Where Bible Study Makes A Difference

Remember the word that I said to you:’A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.. (John 15:20 ESV)

“THE DANGERS OF DIOTREPHES:Refusal to listen to sound apostolic teaching from the bible”

Loving the pre-eminence comes with some other significant signs of danger too. Usually, if one desires to be first, he/she will not want to heed to biblical authority. Even the proudest Christian, will not take heed to sound biblical warnings and instructions, because his pride has deceived him(Proverbs 26:12, Jeremiah 43:2, Obadiah 1:3). Don’t let sin in your life deceive you to the point you will not heed biblical correction. “But Karsten, I don’t agree with what others see in the scripture!” Yeah, but that doesn’t mean YOU’RE right because you don’t agree, examine yourself by God’s Word.

If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain. (1 Timothy 6:3-5 ESV)

Diotrephes didn’t want to listen to the John the Apostle. He didn’t want to hear what he was teaching nor wanted his letters to be read before the congregation of believers John is writing to. That is exactly what you will see the Diotrephes of today do. When it really comes to listening to God’s Word, they will refuse to listen. I have people tell me to stop using the bible and just talk to them. Right there, the similarity to Diotrephes comes into play; the person refuses to hear the authority of the men God used to write the bible. The refuse the instruction of scripture to comfort and sugar coat their sin: that’s pride.

Why would Diotrephes not accept John, he was a disciple and Apostle of Jesus Christ our Lord? You must look back at the text in 3 John 1:9. Diotrephes desired the top-dog position which he may have felt John was a threat to. Jesus Christ warned against doing such things, instead calling His men to service/slavery:

But so shall it not be among you: but whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister: And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all. (Mark 10:43-44)

How do we not reject biblically authority? We take heed to what Jesus Christ taught (John 8:31), and what the Apostles taught and chosen men of God. God has approved these men in the Word. The pre-eminent desirers will consistently defy biblical authority; and they will not seek to obey God’s Word. You’ll be called a bible worshipper by them; but know you are seeking to worship the God of the Bible, not the Holy Writ itself. I leave you with this text, be encouraged my friends:

Blessed [is] the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight [is] in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. The ungodly [are] not so: but [are] like the chaff which the wind driveth away. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the LORD knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish. (Psalms 1:1-6)