Diotrephes, who loveth to have the pre-eminence.
Diotrephes
Besides the light which this brief Epistle casts on the state of the Christian Church toward the close of the first century, it presents us with “the portraits in little” of three remarkable men--Demetrius, Diotrephes, and Gaius. We are to study a man of a very inferior stamp--the vain, irritable, and loquacious Diotrephes, whose religion seems to have been quite compatible with a slippery morality. What exactly it was at which Diotrephes took offence, whether in the letter of St. John or in the conduct of Demetrius, we are not told; but it is not difficult to offend a man who has an undue sense of his own importance, and whose self-love may be set on fire by any match, however innocently it may be struck. St. John clearly implies that it was some wound to his love of pre-eminence, his determination to stand first and to exact a homage he did not deserve. But whatever the prick which his vanity had received, the character of the man comes out in his wholly disproportionate and extravagant resentment of the offence. In his resentment he sets himself against men far wiser and better than himself; he imperils the peace of the Church; he diminishes its numbers and strength. Nothing less than the excommunication of all who had dared to differ from him, all who had ventured to receive the Evangelists whom he would not receive, and whom he had forbidden them to receive, would satisfy him. But the democratic constitution of the primitive Church would not permit one man, however eminent, to excommunicate those who had offended him, simply because they had offended him. Before that extreme sentence was passed upon them, he must have won over a majority of his and their fellow-members to his side. He must have taken a bypath to his end. And, indeed, a man of inferior gifts and of a spirit less informed by the grace of Christ, who will stand first, will put himself forward and attempt to rule a free Christian congregation, must take this course. He must play on the ignorance, and even on the piety, of those who follow him, must affect a superior wisdom, or a superior orthodoxy. He will not let facts speak for themselves, but sets himself with his glib tongue to lick them out of their natural shape. He cannot suffer learning, wisdom, godliness, experience, to exert their natural and beneficent influence, but must at all risks counterwork that influence and suggest plausible reasons for not yielding to it. How else can he win and maintain a pre-eminence he does not deserve? There is nothing in the Epistle to suggest that Diotrephes held unsound doctrinal views, or that he fell into what are called gross and open sins. Had he been unorthodox, indeed, or flagrantly immoral, he would never have gained that eminence in the Church which he insisted on converting into pre-eminence. All that he is blamed for is the conceit and self-assurance which rendered him impatient of rivalry or resistance, and set him on seeking power rather than usefulness. Any man who will have his own way is only too likely to come to a bad end. Any man who insists on the Church taking his way is only too certain to prove a blind guide, who will lead those who follow him into a ditch, and perhaps leave them in the ditch when he himself scrambles out of it. But you may be asking, “How did Diotrephes induce his fellow-members to follow his lead, since they must, most of them at least, have been good men who were not likely to excommunicate their fellows either for an excess of charity or for wounding his self-conceit? And the answer to that question is suggested by St. John’s words: “He receiveth not us”; “prating against us with wicked (or malicious) words.” Yet Diotrephes could hardly have openly denied the authority of an apostle so revered and beloved as St. John. No; but he may have questioned it indirectly. He may have dilated on the independence of the Church, of every separate community of believers, on its competence and right to manage its own affairs, to appoint its own agents, to decide on its own course of action, and have asked whether they would suffer, whether it would be right to suffer, any outsider, however honoured and beloved he might be, to govern and control them. He may even have persuaded himself, as well as others, that John had taken a new departure and was giving a new tone to Christian thought and life, and that the Church was in no small danger of being led away from its old standards, and thinking too much of the mercy and too little of the severity of God. If he could not say bluntly, “I mean to stand first in this Church, let who will oppose me,” or, “I hate Gaius and his pretensions to advise and rule,” or, “I dislike Demetrius, and resent his lack of deference for me,” he could at least appeal to the memory and teaching of their venerated founder, and avow his preference of St. Paul’s gospel over that of St. John. For we must now remember that we are told two things about Diotrephes. We are told not only that he loved to have the pre-eminence, but also that he was cursed with a voluble tongue, that he would “still be speaking”; for how often does a fluent tongue lead a man whither, in his reasonable moods, he would not go, and betray him into positions which he would not willingly have assumed? Mr. Talkative, as Bunyan calls him, may do, and often does do, quite as much harm as Mr. Illwill. It is his own way he wants, not the best way, not the way which will be most beneficial to others; and if he cannot get it by fair means, he will often stoop to foul or dubious means, stirring up division and discontent, prating with malicious words against those who oppose him when fair words will no longer serve his turn. And if the itch of speaking is apt to lead on to the prating of idle, and even of malicious, words, the lust of power commonly leads to an abuse of power. “John, or Demetrius, has slighted me. Gaius does not defer to me or my wishes. He has received strange brethren without consulting me, or when he knew that I had forbidden their reception. Nothing, then, shall induce me to receive them. I will move heaven and earth against them, and against all who abet them, be they who they will“--when a man has once reached that point, and Diotrephes seems to have reached it, he is not far from any evil word or any evil work. No punishment is more unwelcome to such an one than that with which John threatens Diotrephes: “I will put him in mind of his words and his works,” bring him to book for them in his own presence and in that of the Church. They dislike nothing so much as being compelled to face their own whispers, and to see how they sound in honest and impartial ears, or even in their own ears now that their excitement and irritation have subsided. Diotrephes, then, was a man who was not necessarily, or wholly bad; a man who may have had many good qualities and have done some service to the Church; but his good qualities were blended with, and their good effects vitiated by, an exorbitant self-conceit and loquacity. “Beloved,” exclaims St. John, when he had completed his miniature of Diotrephes, “imitate not that which is evil, but that which is good. He that doeth good is of God; he that doeth evil hath not seen God.” And by this exhortation I do not understand him to imply that Diotrephes was an utterly bad man who had never seen God, never taken the first step toward a participation of the Divine nature, any more than he means that Demetrius, whom he forthwith begins to describe, was a man wholly good in whom no fault could be found. But I do understand him to mean that a vain man, too fond of hearing himself talk, too bent on taking the foremost place, is closing his eyes against the heavenly vision, and may do as much harm as if his intents were bad. The apostle may imply that, as Demetrius was undoubtedly doing a good work, he was a good man; and that Diotrephes, in so far as he opposed and crippled that work, was doing an evil work and took his place among evil men. (S. Cox, D. D.)
Diotrephes
I. I will show you who is not diotrephes.
1. He whose godly walk and conversation secures for him the entire confidence of the brethren, and thus gives him a great influence.
2. He whose talents and education necessarily make him a man of influence.
3. Nor he, whose well-known and oft-proved wisdom and prudence make him much sought unto in counsel.
4. These men generally do not seek influence. It is unavoidable. It follows them as their shadow.
II. I proceed to show who diotrephes is.
1. Sometimes he is a man who never had his will broken. As a Church member, he expects the household of Christ to give way to him. He is wilful and headstrong, often as unreasonable as a mere animal.
2. Sometimes he is a man of wealth. His riches give him authority in the world; and he takes it for granted they ought to do so in the Church.
3. Sometimes he is a man of some learning and much volubility, who fancies that his capacity ought to give his opinion authority.
III. I proceed to set forth diotrephes in action. If the minister does not take him for counsellor he is his enemy. With every movement does he find fault unless he originated it.
IV. In the next place, I remark upon diotrephes’ character.
1. He is very unlike Christ, who was meek and lowly.
2. He is very disobedient to the word, “Let each esteem other better than himself.”
3. He is against that equality which Christ has established in His Church.
Practical observations:
1. Diotrephes is most of the time in trouble. Always looking for deference, he is always liable to think it wanting.
2. The Church can take no surer road to trouble than to give way to Diotrephes.
3. Diotrephes will scarce be the friend of the minister. The natural influence of the religious teacher disturbs him.
4. It is best to look for Diotrephes in his own pew. Perhaps we may find him in our own seat.
5. Diotrephes is sometimes married, and his partner may be a true yoke-fellow. (Christian Treasury.)
Love of pre-eminence
It is not Diotrephes alone whose character my text describes--it is human nature generally; it is every man whose heart is unrenewed by grace.
1. A haughty heart, a lofty look, a proud temper, ambition, spirit, vanity--these are, more or less, the characteristic marks of the natural man. No such man is content with the station in which it has pleased Providence to place him. All are for being greater than they are. Each must have his own will executed--his own humour gratified. Things must be done exactly to his taste, and every other person’s will and pleasure must give way to his.
2. Whence arises this “love of the pre-eminence“? to what is it to be ascribed? To an awful ignorance of ourselves. We all entertain naturally a very high opinion of our own characters--a vast notion of our own merits. We cannot really think that we are miserable sinners whilst we are striving which shall be the greatest.
3. Is this love of the pre-eminence consistent with a state of grace? Search the Scriptures for the answer. The Bible indeed is not a levelling book. It does not sweep away distinctions. But as for men of such a spirit as Diotrephes--of a vain, proud, self-exalting spirit--the Bible passes upon them its sentence of condemnation, and gives us everywhere to understand that heaven is shut against them (Matthew 18:3; 1 Timothy 3:5).
4. But why is a love of the pre-eminence so utterly condemned in the Word of God? Wherein does the great guilt of it consist?
(1) First, it is utterly unsuitable to our condition as fallen guilty creatures.
(2) There is another reason why it is so utterly inconsistent with the character of a Christian to love the pre-eminence. That post of honour is preoccupied. It belongs, not to the Christian, but to the Christian’s Lord--not to the saved sinner, but to that sinner’s Saviour. (A. Roberts, M. A.)
The true method of eminence
Men are not so much mistaken in desiring to advance, as in judging what will be an advance, and what the right method of it. A man proves himself fit to go higher who shows that he is faithful where he is. When workmen are building the foundation of vast structures they must needs labour far below the surface, and in disagreeable conditions. But every course of stone which they lay raises them higher, and, at length, when they reach the surface, they have laid such solid work under them that they need not fear now to carry up their walls, through towering storeys, till they overlook the whole neighbourhood. A man that will not do well in his present place because he longs to be higher is already too high, and should be put lower.
Ambition
Unless they can be top-sawyers they will not touch a saw. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
I will remember his deeds which he doeth, prating against us.
Diotrephes rebuked
Here St. John sets up a flag of defiance against Diotrephes. We must all pluck up the like courage against the adversaries of the truth. To give wild horses the rein too much is to spoil them and their riders too; to loose the cords of the ship is to drown the ship; to be too remiss in the Church is to over throw the Church. Lenitives will serve for little sores, but great sores must have drawing plasters, otherwise we do not cure but kill. We must bear our own enemies, but our backs must not be so broad as to bear God’s enemies. Then he makes an enumeration of his deeds; they be in number four, like four stairs in a ladder, one higher than another; the lowest stair of all is his prating, the next to that is his not receiving of the brethren; the third is his forbidding of others to do it; the last and greatest of all is his casting of them out of the Church. (W. Jones, D. D.)
Censorious men
commonly take up magnifying glasses to look at other persons’ imperfections, and diminishing glasses to look at their own enormities.
Not content therewith.--
Covetousness in sinning
There is a kind of covetousness in sinning: a covetous man is not content with that which he hath, though he have the riches of Croesus, yet still he would have more. So he that hath begun to drink of the water of sin, must needs drink more and more. A man that sinneth is like one that is tumbled down from a steep hill, he cannot stay till he come to the bottom unless there be an extraordinary stop by the way; there is no stay in sinning unless God stay us by the hand of His Spirit. Not content therewith, neither doth he himself receive the brethren, which notwithstanding he ought to do, for in receiving of them he receives Christ (Matthew 25:35). Yet not content with that, he forbids them that would, like the dog in the manger that would neither eat provender himself nor suffer the horse to eat it; like the Pharisees that shut up the kingdom of heaven before men, neither go in themselves nor suffer others to enter in; these be vile wretches, neither give to good uses themselves nor suffer others, dissuade others; these are guilty of their own damnation, and of the damnation of others. (W. Jones, D. D.)