I wrote unto the church: but Diotrephes, who loveth to have the preeminence among them, receiveth us not.
The verse pictures Diotrephes loving preeminence in the same church to which Gaius belonged, refusing to receive John and the brethren who were preaching the gospel to the Gentiles and whom John commended to hospitality. Out of self-superiority he treated these uninfluential strangers with disrespect, hindered their reception, forbade those willing to receive them, and persecuted and cast out of the church those who did receive them. This discourtesy was reproved and is not to be followed, for a kind reception should always be given to God's missionaries.
The same spirit is still present in many churches today, where people seek preeminence and lack true self-sacrifice. It opposes those who exercise private judgment and stands directly in the way to hinder those doing missionary work, simply because those workers will not follow the finite judgment of their critics. In the day when God renders to every person according to his work, those who refused to unite with missionary workers will see that God has honored those workers. By contrast, the Lord's servants who are in close touch with the great Chief Missionary are kind and manifest true Christian politeness.
Loving to have the preeminence means seeking to be first and making oneself supreme among brethren, carrying things in one's own way, placing a high estimate on self, and thinking one knows how to manage matters better and with more wisdom than brethren. For a minister it means allowing himself to be annoyed because his ideas are not accepted and his plans are not carried out, and feeling that he should be made first, a condition that puts him in great danger and against which he must guard. It is self-sufficiency, phariseeism and self-esteem, feeling righteous with all acts meritorious while far from the right spirit toward God and toward brethren. It appears in those long in the truth who strive for the first place as a hard, judicial spirit that is sharp, critical and fault-finding, climbing into the judgment seat to pronounce sentence on those who do not meet their own ideas, and by words and acts making many hearts sore. It is following human nature and is the rapidly developing spirit of antichrist.
It is a spirit of wanting to be first that criticizes others because self is not first, with envy, jealousy, suspicion, fault-finding and false witness. It turns everything said or done, even under the special direction of God, into a wrong way, viewing things in a perverted light under the strong power of Satan's temptations and pleasing the enemy by criticism. It makes a man an offender for a word where there is no actual sin in the act criticized, the suspicion coming from the condition of the mind that entertains it. If one crosses their track there is no more unity or sweet fellowship with him, only disgust with all he says or does, and those who have confidence in them share their feelings and sentiments, with a spirit of retaliation secretly at work. While creating disaffection and disunion and planting the seeds of jealousy they claim to be firm believers in the truth, yet they do not practice the spirit of the truth, and the leaven of their evil surmisings permeates the company, dishonoring God, degrading the principles of truth, and marring and dwarfing the Christian experience of many.
This desire is displeasing to God and dangerous in its influence on self and others. An overbearing, self-sufficient spirit is positive evidence that God is not controlling the person, for God's Spirit always leads to humility and God never works with a person who cherishes this spirit. Those in this condition have left their first love and fallen, and those who manifest a love for supremacy will be found to be on the losing side. Left unovercome, it leads a person to arrogate power and authority, mar the work of God by human devising, stir up strife and cherish bitterness that communicates itself to other minds, make trouble for self and for God's cause, lose the confidence of brethren, and offend Jesus Christ until left to follow his own way and be found wanting. The Lord has abased kings, and He will confront all who profess to serve Him while making a display and departing from His counsel and living in transgression over their right to declare His law. Unless the person humbles himself before God, changes his heart and attitude, and learns to follow the cautions and warnings of God's Word, he will lose his candlestick. He must come down from the judgment seat, bow in repentance, confess his sins and do the first works. The cure is to be strengthened by the Spirit in the inner man, with Christ dwelling in the heart by faith, rooted and grounded in love, comprehending and knowing the love of Christ and filled with all the fulness of God.
The verse pictures Diotrephes loving preeminence in the same church to which Gaius belonged, refusing to receive John and the brethren who were preaching the gospel to the Gentiles and whom John commended to hospitality. Out of self-superiority he treated these uninfluential strangers with disrespect, hindered their reception, forbade those willing to receive them, and persecuted and cast out of the church those who did receive them. This discourtesy was reproved and is not to be followed, for a kind reception should always be given to God's missionaries.
The same spirit is still present in many churches today, where people seek preeminence and lack true self-sacrifice. It opposes those who exercise private judgment and stands directly in the way to hinder those doing missionary work, simply because those workers will not follow the finite judgment of their critics. In the day when God renders to every person according to his work, those who refused to unite with missionary workers will see that God has honored those workers. By contrast, the Lord's servants who are in close touch with the great Chief Missionary are kind and manifest true Christian politeness.
Loving to have the preeminence means seeking to be first and making oneself supreme among brethren, carrying things in one's own way, placing a high estimate on self, and thinking one knows how to manage matters better and with more wisdom than brethren. For a minister it means allowing himself to be annoyed because his ideas are not accepted and his plans are not carried out, and feeling that he should be made first, a condition that puts him in great danger and against which he must guard. It is self-sufficiency, phariseeism and self-esteem, feeling righteous with all acts meritorious while far from the right spirit toward God and toward brethren. It appears in those long in the truth who strive for the first place as a hard, judicial spirit that is sharp, critical and fault-finding, climbing into the judgment seat to pronounce sentence on those who do not meet their own ideas, and by words and acts making many hearts sore. It is following human nature and is the rapidly developing spirit of antichrist.
It is a spirit of wanting to be first that criticizes others because self is not first, with envy, jealousy, suspicion, fault-finding and false witness. It turns everything said or done, even under the special direction of God, into a wrong way, viewing things in a perverted light under the strong power of Satan's temptations and pleasing the enemy by criticism. It makes a man an offender for a word where there is no actual sin in the act criticized, the suspicion coming from the condition of the mind that entertains it. If one crosses their track there is no more unity or sweet fellowship with him, only disgust with all he says or does, and those who have confidence in them share their feelings and sentiments, with a spirit of retaliation secretly at work. While creating disaffection and disunion and planting the seeds of jealousy they claim to be firm believers in the truth, yet they do not practice the spirit of the truth, and the leaven of their evil surmisings permeates the company, dishonoring God, degrading the principles of truth, and marring and dwarfing the Christian experience of many.
This desire is displeasing to God and dangerous in its influence on self and others. An overbearing, self-sufficient spirit is positive evidence that God is not controlling the person, for God's Spirit always leads to humility and God never works with a person who cherishes this spirit. Those in this condition have left their first love and fallen, and those who manifest a love for supremacy will be found to be on the losing side. Left unovercome, it leads a person to arrogate power and authority, mar the work of God by human devising, stir up strife and cherish bitterness that communicates itself to other minds, make trouble for self and for God's cause, lose the confidence of brethren, and offend Jesus Christ until left to follow his own way and be found wanting. The Lord has abased kings, and He will confront all who profess to serve Him while making a display and departing from His counsel and living in transgression over their right to declare His law. Unless the person humbles himself before God, changes his heart and attitude, and learns to follow the cautions and warnings of God's Word, he will lose his candlestick. He must come down from the judgment seat, bow in repentance, confess his sins and do the first works. The cure is to be strengthened by the Spirit in the inner man, with Christ dwelling in the heart by faith, rooted and grounded in love, comprehending and knowing the love of Christ and filled with all the fulness of God.