9"Diotrephes, who likes to put himself first, does not acknowledge our authority." John names the problem plainly. The Greek for likes to put himself first, *philoproteuon*, is one word, and it appears nowhere else in the New Testament. It means first-lover. The verb for does not acknowledge is in the present tense, which describes an ongoing attitude, and it carries a double meaning in Greek, to welcome and to accept. He will not welcome John's messengers, and he will not recognize John's standing.
10"He refuses to welcome the brothers, and also stops those who want to and puts them out of the church." The behavior escalates. Diotrephes begins with talk. Then he blocks the traveling missionaries at the door. Then he expels church members who would have hosted them. This is an abuse of local power to override apostolic teaching and cut a congregation off from its wider family. The NIV Application Commentary notes that Diotrephes is never called a deceiver or an antichrist, the words John used for the heretics in his other letters. The most defensible reading is a strong lay leader who took control and rejected outside authority. His sin was self-importance, and the damage came from it.
Jesus described the alternative: "If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all" (Mark 9:35). The sin is easy to miss because it can look like leadership. A man who loves the first place may work tirelessly and appear to guard the church, while the love of the place is steadily deciding the outcome.
Then John turns from the man to his reader. 11"Do not imitate evil but imitate good." Gaius had two examples in front of him in his own congregation, and John tells him which to follow. People learn to live by watching other people live. Gaius can answer Diotrephes by continuing to do what he has been doing.
12"Demetrius has received a good testimony from everyone, and from the truth itself." Demetrius was probably the man carrying this letter, and he would meet Diotrephes's suspicion at the door. John backs him with three witnesses, the people who know him, the truth itself, and John's own word. The phrase from the truth itself is unusual. The life of Demetrius agrees with the truth so thoroughly that the truth vouches for him, and a person earns that kind of reference only by years of walking in it.
14"We will talk face to face." This is the sentence we met in 2 John 12, and both letters end on the same note. Conflict in a church is rarely settled by letters. It is settled by people who sit in the same room.
The letter holds two portraits side by side, a man who loves to be first and a man everyone speaks well of. Ask which one you most resemble on an ordinary Tuesday.
Prayer
Father, keep us from loving to be first. Teach us to imitate what is good and to welcome those you send. Give your churches leaders who serve as Jesus served, and make us faithful like Demetrius. Bring us together face to face, where conflict is healed. In Jesus' name, amen.