3 John 1:10 Commentary and Bible Study

The word ‘prating’ is an old-fashioned word but the Greek word means something like ‘overflowing with talk’. One or two modern translations have decided that it means talking nonsense. It does not necessarily mean that; it can mean that, but this was just a very vocal individual, and with a torrent of words he spoke against John and his apostolic position and authority and all the duties which he taught. He wanted to hurt and to destroy and to discredit the apostle. ‘And not content therewith, neither doth he himself receive the brethren,’ he rejected the visiting preachers. And he went even further – ‘forbiddeth that that would’ give hospitality, people like Gaius presumably. ‘And casteth them out of the church.’ How did he do that? Maybe Diotrephes ignored 1 Corinthians 5 which had been written some thirty years previously, and which was complied with and obeyed in the churches of Christ, just as we do today, which lays down all the instructions for church discipline. What do you if you have got a sinner in the church? Well the elders and the officers examine the case but they cannot excommunicate, they must then gather together the congregation and there must be a church meeting. And if an expulsion is necessary then it must be affirmed by all. But this Diotrephes does not seem to be doing any of that. He is ignoring the Scriptures. He somehow mesmerised every one, this man who loves to be dominant, into believing that he has the authority to do these things as an individual. And may be the other office bearers were too weak. And instead of being fellow elders alongside him and saying, just a minute this is not the will of God, this is not what the Scripture tells us, we are ruled by Scripture. They let him make it up as he went along and enforce his will. And if any did look after the visitors from Ephesus, the visiting preachers, he expelled them. Well this is outrageous.But what you have got here – although there is no evidence that this man behaved in a way beyond this one church – is a kind of prototype pope. This is a mini-pope, and you are beginning to see a few men like this in the ministry and you could readily see how the church of Rome started, throwing out the authority of Scripture or making it secondary to their own decrees and making it up as they went along, new doctrines that were not in the Scripture that were complete contrary to the Scripture. Because not so long after this by the 4th and 5th centuries, you have the Church of Rome forming and coming about. And it takes men like Diotrephes to produce that, dominant individuals. If John he is able to come personally, he still commands the support of the ordinary people, and he will bring Diotrephes to account.