22

The Man Who Loved the Preeminence
(3 John 9-14)

I wrote something to the church; but Diotrephes, who loves to be first among them, does not accept what we say. For this reason, if I come, I will call attention to his deeds which he does, unjustly accusing us with wicked words; and not satisfied with this, he himself does not receive the brethren, either, and he forbids those who desire to do so and puts them out of the church. Beloved, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good. The one who does good is of God; the one who does evil has not seen God. Demetrius has received a good testimony from everyone, and from the truth itself; and we add our testimony, and you know that our testimony is true. I had many things to write to you, but I am not willing to write them to you with pen and ink; but I hope to see you shortly, and we will speak face to face. Peace be to you. The friends greet you. Greet the friends by name. (9-14)

One of the defining characteristics of every sinful human heart is pride (Prov. 21:4). Pride causes people to forget God (Deut. 8:14; Hos. 13:6), be unfaithful to Him (2 Chron. 26:16), be ungrateful to Him (2 Chron. 32:24-25), and become an abomination to Him (Prov. 16:5). It was through pride that sin entered the universe, when Satan sought to exalt himself above God (Isa. 14:12-14; cf. 1 Tim. 3:6).

As was the case with the Devil, pride drives people to seek to exalt themselves. There have always been proud, egotistical, self-promoting people, who try to usurp authority, seize a place of preeminence, and elevate themselves over others, even God. They tend to gravitate to and even manipulate themselves into positions of power, influence, and prominence. Scripture records many such people; they form a sort of “Hall of Shame,” in contrast to the heroes of the faith listed in Hebrews 11.

The story of human pride began in the Garden of Eden. As it had been in Satan’s fall, pride was a major component in the act of disobedience that catapulted the human race into sin. Eve ate the forbidden fruit in part because she believed Satan’s lie that it would make her wise like God (Gen. 3:5-6). Moreover, by choosing to eat the fruit, without consulting Adam, she elevated herself above her husband, usurping his role in the created order (1 Tim. 2:13; cf. 1 Cor. 11:3-10). Clearly, then, pride was at work from the very moment sin entered the world.

The next chapter of Genesis introduces Lamech, a descendant of the first murderer, Cain. Like his ancestor, Lamech was also a murderer (as well as the first recorded polygamist). As Cain’s murder had been motivated by proud envy, Lamech’s killings were a result of pride. In the first recorded poetry in human history, Lamech boasted arrogantly to his wives,

Perhaps Enoch had Lamech in mind when he prophesied, “Behold, the Lord came with many thousands of His holy ones, to execute judgment upon all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him” (Jude 14-15).

Genesis 10 and 11 relate the story of Nimrod, another proud figure. Genesis 10:8 describes him as “a mighty one on the earth.” His name probably is related to a Hebrew word meaning “to rebel,” while the word translated “mighty one” refers to someone who magnifies himself, acts proudly, or is tyrannical. The description of Nimrod as a renowned hunter (v. 9) may indicate his skill in hunting animals—or in hunting people to enslave them. It was under his leadership that the Tower of Babel, a monument to human pride and rebellion against God, was built (Gen. 11:1-9). Nimrod also was the founder of what later became the Babylonian and Assyrian empires (cf. Gen. 10:10-12). Derek Kidner writes concerning Nimrod’s character, “Nimrod looks out of antiquity as the first of ‘the great men that are in the earth’, remembered for two things the world admires, personal prowess and political power” (Genesis, The Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries [Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity 1979], 107).

During Israel’s wilderness wandering, “Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took their respective firepans, and after putting fire in them, placed incense on it and offered strange fire before the Lord, which He had not commanded them. And fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord” (Lev. 10:1-2). These two priests, sons of Aaron, in their first priestly act violated in some unspecified way the divine prescription for offering incense. Their behavior, possibly while they were drunk (cf. Lev. 10:8-10), betrayed their rebellious carelessness, irreverence, and preference for their own will over God’s very specific commands. The two decided to do things their own way, and paid the ultimate price for such proud independence. Also during the wilderness wandering, Moses’ own brother and sister, Aaron and Miriam, sought to elevate themselves to his level (Num. 12:1-3). The Lord severely judged both of them for their arrogance and presumption (vv. 4-15).

During the lawless days of the judges, Abimelech, the son of Gideon, wanted to be king. So passionate was his lust for power that he murdered seventy of his brothers in an attempt to eliminate any possible rivals (Judg. 9:1-6). But Abimelech’s reign came to an untimely and embarrassing end. During his siege of the city of Thebez, “a certain woman threw an upper millstone on Abimelech’s head, crushing his skull” (v. 53). In the throes of death, he made a desperate, prideful attempt to avoid the shame of being killed by a woman. He “called quickly to the young man, his armor bearer, and said to him, ‘Draw your sword and kill me, so that it will not be said of me, “A woman slew him.”’ So the young man pierced him through, and he died” (v. 54). Despite his attempt to cover it up, Abimelech’s shameful death was recorded for all time in Scripture.

Absalom’s quest for power and prominence led him to stage a coup against his own father, King David. But his day in the sun was shortlived, and he met an ignominious end. While he was fleeing from David’s men through a dense forest, Absalom’s mule went under an oak tree. His flowing hair became entangled in the tree’s thick branches, leaving him dangling helplessly in midair. He was soon executed by David’s general, Joab (2 Sam. 18:9-15).

Another of David’s sons, Adonijah, also sought to usurp the throne of his father. In the waning days of David’s life, “Adonijah the son of Haggith exalted himself, saying, ‘I will be king.’So he prepared for himself chariots and horsemen with fifty men to run before him [like his brother Absalom had done; 2 Sam. 15:1]” (1 Kings 1:5). His attempt to claim the throne failed, however, thwarted by the quick action of Nathan the prophet (vv. 11-48). Granted mercy by King Solomon (vv. 50-53), Adonijah repaid that kindness by scheming to overthrow him (1 Kings 2:13-21). Solomon saw through his plot, however, and had him executed (vv. 22-25).

Not content with being king, Uzziah attempted to usurp the function of the priests. According to 2 Chronicles 26:16, “When he became strong, his heart was so proud that he acted corruptly, and he was unfaithful to the Lord his God, for he entered the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense.” Uzziah was courageously opposed by Azariah and eighty priests, who warned him that he was overstepping his bounds (vv. 17-18). Enraged, the proud and self-confident Uzziah threatened the priests, and was immediately stricken by God with leprosy (v. 19). For the rest of his life Uzziah, the outcast, lived in a separate house and his son Jotham assumed his royal duties (v. 21).

The book of Esther relates the story of Haman, the great foe of the Jewish people. Obsessed with his self-importance after being elevated to a high position in the Persian Empire, Haman was enraged at Mordecai’s refusal to do homage to him (Est. 3:5). He therefore instigated a pogrom to exterminate Mordecai’s people, the Jews (v. 6). In the end, however, it was Haman who perished, hanged on the very gallows on which he had planned to hang Mordecai (Est. 7:10).

Nebuchadnezzar was the king of the mighty Babylonian Empire. One day as he walked on the roof of his royal palace in Babylon, “the king reflected and said, ‘Is this not Babylon the great, which I myself have built as a royal residence by the might of my power and for the glory of my majesty?’” (Dan. 4:30). But his pride was swiftly and humiliatingly crushed:

In the New Testament, pompous King Herod Agrippa I decided to hold a celebration. As he gave a speech his enraptured subjects, unable to contain themselves, “kept crying out, ‘The voice of a god and not of a man!’” (Acts 12:22). Because Herod neglected to give glory to God, an angel of the Lord struck him and he died (v. 23), thus bringing an abrupt and unexpected end to the festivities.

The four Gospels describe an entire group of boastful men who sought the preeminence, namely the scribes and Pharisees. Jesus said of them,

They were those who justified themselves in the sight of men (Luke 16:15), “for appearance’s sake offer[ed] long prayers” (Luke 20:47), “receive[d] glory from one another” (John 5:44), and “loved the approval of men rather than the approval of God” (John 12:43).

Prideful ambition had an ugly presence even among Jesus’ own disciples. In Matthew 20:20-21 “The mother of the sons of Zebedee came to Jesus with her sons, bowing down and making a request of Him. And He said to her, ‘What do you wish?’ She said to Him, ‘Command that in Your kingdom these two sons of mine may sit one on Your right and one on Your left.’” James and John used their mother’s presumed influence with Jesus to ask for preeminent places in the kingdom. But instead of granting their request, Jesus used the occasion to instruct His disciples concerning the importance of humility:

In this third epistle the apostle John introduces Diotrephes, another in the long line of men who sought the preeminence. Verse 9 marks an abrupt shift in the tone of the letter. The first eight verses praise Gaius for showing sacrificial love to missionaries who came to his church. But beginning in verse 9, the tone is just the opposite, as John sharply rebukes a man called Diotrephes for refusing to show hospitality to the servants of the gospel, and for refusing to permit others to do so. The apostle exposed Diotrephes’ personal ambition and perverted actions, and offered yet another man, Demetrius, as a commendable contrast to him.

DIOTREPHES’ PERSONAL AMBITION

I wrote something to the church; but Diotrephes, who loves to be first among them, does not accept what we say. (9)

The contrast between righteous Gaius and unrighteous Diotrephes is striking; the two men were poles apart. Gaius was graciously hospitable, Diotrephes ungraciously inhospitable. Gaius loved the truth and loved everyone humbly (vv. 3-6); Diotrephes refused the truth and loved himself, and threatened everyone from his position of self-appointed authority in the church. One submitted to the words of truth; the other spouted words of contempt. The difference between the two men was not primarily doctrinal but behavioral; John did not rebuke Diotrephes for heresy, but for haughtiness.

The letter John wrote to Gaius’s church is now lost, perhaps because Diotrephes intercepted and destroyed it. It could not have been 2 John, since that letter was not written to a church but to an individual. Nor could it have been 1 John, which does not address the issue of showing hospitality to missionaries.

John’s parenthetical description of Diotrephes as one who loves to be first among them goes to the heart of the issue. Loves to be first translates a participial form of the Greek verb philoprōteuō, a compound word from philos (“love”) and prōtos (“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. Prōteuō 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-promoting 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).

DIOTREPHES’ PERVERTED ACTIONS

For this reason, if I come, I will call attention to his deeds which he does, unjustly accusing us with wicked words; and not satisfied with this, he himself does not receive the brethren, either, and he forbids those who desire to do so and puts them out of the church. (10)

For this reason (Diotrephes’ prideful defiance of John’s apostolic authority) the apostle declared, If I come, I will call attention to his deeds which he does. John would not overlook this challenge to his apostolic authority and to Christ’s rule in the church. He would expose Diotrephes before the congregation, make his conduct a matter of church discipline (1 Tim. 5:19-20), and, if need be, use his apostolic authority to deal with him. Paul issued a similar challenge to the rebels at Corinth when he wrote, “I will come to you soon, if the Lord wills, and I shall find out, not the words of those who are arrogant but their power” (1 Cor. 4:19), and again in his second letter to Corinth, when he stated,

John indicted Diotrephes on four counts. In each case, the present tense of the verb indicates that these were continual, habitual behaviors on Diotrephes’ part.

First, he was guilty of unjustly accusing John with wicked words. Character assassination is an all too common ploy of those who seek to elevate themselves. They gain people’s trust not positively by manifesting a godly character but negatively by destroying people’s trust in other leaders. The verb translated unjustly accusing appears only here in the New Testament, but a related word is translated “gossips” in 1 Timothy 5:13. Scripture repeatedly condemns gossip (Prov. 20:19; Rom. 1:29; 2 Cor. 12:20; 1 Tim. 3:11; 5:13; 2 Tim. 3:3; Titus 2:3), and slander (Lev. 19:16; Ps. 15:3; 101:5; 140:11; Prov. 10:18; 16:28; Matt. 15:19; ‘Rom. 1:30; 2 Cor. 12:20; Eph. 4:31; Col. 3:8; 1 Peter 2:1). The adjective translated wicked is used five times in 1 John to describe the Devil (2:13, 14; 3:12; 5:18, 19) and once of Cain’s evil deeds (3:12). In 2 John 11, it describes the evil deeds of the false teachers. Diotrephes’ malicious accusations were evil, false, and slanderous. He saw John as a threat to his power and prestige in the church and savagely attacked him. This is similar to the way the false teachers in Corinth had assaulted Paul (2 Cor. 7:2-3; 10:10; 11:5-7; 12:15; 13:3).

Second, not satisfied with merely assaulting John, Diotrephes defiantly did not receive the brethren, the traveling preachers who proclaimed the apostolic message of the gospel. Seeing the preachers as a threat to his own power in the church, Diotrephes refused to extend hospitality to them. Since Scripture commands such hospitality (Rom. 12:13; Heb. 13:2; 1 Peter 4:9), Diotrephes was also guilty of rejecting the Word of God. As one commentator explains,

Not only did Diotrephes personally refuse to extend hospitality to the brethren; he also forbade those who desire[d] to do so. He further abused his power by obstructing or preventing others in the church from showing hospitality to the itinerant preachers.

Those who defied Diotrephes and showed hospitality were put out of the church. So threatening was Diotrephes that he had the clout to excommunicate anyone he perceived as an apparent threat. Perhaps that had actually happened to Gaius, which could explain why John had to tell him about what was going on in the church. If he was still in the church, Gaius was facing hostility and opposition from Diotrephes, prompting John to encourage him not to give in, but to continue to show hospitality in the future (cf. the discussion of 3 John 5-8 in the previous chapter of this volume).

Like most conflicts in the church, this one stemmed from pride. It was pride that caused Diotrephes to slander John, snub the missionaries, and eliminate those who defied him. His arrogance led to ambition, which resulted in false, slanderous accusations, defiance toward apostolic authority, and the crushing of any opposition to his power. Sadly, there have always been people like Diotrephes in churches. Even more tragically, many churches, either because they are fearful of them, or in the name of tolerance, refuse to deal with their own Diotrephes types. The apostle John, however, had no hesitation in confronting such a sinner for the good of the church and the honor of Christ.

DEMETRIUS’ COMMENDABLE CONTRAST

Beloved, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good. The one who does good is of God; the one who does evil has not seen God. Demetrius has received a good testimony from everyone, and from the truth itself; and we add our testimony, and you know that our testimony is true. (11-12)

At first glance verse 11 appears to interrupt John’s flow of thought. But it is a necessary introduction to the section commending Demetrius. John urged Gaius not to imitate Diotrephes’ evil behavior by refusing to welcome Demetrius. Instead, the apostle urged Gaius to pattern his life after what is good, like Demetrius did. John’s reminder that the one who does good is of God; the one who does evil has not seen God is a practical application of the moral test of genuine faith that he gave in his first epistle (see the exposition of 1 John 2:3-6 and 5:2-3 in chapters 5 and 16 of this volume). The Bible is clear that good works do not save; “a man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus … since by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified” (Gal. 2:16; cf. Rom. 3:20). Obedience is, however, the external, visible proof of salvation (John 14:15, 21). Diotrephes’refusal to obey God’s commands demonstrates that he was not saved.

In contrast to his strong indictment of Diotrephes, John warmly commended Demetrius. Like Gaius, the name Demetrius (“belonging to Demeter,” the Greek goddess of grain and the harvest) was common. A silversmith in Ephesus by that name sparked a riot over Paul’s teaching, because the gospel was financially damaging to him and his fellow idol makers (Acts 19:23-41). Demas (Col. 4:14; 2 Tim. 4:10; Philem. 24) was a shortened form of Demetrius.

Nothing is known apart from this verse of the Demetrius whom John commended. He may have delivered this letter from John to Gaius. That he was a man of noble Christian character is evident from three sources. First, he had received a good testimony from everyone. His reputation was well known among the Christian community in that region. Second, Demetrius was committed to living the truth (v. 3). Finally, John added his own testimony—which Gaius knew to be true—to commend Demetrius’ character. The example of Demetrius shows that a man’s worth can be measured by his reputation in the community, his faithfulness to the truth of Scripture, and the opinion godly Christian leaders have of him. Demetrius received high marks on all counts.

The conclusion of this epistle closely parallels that of 2 John. John wrote, I had many things to write to you, but I am not willing to write them to you with pen and ink; but I hope to see you shortly, and we will speak face to face. In both epistles John had much more to say to those to whom he wrote, but he preferred to do so not with pen and ink, but face to face.

The apostle’s farewell wish, peace be to you, was an appropriate one for that strife-torn congregation. Gaius and John evidently had mutual friends who asked John to greet Gaius for them. John also asked Gaius to greet some other mutual friends who were with him. The phrase by name adds a personal, intimate touch. Though well into his nineties, John still cherished those to whom he had ministered throughout his life.

Without question, the concept of the truth stands out in this brief letter. First, believers must know the truth and obey it (v. 3). Second, they are to be hospitable to other faithful believers, who preach the truth (vv. 6-8). Finally, they are to pattern their lives after godly examples who live in the truth (v. 11; cf. Heb. 13:7). Where the truth prevails, the Lord is glorified in His church.