<p>1:1 <em>The elder to the elect lady and her children, whom I love in truth; and not I only, but also all they that know the truth</em>- John saw the faithful churches to whom he was writing as those who had been faithful to the Gospel he had preached to them, as outlined in the Gospel of John. He had recorded there the promise that &quot;You will know the truth&quot; (Jn. 8:32), and he writes in his letters to a community &quot;who have come to know the truth&quot;, i.e. who had fulfilled and obeyed the Gospel of Jesus which he had preached to them initially. For &quot;the truth&quot; is a common Johannine title for the Lord Jesus. &quot;In truth&quot; is equivalent to how Paul might write &quot;in the Spirit&quot; or &quot;in Christ&quot;. For it is John who has told us of the gift of the Spirit to every believer, calling it &quot;the spirit of truth&quot;, or as Paul would say, &quot;the spirit of Christ&quot;. &quot;Know&quot; likewise is understood in John not as theoretical, doctrinal knowledge, but as perception and relationship of and with a person, the Lord Jesus, and not a set of theologies.</p><p>&quot;Lady&quot; is <em>kyria</em> and I suggest this refers to an actual sister, Kyria. It is not the usual word for &quot;lady&quot;. Her &quot;children&quot; referred to her converts. John was her &quot;elder&quot; in that he had converted her; and she now had developed her own house church. Her &quot;house&quot; (:10) refers to her house church; the &quot;your&quot; in :10 is grammatically female. John passes on greetings from another chosen sister, left anonymous, and <em>her</em> converts (:13). So John's preaching of the Gospel had led to the development of house churches, those who had read or heard his preaching of the Gospel which we have transcripted in the Gospel of John. And two of them were run by women; 3 John is addressed to another house church, led by Gaius. These women may have been like Lydia, women of wealth who were converted and their household members followed suit. There are various frescoes and other archaeological evidences of female house churches, with wall paintings of women distributing the bread and wine at communion services etc. Such things were radical in first century society, and led to Christianity being characterized by its critics as a woman's religion. The Gospel today likewise appeals to the marginalized and those deprived of meaning and significance by society.</p>