When God’s people, churches, assemblies support evangelist and Missionaries, the ministry would grow enormously. If the ministers take gift from business organisations or other secular fields, the ministry becomes cheap. By supporting the evangelists and Missionaries, we become the partakers of the Gospel as Paul mentioned in (Phil.1:5.) Further by serving them, we are becoming obedient to God. The world is full of open doors, millions and millions of people are still unsaved. Let’s become joint workers with our Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord’s command to reach all the nations with the Gospel is put on us. By serving the ministers we become the catalysts to reap the harvest of lost souls quickly. There is a great reward waiting for us. That’s why Paul says: “Not that I am looking for a gift, but I am looking for what may be credited to your account” (Phil.4:17).
Gaius had a wonderful testimony “consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works” (Heb 10:24). All the members knew him, loved him, and thanked God for his consistent life and ministry.
“Only one life, ’twill soon be past, Only what’s done for Christ will last” (Poem by CT Studd).
Diotrephes the enemy of the church: (9-11):
The simple reference to “the church” suggests that this was the church to which Gaius belonged. It sounds as if Gaius may not have known about John’s letter to the church. It may well be that Diotrephes had suppressed it and kept it from the church’s attention. Diotrephes was guilty of being too tight. He was talkative, over-bearing, headstrong and power-hungry. He was jealous for his little fellowship and didn’t want other teachers coming in and distracting people away from his leadership. He refused to allow the Apostle John to visit even opening up a letter he had written. Some of the sins he was guilty of are as follows:
- He wanted always to occupy the leading place: (9a): This is no surprise to many of the present day churches especially in India, where pastors and bishops are watertight in allowing other preachers in their churches. Because of their boring and repeated preaching, many members would leave the churches. Just as the sheep looks for green grass, many believers leave the assemblies for better spiritual food. Many pastors and bishops think that they know everything and they don’t need teaching from others. They are like a frog in the well. In some other churches pastors have inferiority feeling and thereby do not allow other great men of God.
- He refused to receive the Apostle John and perhaps suppressed the letter written by John. (9b): This is because either he was filled with pride and arrogancy or he is suffering from some sort of inferiority complex, he may not be living in truth. He was afraid that by reading John’s letter his life would be exposed of his wrong doings. This is very much true with many fundamental churches and Pentecostal churches.
- He slanders and gossips against the Apostles and speak falsely. (10a): He was literally acting like Judaizers during Apostle Paul’s period whose only work was to spread false propaganda before Paul’s arrival to any other city. Diotrephes was one such person who do not want members to know the depth of God’s word. He was spreading lies and making people to have a biased thinking about Apostle John.
- He was unwilling to welcome Missionaries and even the Apostles: (10b): He was afraid that Apostle John would fire him. Now-a-days some churches have made a rule not to invite any revival speaker. This is one way to stopping the wholistic word of God and thereby maintaining the numbers in their churches. They are afraid, if the truth is revealed, people would leave their assemblies and look for the right church where the complete word of God preached.
- He ex-communicates other believers who are not on his side: (10c). He was malicious against those who didn’t agree with him. He was truly a dictator. There was no record that he was not orthodox in his beliefs, but he was certainly stifling the teaching gifts that others would bring. The Apostle warns the believers not to follow such habits but live a true humble Christian life.
Sins such as pride, jealousy and slander are still present in the church and when a leader makes a habit of encouraging sin and discouraging right actions he must be immediately be stopped. If the members of the church do not speak up, the church will nose dive. That’s why Jesus said: a true Christian is a servant leader but do not lord upon others. John did not excommunicate Diotrephes, though as an apostle he had the authority to do so. Instead, he simply exposed him, with the hope that the discerning Christians would avoid Diotrephes as they should. He gave us 2- examples, one good (Gaius) and one bad (Diotrephes), so that we may examine ourselves and follow the right one and serve God.