Peace, and the Friends by Name
13 I had many things to write to you, but I am unwilling to write to you with ink and pen; 14 but I hope to see you soon. Then we will speak face to face. Peace be to you. The friends greet you. Greet the friends by name.
The letter ends the way the Gospel ends — peace given, and the sheep called by name.
The close is the twin of the second letter's 2 John 1:12: many things to say, no appetite for saying them in writing, the hope of speaking face to face. There the tools were paper and ink; here they are ink and pen — kalamos G2563, the reed cut for writing. A letter can carry truth a long way; what it cannot do is sit in a room, and the elder means to.
Then three farewells, each heavier than it looks. Peace be to you is the greeting the risen Lord gave twice in one evening, behind a shut door John 20:19 John 20:21. Spoken toward an assembly Diotrephes has troubled, it is not a pleasantry but a bequest John 14:27. The friends greet you — friend is the Lord's own name for those he no longer calls servants John 15:15. And: greet the friends by name. The shepherd's idiom ends the letter — he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out John 10:3. Diotrephes casts out of the assembly in bulk; the elder counts heads one by one. Between those two ways with a flock, the letter has said everything it came to say.
settled What this mark means