Last week we worked through the call to hospitality. We saw the elder encouraging Gaius to be faithful in welcoming and sending these evangelists and missionaries well. They go out for the name of Christ and take nothing with them, so they need the support of the church to further the mission. John encouraged Gaius to keep it up.
This echoes the positive side of 2 John. At the end of 2 John, we saw the other side: false teachers are not to be welcomed into the church or given hospitality. The opposite is true of true believers: welcome them in, and send them on their way well.
Last week ended with Gaius being encouraged to keep up this good work and not shrink back. Today, John gives him two examples, one negative and one positive, so that he can see what to imitate and what to avoid.
A Negative Example: Diotrephes (9-10)
Our first example is Diotrephes. I have mispronounced his name every single time I’ve said it, and I will probably do it again, even though I have the pronunciation in front of me. Demetrius, the second example, is much easier to say.
John says, “I have written something to the church.” He doesn’t say directly what he wrote. Something was written to instruct the church on certain matters, but Diotrephes has stepped in and, in his own mind, nullified John’s authority to instruct the church. Having put himself first, he no longer acknowledges their authority. He has taken up a position in the church as the authority.
John doesn’t give us the city or any other details, which again highlights the personal nature of this letter. What we see is a man who has set himself up as the ruling authority in this church, and to do that, he first has to nullify the authority of the apostles.
This is our first direct example in the text of a kind of cult leader, because that is ultimately what he is doing. We see it in many cultic leaders and Christian sects. The first thing you have to do is eliminate the actual teaching of the apostles. You eliminate what Scripture says and make yourself the authority. Diotrephes is in effect saying, “I am now the authority. What John says is wrong. John clearly isn’t instructing you properly. I, having put myself first, am your ultimate spiritual authority.”
In many ways, we see this pattern in history. The Catholic Church began its error when it ceased to be Scripture-based and became papal-based, where the tradition and the words of the Pope supersede the Word of God. It’s the same thing whenever a man sets himself up over the authority of Scripture.
What stands out with Diotrephes is that he uses John’s own teaching from 2 John. In 2 John, we highlighted last week the instruction not to let false teachers into the church, and to put out anyone who has anything to do with them. Diotrephes turns that instruction around and uses it against John, as though John himself had become the false teacher. He refuses to welcome the brothers, stops those who want to welcome them, and puts them out of the church. In doing so, he does the very thing John said the church should do to false teachers.
Diotrephes takes the truth of God’s Word, shifts it a little, and uses it against John, the apostles, and true believers. You don’t have to manipulate the whole thing. You change a couple of pieces and then use it against the faithful. We see this happen throughout history. Paul makes a similar point when he says that even if an angel from heaven preached a different gospel, let that messenger be anathema. Diotrephes is twisting the truths of Scripture for his own ends, and John is highlighting exactly that.
Diotrephes also does not have the good of the church in view. Putting himself first is not only about being in charge. It is also a way to reap all the rewards that come with it, and to avoid being hospitable. There is a selfishness in that. Hospitality costs money, and anyone who has been hospitable knows it isn’t cheap. Bringing people into your home costs money for food, for clothing, and for the electric and water bills. These things add up. For someone selfish, if it costs anything, it isn’t worth doing. So there is selfishness and pride at work in Diotrephes.
And because he doesn’t want to look bad, he gets rid of anyone who might do the opposite of what he does. His message is, in effect, “Imitate me. We don’t welcome anyone, because we are the only true church, and anyone who comes near us is bad.” So they huddle together and keep everything for themselves. They build little temples to themselves. That is what Diotrephes is ultimately doing.
John says, “I will come and deal with it.” This is an important part of the letter. John isn’t simply letting it take place. He has received reports that Diotrephes is not letting the brothers in and is throwing out people who are trying to be hospitable and do what is right. This will not stand. John says he will come, and that he will bring up what Diotrephes is doing, including the wicked nonsense he talks against them. The heart behind it is wickedness, a heart opposed to the gospel.
So John shows Gaius a negative example. Gaius is doing great. He is doing everything John has called him to do, everything we see in Scripture and have experienced in the gospel. We highlighted Christ’s own command in Luke about going out and supporting the work. Here, though, is someone who isn’t doing it, and who is even twisting Scripture so he doesn’t have to. That is wicked and evil, and John’s point is that he will not let it stand. He will deal with it when he comes.
The Warning: Do Not Imitate Evil (11)
Then John transitions with a warning, turning directly back to Gaius: “Beloved, do not imitate evil, but imitate good. Whoever does good is from God; whoever does evil has not seen God.”
He sets up a contrast. Do not imitate the evil being done here. There is no benefit in it, and no proclamation of the gospel comes from turning to wicked things. Do the right things. Be imitators of God and imitators of those who do good. This is very close to Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 11:1: “Be imitators of me as I am of Christ.”
Imitation isn’t bad when we are imitating the right thing: people who are living out the faith well, who point us to Christ and not to themselves. Diotrephes is a negative example. Everything in his life points to himself. He is first, foremost, and supreme, and he is wrong, and he is wicked. John’s warning is: do not be like him. Do not give up on doing good.
So this is a continual reminder to keep doing what you have been doing. Be hospitable. Continue in the work of sending the brothers. Continue to build up this good rapport. Do not imitate the evil around us, because it is not from God. It is a reminder to be ministers of the gospel in how we live and in the examples we set.
So ask yourself: Is my life based on what God has called us to, and on what we see in Scripture? Or is it, in many ways, based on what is most pleasing to me, what is easiest for me, and what I get the most out of? Is it self-centered or Christ-centered? Does it make much of the Lord, or does it make much of us?
This self-centered evil plays out in the church. There are people who build entire kingdoms around themselves and how they can feed themselves. They puff themselves up, stand on stages all across America, and preach something gospel-ish to build their own kingdoms and make money. John is saying: do not keep imitating those things. Rather, imitate the good: walking out the faith in truth, welcoming the brothers, sending the brothers, and being imitators of God.
A Positive Example: Demetrius (12)
John shows us Diotrephes, a warning, and then a good example to move toward. Do not be like Diotrephes. Be like Demetrius, “who has received a good testimony from everyone.”
Everyone who has met Demetrius says he is legitimate. That is a statement from the apostle John: everyone who has met this man speaks well of him. His way is righteous, faithful, and true, and his testimony comes “from the truth itself.” The impression John gives is that Demetrius’s life is truthful in both how he lives and what he says. His faith and his life match. People who see him and hear him say, “That is a godly individual.”
This reminds me of one of the qualifications for an elder, one that often stumps people and is quickly passed over: an elder must be well spoken of by outsiders (1 Timothy 3:7). That’s a strange thought for our day, and most people would be confused about why it’s in there. It means that a person’s conduct is not antagonistic but is grounded in the truth. We’ll probably unpack that in Q&A. The picture is that there is something in how they carry themselves, how they live out the gospel, that is well spoken of by everyone. Their word and their life match.
They speak a gospel of forgiveness, grace, and humility. That doesn’t mean they shrink back from the truth, but they speak it in a well-intentioned way, seeking the salvation of others and not making it about themselves. As Paul continually shows, this isn’t about building a kingdom for himself. It’s about saving sinners from death in the name of Christ. That is the motivation.
So Demetrius has this testimony about himself: his word and his deed match. The way he treats people matches the gospel. He is one who lives out the faith, and John is holding him up to encourage Gaius to be faithful.
In our day, I encourage people to read Christian biographies. I don’t know if you enjoy a good biography, but there are many good ones out there. A good biography highlights the struggles people have and avoids overly heroic portraits. As people work through the faith, they face real struggles. We’ll watch a video on Luther next week, and it does highlight some of that. It wasn’t simply, “I’m going to nail a bunch of theses to the wall about how bad Catholicism is,” and the rest of his life was perfect. There was struggle and hardship, and those hardships were growing him in godliness.
Christian biographies help us do in our own lives what Demetrius’s testimony encourages. Look at this person’s life, and look at the testimony about him. They help us see the history of the church and how the Lord has worked in many different people over many different generations.
There are some fantastic biographies. The two-volume George Whitefield biography by Arnold Dallimore, which is on my shelf in the office, is excellent. Whitefield was a complex individual and a central figure in the First Great Awakening. By modern standards he wasn’t a particularly strong preacher, but the Lord used him greatly. If you read his sermons, they are not the most impressive theological arguments, but they are filled with the gospel and with passion. Spurgeon is different. He could paint a picture in five words, with a simple wordplay that explained everything. It’s amazing. We wouldn’t encourage people to copy either man’s preaching style, but they were great communicators.
Spurgeon’s life echoes someone who was committed to the Lord in every season, in good and in bad. You don’t get these full pictures without reading the good biographies, and seeing the ups and downs of how people come to faith and how the Lord builds out their faith over time. A lot of it is people imitating others who went before them. Biographies highlight the people who influenced these men. Often those people are unknown to us. They’re mentioned in letters, “this bishop of this town,” and no one today knows that town or can connect you to those leaders. Yet those people had a profound impact on others, who in turn had a profound impact on still others. They were just men doing the work God had called them to, many of them in small churches in England, in small towns and villages, faithfully doing the ministry God had given them. God used that work.
That is the very point John is encouraging Gaius with: keep doing the work well. Imitate those who are doing well, like Demetrius, who has a good testimony from everyone. The truth itself is clearly seen in him. The word he speaks is true, the gospel is true, and his life is true.
A Hopeful Conclusion (13-14)
John adds, “We also add our testimony, and you know that our testimony is true.” In other words: you have heard everyone else say that Demetrius is great, and you have seen his life, and we agree. This man is someone to be emulated. Demetrius is someone in whom you can see the gospel at work, and he will further the work of the kingdom.
So if you are looking for someone doing the work, Demetrius is the one to look to. Do not be worried about the work of the evil one, and do not be discouraged because Diotrephes is over there doing the opposite.
If you want a biblical example of that kind of discouragement, think of Elijah. He persevered in the truth, preached the word of God, and did the word of God. Then he had a moment and thought, “I’m all by myself. Is this actually worth doing?” He had something like an existential crisis: “Nobody likes me. I’m the only faithful one left, and it’s getting depressing.” He reached the point of wanting to die (1 Kings 19:4). God’s answer was that there are 7,000 others in the kingdom who have not bowed to Baal (1 Kings 19:18). You just don’t know them. Just because you are unaware of the work doesn’t mean the work isn’t taking place. You are not alone in being the only one sending.
Maybe you’ve given to the work of the ministry and felt like the only one giving, and wondered whether anyone cares. There are probably others you’re unaware of, and God is doing things we may be missing. It helps to be reminded of these things, and to hear of God’s good work from others, so that we are motivated to keep going when things feel hard.
So this is the end of John’s letter. He gives a negative example, the opposition that exists, and then a positive example in Demetrius. Then he closes with a hopeful conclusion. We have said before that this is one of the most “secular” books in the New Testament, because it follows a Roman letter-writing structure. It does the same at the end, very similar to 2 John, slightly different but very close:
I had much to write to you, but I would rather not write with pen and ink. I hope to see you soon, and we will talk face to face. Peace be to you. The friends greet you. Greet the friends each by name.
This is a hopeful conclusion to a letter. John had so much more he could write, but writing is a lot of work and effort, and you never know if you have said everything you meant to say. I can identify with John. I don’t like writing. I don’t feel like I’m a great writer, and I always feel like I’m going to miss something. If I’m talking, I can also correct myself: “Oh, I forgot to tell you this. Oh, and this.” It may annoy people, because my thoughts sometimes jump around. If you’ve had a conversation with me outside of this room, you know my brain goes all over the place. But when you’re writing, that doesn’t work. You’re left wondering, did I say everything? I think I did, and then you realize you forgot six things. A personal conversation would be so much quicker.
That seems to be John’s situation too. He says the same thing in 2 John: “I want to come to you.” There is so much to talk about. Especially if the relationship is more of a passing one, where John knows Gaius from a good report and Gaius knows John as an apostle, John wants to come and really spend time together: talking about what he has heard about Gaius and what God is doing through him, unpacking some of the things they are dealing with, and discussing how Gaius can be part of it. John can’t even begin to list all he wants to talk about. He wrote 1 John, the Gospel of John, and Revelation. He has a lot to say. Yet these two letters say less, which is interesting. He clearly can write, so it isn’t that he can’t write. There is something more here. He wants to unpack it face to face.
There is a difference between talking with someone face to face and writing a letter. Letter writing is fantastic, and we probably haven’t done much of it as a society in forty years, but it can come back. Email might as well be text messages nowadays, so we don’t have the same kind of expression. Still, there is something different about meeting face to face: a personal connection, especially if you haven’t seen each other in a long time. Seeing someone’s face and talking with them matters, especially when you’re afraid people will misunderstand you. If John were going to unpack deep doctrine, he wouldn’t want to be misunderstood. The written word can be open to interpretation, but face to face leaves less room for that, because you can ask for clarification and fill in any missing context. That is the picture of John here. He wants to meet, talk about what God is doing, and he hopes to do it soon.
These small glimpses show us that the apostles were not just set-apart men who wrote books, said “God said this,” and went back to a holy cave, only to come out again and say, “God said things.” They had friendships and lives. They wrote personal letters to people, wanting to see good work go forward. They were encouraged when they heard the work was going well, and discouraged when it wasn’t. We get a glimpse of John as a person.
Then he ends with the common conclusion to a letter: “Peace be to you. The friends greet you. Greet the friends each by name.” Gaius is part of this group of friends, all the friends who are with John. The church is greeting him. So greet the body wherever you are, and do it by name. This isn’t a passive, impersonal greeting. It means personally connecting with the saints and personally encouraging those who are with you. Be personable with one another, because we are all part of what God is doing.
John has encouraged Gaius, Gaius has encouraged John, and the whole church has been encouraged by this moment. That brings us back to the beginning: “We have heard reports of your good works, and we are encouraged by them.” I hope you are equally encouraged by what has been written to you, and that we will experience that mutual edification soon.
That is what has been laid before us in 3 John. I hope it was beneficial, and that you saw some things in a new light. Maybe you’ve never really spent time in 3 John, so I hope this helped you pick up some of the nuances in the text.
