DESTINATION
DESTINATION
First John mentions no addressee and preserves no specific greetings, formal thanksgiving, or any of the other formal touches that normally characterize a first-century letter. The second epistle is addressed to "the chosen lady and her children,” almost certainly not a respected Christian matron and her family but a local congregation. It can scarcely be thought that this epistle is directed to the universal church, since it reports greetings from "your chosen sister,” which must be understood to be salutations from another congregation: the universal church has no sister. Even so, it is just possible that the author chose this form of address not only for its symbolic connections but also because it was flexible enough to be used with respect to several congregations. 15 The third epistle is addressed to an individual, Gaius by name, not to be associated with Gaius of Corinth (1 Cor. 1:14; Rom. 16:23) or Gaius of Macedonia (Acts 19:29), and probably not Gaius of Derbe (Acts 20:4)—though a fourth-century document, the Apostolic Constitutions (7.46.9), makes this latter connection. The document is late, and "Gaius” was an exceedingly common name in the empire.
The geographic destination cannot be more than an inference from what is reconstructed of the documents’ provenance. Probably, therefore, these epistles were sent to churches (and an individual) somewhere in the Ephesus area, including, perhaps, the territory spanned by the seven churches of Revelation 2-3).