EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/5/2025 8:22 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2“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.”
To begin with it is important to know that when
reading, especially the New Testament we read of other letters that the authors
of the New Testament wrote and are mentioned from time to time and so the
letter John wrote to Gaius’s church is now lost, but perhaps because Diotrephes
intercepted and destroyed it, just a possibility. I could not have not have been 2 John, since
that letter was not written to a church, but it was written to an
individual. Also it could not have been
1 John, which does not address the issue of showing hospitality to
missionaries, and in 1 John, John does not even mention he wrote that letter.
In John’s writing in 3 John he has a parenthetical description
of Diotrephes as one who loves to be first among them and this goes to the
heart of the issue. MacArthur writes “Loves
to be first translates a participial form of t he Greek verb philoproteuo, a compound word from philos (‘love’) and protos (‘first’). It
describes a person who is selfish, self-centered, and self-seeking. The present tense of the participle indicates
that this was the constant pattern of Diotrephes’ life. Proteuo
appears in the New Testament only in Colossians 1:18, where it refers to
the preeminence of the Lord Jesus Christ.
By rejecting those who were representing Christ, Diotrephes was in
effect usurping His role as head of the church.
The name Diotrephes (lit., ‘nourished by Zeus’ or ‘foster child of Zeus’)
was as uncommon as Gaius was common.
Some believe that it was used exclusively in noble families. If Diotrephes was from a noble family, his
arrogant behavior may have been cultivated in that elevated environment.
“That Diotrephes did not accept what John said indicates
just how far he had gone in his arrogance.
Shockingly, his desire for power and self-glory had driven him to reject
the authority of Christ mediated through the apostle John. Diotrephes was guilty of spiritual pride of
the rankest kind. His attitude was that
of a self-prompting demagogue, who refused to serve anyone but wanted all to
serve him. That attitude utterly defies
the New Testament’s teaching on servant leadership (cf. Matt. 20:25-28; 1 Cor.
3:5; 2 Cor. 4:5; Phil. 2:5-11; 1 Peter 5:3).”
6/5/2025 8:39 PM
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