross-reference only (the noun ‘faith’/πίστις itself does not occur in 3 John). Relevant because 3 John 1:5’s ‘faithful thing’ (πιστόν) shares this root; see the ‘faithful’ entry below. This curriculum should make explicit the link between Gaius’s faithful hospitality-action and his underlying faith in Christ, so the two are not read as unrelated ideas.
Elder
Approved rendering: elder
Transliteration: elder
Doctrine: Apostolic Authority of the Elder
Rejected alternatives: presbyter (trades one false-friend collision, Anglican/Presbyterian polity, for another), Elder [Surname] (the LDS missionary title sense), elder-board member (a modern denominational-polity office John’s churches did not yet have in that form)
Original: πρεσβύτερος
Category: Church Leadership
3 John 1:1. HIGH FALSE-FRIEND RISK specific to American religious culture: readers strongly associate ‘Elder’ with the Latter-day Saint missionary title ‘Elder [Surname]’ or with a modern denominational elder-board office (Presbyterian ‘ruling elder,’ Baptist/non-denominational). Must state explicitly on first use that this names a personal, relationally-exercised, non-coercive apostolic-era authority (traditionally identified with the Apostle John), not a modern office or missionary title. The whole letter’s argument (Diotrephes’s wrongful resistance, vv.9-10) depends on this being correctly understood.
Stranger
Approved rendering: stranger(s)
Transliteration: stranger(s)
Doctrine: Hospitality to Traveling Ministers
Original: ξένος / ξένους
Category: Hospitality to Traveling Ministers
3 John 1:5 (ξένος/ξένους). Contemporary Western ‘stranger danger’ safety culture trains reflexive suspicion of the unknown, directly opposing the text’s commendation of hospitality to genuinely unknown itinerant ministers. Note that the abstract noun ‘hospitality’ (philoxenia) never occurs in 3 John’s Greek text — the virtue is demonstrated only through concrete action verbs (vv.5-8). Must name this cultural friction explicitly; not blanket credulity but discerning welcome (cf. vv.9-10’s warning example).
The Name
Approved rendering: the Name
Transliteration: the Name
Doctrine: Christ Referenced as ‘the Name’
Rejected alternatives: in the name of ___ (the secularized rhetorical idiom, e.g. ‘in the name of science/love/progress’)
Original: τὸ ὄνομα
Category: Christology
3 John 1:7 (τὸ ὄνομα). 3 John’s ONLY (indirect) Christological reference — ‘Jesus’ and ‘Christ’ never occur anywhere in this letter. Must be capitalized and explicitly glossed as referring to the name of Jesus Christ (cf. Acts 5:41), never left to pass as generic religious language. CULT-COLLISION CAUTION: must not be phrased in a way that could be conflated with Jehovah’s Witness NWT-adjacent teaching materials’ emphasis on the divine Tetragrammaton name; state plainly this refers to Christ’s name, per the customary contextual reading.
Pagans
Approved rendering: pagans
Transliteration: pagans
Doctrine: Hospitality to Traveling Ministers
Rejected alternatives: Gentiles (bare, unqualified reuse of the Romans baseline term — REJECTED, wrong nuance), the heathen (archaic, needlessly pejorative-sounding)
Original: ἐθνικός (ἐθνικῶν)
Category: Hospitality to Traveling Ministers
3 John 1:7 (ἐθνικῶν, adjective ἐθνικός). CROSS-CURRICULUM CAUTION, HIGH RISK: this is a DIFFERENT Greek word from Romans’ ἔθνη (‘Gentiles’), carrying the OPPOSITE nuance from the baseline’s warning against equating ‘Gentiles’ with ‘non-believers.’ Here ‘pagans/those outside the faith’ (religious outsiders who do not know God) genuinely IS the correct sense. Render as ‘pagans’ or ‘those outside the faith,’ NOT the bare word ‘Gentiles,’ with an explicit note distinguishing this from the Romans ἔθνη usage. Minor secondary note: modern Pagan/Wiccan religious movements have adopted ‘pagan’ as a self-identifier, so a brief clarifying gloss (‘those without faith in God,’ not a reference to any modern religious movement) is also worthwhile.
Loves To Be First
Approved rendering: loves to be first
Transliteration: loves to be first
Doctrine: Church Leadership and Pride
Rejected alternatives: ambitious (too broad), proud (too narrow, misses the specific craving for preeminence)
Original: φιλοπρωτεύω
Category: Church Leadership
3 John 1:9 (φιλοπρωτεύω, a New Testament hapax legomenon). Contemporary leadership/entrepreneurial/personal-branding culture actively celebrates self-promotion as a virtue, colliding directly with the text’s unambiguous condemnation. Connects to celebrity-pastor-scandal and ‘toxic church leadership’ discourse; name this connection directly. No single English word substitutes adequately — retain the letter’s own descriptive phrase.
Slander Accusation
Approved rendering: slander / malicious accusation
Transliteration: slander / malicious accusation
Doctrine: Church Leadership and Pride
Rejected alternatives: gossip (too mild — REJECTED as a standalone gloss), prating (KJV, archaic and obscure)
Original: φλυαρέω
Category: Church Leadership
3 John 1:10 (φλυαρέω, a New Testament hapax). Casual English ‘gossip’ understates the seriousness of a deliberate, damaging campaign of false or malicious accusation undermining legitimate apostolic authority. Never render as ‘gossip’ alone; pair with or replace with ‘malicious/false accusation’ or ‘slander.‘
Casts Out
Approved rendering: casts out
Transliteration: casts out
Doctrine: Church Leadership and Pride
Rejected alternatives: excommunicates (technical, but an acceptable clarifying gloss)
Original: ἐκβάλλω
Category: Church Leadership
3 John 1:10 (ἐκβάλλω). Directly intersects the baseline’s Critical ‘church’ entry and contemporary distrust of institutional religious authority amid abuse scandals and ‘cancel culture’ discourse. 3 John itself already condemns this pattern — a first-century precedent for what many readers already recognize from recent controversies; name this connection rather than let readers project only modern examples onto the text.
Evil Kakos
Approved rendering: evil
Transliteration: evil
Doctrine: Imitating Good rather than Evil
Rejected alternatives: unhealthy / harmful behavior (contemporary relativist softening)
Original: κακός
Category: Imitating Good rather than Evil
3 John 1:11 (κακός). Contemporary moral relativism (‘no absolute right or wrong,’ ‘who’s to say’) directly resists this verse’s binary good/evil framework. Connects to the baseline’s Critical ‘universal human accountability’ doctrine; treat with the same explicitness.
Does Good Does Evil
Approved rendering: does good / does evil
Transliteration: does good / does evil
Doctrine: Imitating Good rather than Evil
Original: ἀγαθοποιέω / κακοποιέω
Category: Imitating Good rather than Evil
3 John 1:11 (ἀγαθοποιέω/κακοποιέω). The binary spiritual-diagnostic framing itself — not only the vocabulary — is what pluralistic culture most resists; must be preserved without softening per doctrinal-preservation rules.
True
Approved rendering: true
Transliteration: true
Doctrine: Commendation of Faithful Witness
Rejected alternatives: sincere / well-meaning (subjectivizing substitutes that lose objective factual reliability)
Original: ἀληθής
Category: Commendation of Faithful Witness
3 John 1:12 (ἀληθής). Shares the Critical ‘truth’ collision with contemporary ‘post-truth’ relativizing pressure; claims objective factual reliability for the elder’s own testimony, not merely sincere personal conviction.
Medium Risk Terms
Peace
Approved rendering: peace
Transliteration: peace
Doctrine: Epistolary Peace and Closing Fellowship
Rejected alternatives: world peace / inner peace
Original: εἰρήνη
Category: God
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE, unchanged. 3 John 1:14. Here the term functions as a personal epistolary closing blessing, distinct in function from (though not contradictory to) Romans 5:1’s specific forensic ‘peace with God.’ Do not conflate the two senses even though the same English word is used.
Gentiles
Approved rendering: Gentiles
Transliteration: Gentiles
Doctrine: Unity of Jews and Gentiles
Rejected alternatives: non-believers (correct for 3 John’s ethnikos, INCORRECT for Romans’ ethnē)
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE, but flagged CAUTION — DO NOT APPLY UNCHANGED TO 3 JOHN. This entry documents the baseline’s ethnē usage (Romans), where ‘Gentiles’ must NOT be glossed as ‘non-believers.’ 3 John 1:7 uses a different Greek word (ἐθνικός/ethnikos, an adjective meaning ‘pagan/religious outsider’), where ‘non-believers/pagans’ IS in fact the correct sense — the opposite caution. See the ‘pagans’ entry below for 3 John’s own correct rendering. Any content spanning both curricula must state explicitly that these are two different Greek words with opposite glossing rules.
Beloved
Approved rendering: beloved
Transliteration: beloved
Doctrine: Truth and Christian Fellowship
Rejected alternatives: my dear friend (an acceptable modern-register gloss, used by NIV/NLT)
Original: ἀγαπητός
Category: Truth and Christian Fellowship
3 John 1:1, 1:2, 1:5, 1:11. OBSOLESCENCE RISK, not false-friend risk: mildly archaic, heard mainly in wedding/funeral liturgy in contemporary speech; needs a brief gloss as a term of deep affection but is unlikely to be actively misread.
Prosper
Approved rendering: prosper
Transliteration: prosper
Doctrine: Hospitality to Traveling Ministers
Rejected alternatives: financial/material blessing (the prosperity-gospel proof-text misreading)
Original: εὐοδοῦσθαι
Category: Hospitality to Traveling Ministers
3 John 1:2 (εὐοδοῦσθαι). Contemporary ‘prosperity gospel’ health-and-wealth teaching quotes this verse as a doctrinal promise of material increase. Must clarify: this is a personal well-being wish explicitly calibrated to Gaius’s spiritual health (‘just as your soul is prospering’), not a guaranteed-return-on-faith doctrine.
Soul
Approved rendering: soul
Transliteration: soul
Doctrine: Truth and Christian Fellowship
Original: ψυχή
Category: Truth and Christian Fellowship
3 John 1:2 (ψυχή). Popular usage (‘soul music,’ ‘bare your soul’) diffuses the word toward general emotional authenticity; should be glossed as the whole inner person before God, not merely emotional depth.
Joy
Approved rendering: joy
Transliteration: joy
Doctrine: Truth and Christian Fellowship
Rejected alternatives: happiness (contemporary wellness-culture substitute, circumstance-dependent)
Original: χαίρω / χαρά
Category: Truth and Christian Fellowship
3 John 1:3-4 (χαίρω/χαρά). Distinguish joy grounded in others’ faithfulness to the truth from circumstance-dependent happiness, the dominant contemporary substitute concept.
Brothers
Approved rendering: brothers
Transliteration: brothers
Doctrine: Truth and Christian Fellowship
Rejected alternatives: brothers and sisters (a defensible gender-inclusive alternative used by NIV, NLT, CSB)
Original: ἀδελφός / ἀδελφοί
Category: Truth and Christian Fellowship
3 John 1:3, 1:5, 1:10 (ἀδελφός/ἀδελφοί). Live, ongoing, good-faith contemporary English Bible-translation debate over gender-inclusive rendering. This curriculum states its rendering choice as ‘brothers’ (matching ESV/NASB) while noting the Greek functions as a family-of-faith designation regardless of the specific English wording chosen; content may gloss inclusively where helpful.
Testify
Approved rendering: testify
Transliteration: testify
Doctrine: Commendation of Faithful Witness
Original: μαρτυρέω / μαρτυρία
Category: Commendation of Faithful Witness
3 John 1:3, 1:6, 1:12 (μαρτυρέω/μαρτυρία). Courtroom register is a mild asset, reinforcing factual, first-hand reliability. Minor risk: unintended association with ‘martyr’ (suffering unto death, same root) not present in these verses; briefly note this if it arises.
Children
Approved rendering: children
Transliteration: children
Doctrine: Truth and Christian Fellowship
Rejected alternatives: spiritual converts (an acceptable explanatory gloss)
Original: τέκνα
Category: Truth and Christian Fellowship
3 John 1:4 (τέκνα). Contemporary individualist culture may read ‘my children’ as infantilizing or authoritarian rather than the era’s normal, warm mentor-disciple idiom; brief clarifying note warranted.
Faithful
Approved rendering: faithful
Transliteration: faithful
Doctrine: Hospitality to Traveling Ministers
Original: πιστός (πιστόν)
Category: Hospitality to Traveling Ministers
3 John 1:5 (πιστόν). Shares its root with the baseline’s High-risk ‘faith’ entry; make explicit that Gaius’s faithful hospitality-action flows from and expresses his faith in Christ, not a separate, unrelated virtue.
Fellow Worker
Approved rendering: fellow worker
Transliteration: fellow worker
Doctrine: Gospel Partnership with the Truth
Rejected alternatives: synergy partner / synergize (contemporary corporate buzzword, drained of spiritual stakes)
Original: συνεργός / συνεργοί
Category: Hospitality to Traveling Ministers
3 John 1:8 (συνεργός/συνεργοί). Contemporary corporate jargon has flattened this same Greek root into ‘synergy,’ an organizational-efficiency buzzword; distinguish the text’s genuine, spiritually-credited gospel partnership ‘with the truth’ itself from that connotation.
Does Not Receive
Approved rendering: does not welcome
Transliteration: does not welcome
Doctrine: Church Leadership and Pride
Rejected alternatives: does not acknowledge our authority (ESV’s interpretive expansion — note as a range option, do not silently adopt as the only reading)
Original: ἐπιδέχομαι
Category: Church Leadership
3 John 1:9 (ἐπιδέχομαι). Translations genuinely vary between a simple ‘welcome’ sense and ESV’s interpretive ‘does not acknowledge our authority’; per the baseline’s ambiguity-handling rule, note the range rather than silently picking one.
Will Expose
Approved rendering: I will call attention to
Transliteration: I will call attention to
Doctrine: Church Leadership and Pride
Rejected alternatives: I will remember (KJV — obsolescence risk, sounds like private recollection rather than public confrontation)
Original: ὑπομιμνήσκω
Category: Church Leadership
3 John 1:10 (ὑπομιμνήσκω). Names the elder’s planned direct, public confrontation of Diotrephes on a future visit — relational church discipline, not private grudge-keeping.
Malicious Evil
Approved rendering: malicious
Transliteration: malicious
Doctrine: Church Leadership and Pride
Rejected alternatives: unhelpful / problematic (contemporary therapeutic softening)
Original: πονηρός (πονηροῖς)
Category: Church Leadership
3 John 1:10 (πονηρός/πονηροῖς). Stronger than v.11’s κακός. Contemporary therapeutic culture’s tendency to soften strong moral-guilt language (cf. baseline ‘sin’ notes) applies here too.
Imitate
Approved rendering: imitate
Transliteration: imitate
Doctrine: Imitating Good rather than Evil
Rejected alternatives: mimic (unwanted mocking/derisive connotation via the English cognate)
Original: μιμέομαι
Category: Imitating Good rather than Evil
3 John 1:11 (μιμέομαι). Prefer ‘imitate’ or ‘follow the example of’; avoid ‘mimic.‘
Good Agathos
Approved rendering: good
Transliteration: good
Doctrine: Imitating Good rather than Evil
Rejected alternatives: a good person, by my own standard (contemporary subjective self-assessment framing)
Original: ἀγαθός
Category: Imitating Good rather than Evil
3 John 1:11 (ἀγαθός). Contemporary ‘good person’ self-assessment culture can flatten this into subjective self-evaluation rather than conformity to God’s own character, the text’s actual standard.
Has Seen
Approved rendering: has [not] seen
Transliteration: has [not] seen
Doctrine: Imitating Good rather than Evil
Rejected alternatives: has [not] met (too weak; loses the relational-knowledge depth of the Johannine idiom)
Original: ὁράω (ἑώρακεν)
Category: Imitating Good rather than Evil
3 John 1:11 (ὁράω/ἑώρακεν). Johannine idiom for genuine relational knowledge of God (cf. John 14:9), not literal physical sight; needs a brief clarifying note against over-literal reading.
Hope
Approved rendering: hope
Transliteration: hope
Doctrine: Truth and Christian Fellowship
Original: ἐλπίζω
Category: Truth and Christian Fellowship
3 John 1:14 (ἐλπίζω). Contemporary casual ‘I hope’ (as in ‘I hope it doesn’t rain’) signals mere wishfulness; distinguish from weightier theological hope elsewhere in the NT (e.g. Romans 5:2), while noting this specific instance (a travel plan) is closer to ordinary usage.
Low Risk Terms
Health
Approved rendering: health
Transliteration: health
Doctrine: Truth and Christian Fellowship
Original: ὑγιαίνειν
Category: Truth and Christian Fellowship
3 John 1:2 (ὑγιαίνειν). Stable; standard ancient letter health-wish; no significant competing secular meaning. Caution: Christian Science and related metaphysical-healing traditions have historically cited health-language verses to deny physical medicine’s necessity; this curriculum should limit this term to its plain epistolary sense.
Work Do
Approved rendering: work / do
Transliteration: work / do
Doctrine: Hospitality to Traveling Ministers
Original: ἐργάζομαι
Category: Hospitality to Traveling Ministers
3 John 1:5 (ἐργάζομαι). Stable, concrete; names the costly material labor behind the abstract virtue of hospitality.
Worthily
Approved rendering: in a manner worthy
Transliteration: worthily
Doctrine: Hospitality to Traveling Ministers
Original: ἀξίως
Category: Hospitality to Traveling Ministers
3 John 1:6 (ἀξίως). Stable; no significant competing meaning.
Ought
Approved rendering: ought
Transliteration: ought
Doctrine: Hospitality to Traveling Ministers
Original: ὀφείλω
Category: Hospitality to Traveling Ministers
3 John 1:8 (ὀφείλω). Financial-debt undertone is a helpful asset, reinforcing genuine standing obligation, not mere suggestion.
Support Receive
Approved rendering: support / receive
Transliteration: support / receive
Doctrine: Hospitality to Traveling Ministers
Original: ὑπολαμβάνω
Category: Hospitality to Traveling Ministers
3 John 1:8 (ὑπολαμβάνω). Stable; continues vv.5-7 hospitality vocabulary.
Diotrephes
Approved rendering: Diotrephes
Transliteration: Diotrephēs
Doctrine: Church Leadership and Pride
Original: Διοτρέφης
Category: Church Leadership
3 John 1:9-10. Proper name; standard English Bible transliteration, unchanged. Etymology (‘nurtured by Zeus’) not theologically exploited in the text.
Deeds Works
Approved rendering: deeds
Transliteration: deeds
Doctrine: Church Leadership and Pride
Original: ἔργον / ἔργα
Category: Church Leadership
3 John 1:10 (ἔργα). Stable general term for actions.
Forbids
Approved rendering: forbids
Transliteration: forbids
Doctrine: Church Leadership and Pride
Original: κωλύω
Category: Church Leadership
3 John 1:10 (κωλύω). Stable; no significant competing meaning.
Demetrius
Approved rendering: Demetrius
Transliteration: Dēmētrios
Doctrine: Commendation of Faithful Witness
Original: Δημήτριος
Category: Commendation of Faithful Witness
3 John 1:12. Proper name; standard transliteration, unchanged.
Friends
Approved rendering: friends
Transliteration: friends
Doctrine: Epistolary Peace and Closing Fellowship
Original: φίλος / φίλοι
Category: Truth and Christian Fellowship
3 John 1:14 (φίλος/φίλοι). Stable, positive; notable stylistic shift from ‘brothers’ (family language, vv.3,5,10) to ‘friends’ in the closing, reflecting the letter’s personal, close-circle register.
Greet
Approved rendering: greet
Transliteration: greet
Doctrine: Epistolary Peace and Closing Fellowship
Original: ἀσπάζομαι
Category: Truth and Christian Fellowship
3 John 1:14 (ἀσπάζομαι). Standard ancient letter-closing convention; stable.
By Name
Approved rendering: by name
Transliteration: by name
Doctrine: Epistolary Peace and Closing Fellowship
3 John 1:14 (κατ᾿ ὄνομα). Ordinary, non-technical use of ‘name’; must not be conflated with v.7’s weighty, Christological ‘the Name.‘
Mouth To Mouth
Approved rendering: face to face
Transliteration: stoma pros stoma
Doctrine: Truth and Christian Fellowship
Rejected alternatives: mouth to mouth (literal calque — REJECTED, risks unintended comic misreading, e.g. resuscitation or kissing imagery)
3 John 1:14 (στόμα πρὸς στόμα). Idiom for direct, personal conversation; ‘face to face’ is the exact, safe, near-universal English rendering. Never render literally.
Ink
Approved rendering: ink
Transliteration: ink
Doctrine: Truth and Christian Fellowship
3 John 1:13 (μέλαν). Concrete, descriptive; no doctrinal weight. Useful for brief cultural-context color on ancient letter-writing technology.
Pen Reed
Approved rendering: pen
Transliteration: kalamos
Doctrine: Truth and Christian Fellowship
3 John 1:13 (κάλαμος). Concrete, descriptive; a reed used as a writing implement. Brief explanatory note on ancient writing materials is sufficient.
Low-Medium Risk Terms
Walk
Approved rendering: walk
Transliteration: walk
Doctrine: Truth and Christian Fellowship
Rejected alternatives: live / conduct yourself (acceptable plain-language glosses)
Original: περιπατέω
Category: Truth and Christian Fellowship
3 John 1:3-4 (περιπατέω). Hebraic idiom for manner of life, unusually well preserved in contemporary Christian idiom (‘walk with the Lord’); readers with no church background may still need a brief explanatory gloss.
Send Forward
Approved rendering: send on their way
Transliteration: send on their way
Doctrine: Hospitality to Traveling Ministers
Rejected alternatives: send them off (too passive; loses the active-provisioning sense)
Original: προπέμπω
Category: Hospitality to Traveling Ministers
3 John 1:6 (προπέμπω). Rare in ordinary contemporary speech (obsolescence risk) but no strong competing secular meaning; means actively provisioning/funding someone’s onward travel, not a passive farewell.
Referenced passages