the Week of Christ the King / Proper 29 / Ordinary 34
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Bible Dictionaries
Diotrephes
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
or 3 John 1:9, loving to have the preeminence" through ambition. A Judaizer, who opposed the missionaries when preaching grace to the Gentiles, see 3 John 1:7. He "prated against" John and the orthodox "with malicious words"; he "received not" John, by not receiving with love the brethren whom John recommended (Matthew 10:40). His influence was so great that he "cast out" of the church such as were disposed to receive them. But Neander thinks that the missionaries were Christian Jews who "took nothing of the Gentiles" (3 John 1:7), in contrast to the Jews who elsewhere abused ministers' right of maintenance (2 Corinthians 11:22; Philippians 3:2; Philippians 3:5; Philippians 3:19); and that Diotrephes stood at the head of an ultra-Pauline party of anti-Jewish tendency, forerunners of Marcion. This accounts for Diotrephes' domineering opposition to the missionaries and to John, whose love combined with truth sought to harmonize the various elements in the Asiatic churches.
Demetrius is praised as of the opposite spirit to Diotrephes; as the former was to be followed, so the latter to be shunned (3 John 1:11-12). Perhaps Diotrephes as the local bishop simply resented the interference of John's apostolic legates as an infringement of his personal rights. For whereas in the 2nd Epistle of John corruption of doctrine is spoken of as disqualifying one from the hospitality of the church, in this 3rd Epistle no hint is given of erroneous doctrine; but only of Diotrephes' "love of preeminence."
Diotrephes and the presbyters influenced by him (whether as their bishop or not) treated the apostle's messengers as persons claiming an authority derogatory to his own. But John (3 John 1:10) uses language implying his own unquestionable power of restraining Diotrephes's "prating" opposition: such as none but an apostle could properly have employed, an indirect confirmation of the Johannine authorship of the epistle.
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Fausset, Andrew R. Entry for 'Diotrephes'. Fausset's Bible Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/fbd/d/diotrephes.html. 1949.
