Verse 5 shows us the love we should have for our fellow
travelers:
My friend, you demonstrate your
faithfulness in all the things you do for the brothers and sisters; even when
they are strangers to you, you treat them as family.
I often wonder if this is God’s idea that we open our homes
to travelers or missionaries. With hotels and hostels this has really become a
thing of the past across the world. The few times I have traveled on mission
trips we usually occupied church floors. At 12 Stone they have us open our
doors to interns so they can live someplace during their training. In
reflecting on this two things are missing in the dynamic these days, people are
not traveling locally unless it’s disaster relief and the way we move across
the world has changed making these kind of stops unnecessary.
What would John suggest today?
Verse 9 calls out an individual for his actions:
I wrote some things specifically to
the church, but Diotrephes, who loves to be the one up front, rejects us.
Diotrephes does not feel we should be opening our doors to
our fellow travelers in Jesus’ name. Again the hotel has changed things immensely,
but assume they had inn’s then also so maybe not. Verse 10 John mentions how he
will handle the situation:
If I come, you can be sure that I
will call him out and draw attention to his actions. He assails us with lies
and deceit. As if that were not enough, he does not welcome the traveling
missionaries into his home. Instead, he hinders any who do so and expels
them from the church.
Funny how many churches today get this way with internal squabbling.
Pride ends up making people thinking they “know” the will of God and therefore
start doing things their own way. They interpret a section of scripture to work
for their own desires and things fall apart. I have seen this a few times with
teachers who have been good yet they end up getting pushed aside because of
personalities and “elder” who feel they know what is right. Be aware of this
not only with others, BUT WITH YOURSELF!!
Verse 12 ends on a positive note:
Demetrius
has a good reputation with everyone we know. The truth stands on
his side, and we add our unreserved recommendation to the long list of
accounts on his behalf. You can rest assured that we are telling the truth.
I believe too often we end our discussions with a
negative and that leaves the recipient depressed. John ends his with a word of
encouragement and gives them an example of one doing things right. The key here
is stop focusing on the negative and look at the upside of things in this world
… otherwise you will go nuts!