Presented to Swift Current Corps, 15 May 2011 and 10 Feb 2013
By Captain Michael Ramsay
To read the more recent version, click here: http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.ca/2013/02/3-john-11-be-from-god-do-good.html
To read the more recent version, click here: http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.ca/2013/02/3-john-11-be-from-god-do-good.html
Late one night, a burglar breaks into a house that he thinks is empty. He tiptoes through the living room but suddenly freezes in his tracks when he hears a voice say: "Jesus is watching you!"
When it becomes quiet again, the burglar creeps forward. And again the voice says, "Jesus is watching you".
The burglar stops dead in his tracks. He is frightened. Frantically, he looks all around. In a dark corner, he spots a… birdcage and in the cage is… a parrot.
Gathering his senses, he asks the parrot: "Was it you all this time who said ‘Jesus is watching me?’"
"Yes", said the parrot.
The burglar breathes a sigh of relief, then gaining some confidence he asks the parrot: "What's your name?"
"Clarence," says the bird.
"That's a dumb name for a parrot," sneers the now confident burglar. "What kind of a silly person would name a bird, 'Clarence?"
The parrot replies, "The same person who would call his attack dog ‘Jesus’… Jesus is watching you."
Parrots are good imitators and our verse today is exhorting us to be good imitators, it says, 3 John 11: “Dear friend, do not imitate what is evil but what is good. Anyone who does what is good is from God. Anyone who does what is evil has not seen God”
Pertaining to this imitation: I think that we have all heard the analogy at one time or another in a sermon about counterfeiting counter-measures and how the authorities spot counterfeit currency. What they don’t do to learn how to identify counterfeit money is study counterfeit money. Instead what they do so is study real money. When they can identify the real thing then they know that all else is not the real thing. It is the same with us as it is only when we spend more time focusing on Christ that we recognize what is good and what is evil. And also as we spend the currency of our time with God we will obviously be more like Him; however, there are those who choose instead to use their time spending the counterfeit currencies of the world doing what is evil – well, 3 John tells us, they have not even seen God. We need to spend time with God, imitating what is good to build up for ourselves real treasures in heaven (Matthew 6:19-24).
3 John 11: Anyone who does what is good is from God. Anyone who does what is evil has not seen God. This seems pretty simple. But sometimes we make simple things a little more complicated than they should be, don’t we? When I was reflecting on how simple this verse seems I was reminded of a few quotes that also point to the obvious. Let’s see if we can finish off these famous quotes. Bonus marks if we can say who said them.
1. Sometimes a cigar is just a ______ (cigar; Sigmund Freud)
2. When I see a bird that walks like a duck and swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a _______ (duck - Cardinal Richard Cushing[1])
3. A rose by any other name is still a ______ (rose – William Shakespeare’s Juliet)
4. Anyone who does what is good is from God. Anyone who does what is evil has not seen ______ (God – John, the elder)
These famous quotes are all telling us what should be abundantly obvious: sometimes a cigar is just a cigar; if it swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck; a rose by another name is still a rose; and anyone who does what is good is from God. Anyone who does what is evil has not seen God.
Our Biblical quote today is from a very short letter that John, the elder, wrote to his friend Gaius (Verse 1) who probably lived in the city of Ephesus in the Roman province of Asia?[2] What present day country is in this area? (Turkey). Someone in this Ephesian church, that John may have founded, Diotrephes is challenging John’s authority (Verse 9); Diotrephes is making false accusations about John and his companions; Diotrephes is not accepting the missionaries that John sent (Verse 10); and Diotrephes is even kicking the people who do put up John’s friends out of church. This is infuriating! Now, if we remember last week –when we were looking at 2 John – this last step is exactly what John told people to do with antichrists, not accept them into your homes (2 John 7-11). Now someone in this church here is turning the tables on him in this way and is encouraging people not to accept John-sent missionaries into their homes (1 John 10).[3] John is not pleased. John is very upset.
John is telling his friend, Gaius, in this short letter how to know who to trust and who not to trust in this church conflict. This infighting is happening in the church itself, remember. This isn’t people outside the church persecuting Christians. This is people inside the church tearing each other down. Sadly this happened even in the first century and sadly this happens even in the 21st Century. Do we never learn? Some people always, I think, try to grab power and authority for themselves that is not theirs; maybe even like Adam and Eve reaching for the fruit trying to be like God (Genesis 3:4).
In this letter here, in the midst of this power struggle between John the elder and Diotrephes, John is away and he writes a letter to Gaius home in Ephesus (Verse 1). John tells Gaius that when John’s friends stayed with him they only had good things to say about Gaius (Verses 3-8) – unlike Diotrephes – and John tells Gaius too that he has an ally in Demetrius in their fight against Diotrephes who is challenging the God-given authority of John in this church.[4]
There is something ironic too about looking at this letter for me this week. We were in Winnipeg these last few days while Susan was taking a course: studying John Milton. John Milton, of course supported the republicans rebels who challenged the authority in their country, murdered their king and foisted such a repressive regime on England that as soon as the people could free themselves from the yoke of the Puritan Protectorate they invited back the son of the king, begging Charles II to rule over them. If anyone has studied the English Revolution at all I think you would note that there are numerous similarities between the power hungry Oliver Cromwell and the ambitious Diotrephes in our letter today.
John, in 3 John here, is shoring up support and trying to put down the revolt from within the church. In so doing John gives us this sage advice when he says that it appears that Diotrephes is acting badly and causing troubles and if it appears that way we have to realize that it probably is the way it really is: sometimes a cigar is actually just a cigar; if something swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck; a rose by another name is still a rose; and, verse 11, anyone who does what is good is from God. Anyone who does what is evil has not seen God. This seems simple but it is actually very important for us to remember in this day and age.
It is basic for us in our world today. I think we have lots of people trying to tell us that a cigar isn’t a cigar and a rose is not a rose. They make these long, convoluted arguments that are nothing more than attempts to obscure what should be abundantly obvious to all (Cf. Romans 1-2). They act in one way and talk another. And so because of this I think it is very important to remain faithful, read our Bibles, and not to be deceived. We should realize that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar; if something swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck; a rose by another name is still a rose; and, verse 11, anyone who does what is good is from God. Anyone who does what is evil has not seen God.
Do we know the origin of the “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar” quote? It is attributed to psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud but a critic of Freud actually probably uttered the phrase. They have found no evidence of this quote anywhere in Freud’s myriad writings. Freud was an antichrist, openly. He had no time for religion at all. He thought it was for the weak and evolutionarily speaking, he considered it primitive and outdated.[5] Freud, in all his wisdom, thought that we all went through certain stages in our lives and that at some point boys all have crushes on their mothers, girls all have crushes on their fathers, women each envy a certain part of the male anatomy, people have oral fixations and certain items – like cigars – Freud said are phallic symbols. In response to this, a critic probably said, “Oh come on now, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar”
Do we know the origin of the rose quote, “a rose by another name is still a rose?” William Shakespeare put these words into his character Juliet from his play, Romeo and Juliet, "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." She is talking about her love. She says that you cannot change the beautiful nature of something by just simply renaming it. It doesn’t make it any different. A rose is still as beautiful even if you call it a turnip or a skunk. (Though in Anne of Green Gables it is suggested that the name not be changed.)
Today we have traditionally Christian denominations in Canada and the US trying to rename a rose, telling us that the Bible is not the inherent Word of God (TSA Doc 1). From this first error or deception they continue to ordain people in situations that the scriptures do not condone (i.e. divorced and remarried people, people practising homosexuality). We have allegedly Christian churches performing Christian ceremonies again outside of provisions made within the Word of God. We have allegedly Christian clergy in some of these denominations, who have thrown out the authority of Scripture, actually leading people away from holiness and away from God. This is wrong. We have some people who will string together long extra-Biblical arguments how it is better to appear nice to someone than to actually be true to someone. Some people in the churches actually discount the authority of Scripture and lead others away from God and if they do this they are at best like Diotrephes and at worst, as John says in 1 and 2 John, they are antichrists (1 John 1:18, 2:22, 4:3; 2 John 1:7). If we just read our Bibles and follow God we won’t fall prey to the Diotrephes of this world because we will see for ourselves what the scriptures make abundantly clear (cf. Acts 17:11) and that a cigar is actually just cigar; if something swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck; a rose by another name is still a rose; and, verse 11, anyone who does what is good is from God. Anyone who does what is evil has not seen God.
Today we also have certain allegedly Christian churches that promote the prosperity heresy: this is the idea that God only loves rich people and hates poor people. This is a lie. We know that God speaks more about His love and our need to love the poor and the marginalized than He does about many other topics in the Bible.[6] But the Diotrephes of our world challenge the authority of Scripture and string together these big long stories and people fall prey to these lies and get hurt. We shouldn’t get drawn into such nonsense: simple scripture rebukes them (Cf. for example: Exodus 23:6,11, Leviticus 19:10,15, 23:22, 27:8, Deuteronomy 15:7, 15:11, 24:12-15, 1 Samuel 2:8, Psalms. 22:26, 34:6, 35:10, 82:3, Isaiah. 61:1, Ezekiel 16:49, 18:12, 22:29, Amos 2:7, 4:1, 5:11-12, 8:4-6, Zechariah 7:10). When people start to build artificial convoluted arguments that go against the Scriptures we have to not get pulled in to them and we need to just realise that sometimes a cigar is a cigar; if something swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck; a rose by another name is still a rose; and, verse 11, anyone who does what is good is from God. Anyone who does what is evil has not seen God. Just read our Bible – all else will then be good.
Now there are many more examples of simple errors in the churches these days that come from people not reading their Bibles and so not even recognizing good and evil. It isn’t just in the large errors that certain denominations are making. We have individuals in good Bible-believing churches who fall prey to those who reject the authority of Scripture and thus do violence to the Word of God. We have people being tricked into disregarding the authority of scripture and instead buying into what is evil. It is sad because we know that, verse 11, anyone who does what is good is from God. Anyone who does what is evil has not seen God and there is an easy way to differentiate the good from God and the evil from the world: read your Bible and spend time with God. Don’t be a Diotrephes. Accept our God-given authorities. Accept the authority of Scripture. Pray. Read your Bible and you will find that you will faithfully follow God.
Returning to the earlier analogy about the counterfeit money. How do we know what is evil in order to avoid it? We know this by spending time examining what is good. The experts, who want to identify and stop counterfeit money, don’t spend time around what is bad and fake, they spend time around what is good – the real thing. We should spend time with our Lord praying and reading our Bible; we should spend time serving our Lord and doing good – giving hope today. That way we can be assured that we are indeed spending the Lord’s currency and building up for ourselves treasures in heaven.
Life’s not as tricky as some would have us think: sometimes a cigar is just cigar; if something swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck; a rose by another name is still a rose; and, verse 11, anyone who does what is good is from God. Anyone who does what is evil has not seen God.
May all of us here continue to read our Bibles so that we can not only discern good and evil but so that we faithfully do what is good and not be led astray by evil. Let us pray
[1] Cardinal Richard Cushing’s duck quote available on-line at http://quotationsbook.com/quote/2701/#ixzz1LumYAmwv
[2] D. Moody Smith, First, Second, and Third John (Interpretation: John Knox Press: Louisville, Kentucky: 1990), 21.
[3] Cf. D. Moody Smith, 153-154 for a good discussion of this possibility, assuming of course that 2 John and 3 John are written by the same person.
[4] Cf. John R. W. Stott,: The Letters of John: An Introduction and Commentary. Downers Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, 1988 (Tyndale New Testament Commentaries 19), S. 236
[5] Cf. Sigmund Freud, The Future of an Illusion, 1926. Translated by James Strachey. London: Hogarth Press, 1968.
[6] Cf. Captain Michael Ramsay, "Good News to the Poor: Comparing a Christian Worldview as expressed in Luke’s Gospel to Marx", Presented to William and Catherine Booth College March 2009. Available on-line: http://www.sheepspeak.com/Michael_Ramsay_History_TSA.htm#Marx
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