Wednesday, June 4, 2025

EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/4/2025 9:58 PM

My Worship Time Focus: PT-1“Diotrephes’ Personal Ambition”

Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: 3 John 9

Message of the verse: “I wrote something to the church; but Diotrephes, who loves to be first among them, does not accept what we say.”

Now before I get into this verse to talk about it I want to say that I am coming to the end of two different books of the Bible that I am studying so that I can put what I learn onto my Spiritual Diaries. I began the study of 1 John on 08-01-2024 and then once I finished it I moved to 2 John, and then 3 John. I really did not know what I was going to study after I got done with this study but I have ordered some more commentaries from the “Grace to You” website, but they will not be here before I get done with this study. I believe that we will be looking at 2 Peter once I get done with 3 John, and as mentioned I may have a few days without doing an evening Spiritual Diary. As some of you may know I am also studying in the morning 2 Timothy, and I have more to finish to get to the end of that book than this one, but once I am done with that one I will begin to study a couple of books in the Old Testament, something that I have not studied for a very long time, but I am looking forward to doing this. Jonah/Nahum OT Commentary is the commentary that I have ordered to do in my evening Spiritual Diaries, and as soon as I get it I will begin it as there will be a time gap between 3 John and Jonah/Nahum Spiritual Diaries.

In this verse we want to begin by talking about the contrast between righteous Gaius and unrighteous Diotrephes, and it is a striking difference as the two men were actually poles apart. First we remember Gaius who was graciously hospitable, while Diotrephes was the opposite, ungraciously inhospitable. Gaius loved the truth and he also loved everyone humbly as seen in 3 John 3-6. Then Diotrephes refused the truth and loved himself, which made him threaten everyone from his position of self-appointed authority in the church. Perhaps some of you have faced this same kind of a problem with someone in your church. Well it is much different now than when John penned this letter, especially if you live in a place where there are many good gospel preaching churches in your area. I have to admit that especially in the United States, where I live that the numbers are getting lower and lower, but in most parts of our country there are at least one or two good church choices. I think that I mentioned that a late friend of mine (he is now with the Lord) who came from Europe where he was a young boy when WWII was going on told some very fascinating stories about his childhood. He said that he was ready to kill himself when he was young, and he left where he was living to do this when his mother came to him before he could kill himself. He spoke of a sister of his who was taken to Siberia and she was put on a pile of dead bodies to await burial when it got a little warmer. Someone stated that they thought she was still alive and they brought her body into their house and they rubbed some kind of warm milk on her and she survived after that. This man’s name was Paul and he attended a Bible Study that I led and we had a game we played which was called two truths and a lie, and the group was suppose to figure which one was the lie. Paul stated that he saw Hitler and also saw Elvis Presley and these were the two truths as when he was a child he got to see Hitler and after coming to the United States while in the army he got to see Elvis. I forget what the false statement was. Paul is now with the Lord and I don’t know if he can tell stories there. Now back to our subject and I think we will have to make this section a two day affair.