Beloved, you do faithfully whatever you do for the brethren and for strangers, who have borne witness of your love before the church. If you send them forward on their journey in a manner worthy of God, you will do well, because they went forth for His name’s sake, taking nothing from the Gentiles. (3 John 1:5-7)
Those who lived under communist rule in Eastern Europe and Russia remember societies built on lies. To live in those societies, one had to either parrot the communist party line or face moderate to severe consequences for telling the truth. Most people wanted to be left alone, so repeating the lies made life easier. Those folks discovered the false peace of conformity—I will say what I need to so that people will leave me alone.
However, the few individuals who refused to tell lies and valued liberty found the price steep. Jobs were lost, and promotions were withheld. The unluckiest found themselves in prison or the gulags of Siberia. And what was their crime? Telling the truth. When you live in a world of lies, it’s your choice whether that world lives in you. In an age of liars and lying, the truth sticks out.
Truth and Love in a Divided World
In John’s day, false teachers corrupted the gospel, and their misinformation influenced the church. The first-century church was small, and false teaching may have further dwindled the number of faithful Christians. Amid apostasy, those who remained faithful to the gospel preached by John stuck out.
As the world and the church grow dimmer and darker by the advance of lies, those who love the truth will shine more brightly. As John goes on to say, loving the truth demands that we love one another. John returns over and over again to the theme of Christians loving their fellow Christians. Only his gospel account records these words of Jesus: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35)
Practical Hospitality and the Command of Christ
John reiterates the need to love our fellow Christians in at least twelve verses of his first epistle. He states it again in 2 John 1:5. In 3 John, the apostle tells Gaius he has heard of Gaius’s love for the brethren. But Gaius’s love for his fellow man extends to strangers. When a lawyer asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” the Lord replied with the parable of the good Samaritan. A man traveling from Jericho to Jerusalem was robbed, beaten, and left for dead.
A priest and a Levite both refused to help him. But it was a Samaritan—whom the Jews considered an inferior people—who stopped to help the stranger in need. To love one’s neighbor as oneself applies equally to our fellow Christians and those we do not know. As the writer of Hebrews reminds us, “Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some have unwittingly entertained angels.” (Hebrews 13:2) One might wonder why John’s two main concerns are maintaining the purity of the gospel and urging brethren to love one another. On the surface, these seem separate.
Strife and Turmoil in Christendom
But if we dig deeper, we notice that the two are interrelated. A remarkable thing happened in Western Europe in the 1500s. After more than a thousand years of Catholic hegemony, folks like Martin Luther and John Calvin began to raise Scriptural objections to the church’s practices. They saw a church led astray by human tradition and corruption, so they called for a return to the Bible. We call this historical period the Reformation, and it gave birth to Protestantism. The effects spread all over Europe to the point that nearly every country established its own independent national church.
All of this division led to significant turmoil within Christianity. The Catholic church persecuted what they called heretical sects throughout the Middle Ages, culminating in the Inquisition. However, the Reformation sparked Catholic-Protestant conflicts across Europe. And within Protestantism, there were conflicts between different flavors of Christianity; for example, a civil war broke out in England over Puritanism. Many factors drove these divisions and conflicts, but one stands out for our purposes: churches in Christendom continued to be led by the doctrines of men rather than the Scriptures. This corruption led to strife.
Finding the Balance of Truth and Love
While we can’t be certain, one must wonder if something similar happened in John’s day. As sin increases, love decreases: Jesus warned in Matthew 24:12, “And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold.” In a similar vein, as false teaching proliferates and truth is veiled, love will grow cold. Could it be that John warned about false teaching and loving one another because he saw churches dividing over doctrine and hatred stirred among brethren? And could this be what Jesus saw in the church at Ephesus? They stood for the truth but lost their first love.
Let us not commit the same error. The truth matters: building our lives on the truth, walking in the truth, and trusting in the truth will save our souls. But living in truth includes loving one another. Let us not sacrifice either one for the sake of the other. The corruption of the pure doctrine of Jesus Christ led to strife, wars, and hatred. As we navigate our own journey of faith, we must remain diligent in the word of God while ensuring our hearts remain full of compassion for our fellow man, reflecting the light of Christ to all.
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