EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/22/2025 9:35 PM
My Worship Tim Focus:
PT-2“Sacrificial Love for Those
Faithful to the Truth”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: 3 John 1-8
Message of the verses: “1 The elder to the
beloved Gaius, whom I love
in truth. 2
Beloved, I pray that in all respects you may prosper and be in good health,
just as your soul prospers. 3 For I was very glad when brethren came and
testified to your truth,
that is, how you are walking in truth. 4 I have no greater joy than this, to hear
of my children walking in the truth. 5 Beloved, you are acting faithfully in whatever you
accomplish for the brethren, and especially when they are strangers; 6
and they have testified to your love before the church. You will do well to send them on their
way in a manner worthy of God. 7 For they went out for the sake of the Name,
accepting nothing from the Gentiles. 8 Therefore we ought to support such men, so that we may be
fellow workers with the truth.
I realize that I did not get too far in looking at
these verses in yesterday’s evening Spiritual Diary, but sometimes it seems to
me that the Lord speaks to my heart to write things that may not be things that
go along with the text that I am looking at.
Today
has been a busy day for me and for my wife who had major surgery a little over
three weeks ago as we had to go to the funeral of a very dear friend of ours, a
friend that could not have been a better friend. This evening one of our grandchildren was in
a concert at his school and so we just got back from that. We have two grandchildren who will graduate
from their Christian High Schools very soon and so that is more things that we
will be doing in the future. Their
graduations come 60 years after my graduation, and those 60 years have been
something that I can say that the Lord has blessed my family with His goodness
and grace as all of our children are believers along with our seven
grandchildren, and that is so very important, the most important thing!
I
will begin to quote from John MacArthur’s commentary and see how far I can get
this evening. “When the apostle Paul
detailed his suffering for the cause of Christ (2 Cor. 11:22-23), some of that suffering
involved travel far different from the comfort and safety of modern
travel. But the apostle’s experience reflected
the common reality of life in the ancient world: I have been on frequent journeys,’ he wrote, ‘in
dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers
from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on
the sea’ (v. 26) … ‘three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I spent in
the deep’ (v. 25). As that list
indicates, travel was arduous, unpleasant, and even dangerous. The few inns that existed (cf. Luke 2:7;
10:34) were often little more than vermin-infested brothels and their keepers
dishonest of ill repute. As a result,
travelers seeking safety were largely dependent on people open their homes to
them.
“Hospitality
therefore was both a necessity and a duty.
Even in pagan cultures necessity rendered it one of the highest
virtues. In fact, some of the gods
invented by the Canaanites were designed to acts as protectors of strangers and
travelers. The Greeks also viewed
travelers as being under the protection of the deities and hence to be shown
hospitality, as William Barclay notes:
In the ancient world
hospitality was a sacred duty. Strangers
were under the protection of Zeus Xenos, Zeus the god of strangers (Xenos is the Greek word for strangers)….The ancient world had a
system of guest-friendships whereby
families in different parts of the country arose. This connection between families lasted
throughout the generations and when it was claimed the claimant brought with
him a sumbolon, or token, which
identified him to his hosts. Some cities
kept an official called the Proxenos
in the larger cities to whom their citizens, when travelling, might appeal for
shelter and for help. (The Letters of John and Jude [rev.ed.;
Philadelphia: Westminster, 1976], 149).”
Lord
willing we will pick up looking more at hospitality, and what the Bible has to
say about it in our next SD.
5/22/2025 9:59 PM
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