Today’s reading covers 3 short Letters: 2 & 3 John and Jude, as well 1 John 5. In all of these Letters, the early Church leaders were contending with false teachers and prophets, all of whom had gained a foothold in the congregations addressed by these Letters. John put it this way in 2 John 7: “Many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist”. It seems that an early persistent false teaching was the denial of  the incarnation of God’s Son.

The Person Of Jesus: Fully God, Fully Man

It should not be surprising that false teaching would focus on the Person of Jesus Christ. Of all the world’s major religions, Christianity’s belief system is the one faith that is inextricably bound to its Founder. The Apostles’ teaching was that Jesus was fully God and fully man (Phil. 2:5-11). They testified to the virgin birth of Jesus (Mathew 1:18-25). The reason why he could be the Savior of the world was because he was fully God and fully man.

The Apostles were very insistent on the early Church to get its belief on the Person of Jesus correct. Lose this, and you lose much of Christianity’s other doctrines. This is why they strongly reprimanded false teachers. For example, in 2 John 10-11, we read these words: “If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not take him into your house or welcome him. Anyone who welcomes him shares in his wicked work.” Strong words indeed.

While 2 John warns not to give hospitality to false teachers, 3 John strongly commends the giving of hospitality to faithful teachers and missionaries. In 3 John 5,8 we read these words from John to Gaius: “Dear friend, you are faithful in what you are doing for the brothers, even though they are strangers to you…..We ought therefore to show hospitality to such men so that we may work together for the truth.” Gaius and Demetrius are two church leaders who are showing hospitality to John’s associates in the work of the Gospel.

But there is another church leader, Diotrephes, “who loves to be first“, who doesn’t welcome John’s associates (v. 9). Instead, he is “gossiping maliciously about us (John and company). Not satisfied with that, he refuses to welcome the brothers. He also stops those who want to do so and puts them out of the church” (v. 10). John wants Gaius not imitate the evil of this jealous and insecure church boss, but to imitate the good of people who really know God, like Demetrius (vv. 11,12).

Godly Behavior Reflecting The Gospel

In the Letter of Jude, the error of the false teachers seem to be related more to behavior that is incongruent to the Gospel and godly conduct. Jude writes: “For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord” (v. 4). Jude urges the faithful believers to contend for the faith entrusted to them by the Apostles, and not to fall from their secure position.

He exhorts them not to follow the example of  3 Old Testament groups who rejected the light given them by God, and who then all experienced the judgment of God (vv. 5-7). This is what will happen to Jude’s readers if they follow the teaching of the false teachers. They claim to have had dreams and visions (v. 8), but they are devoid of the indwelling Holy Spirit. They seem to be like brute beasts who are being driven by natural instincts. The end result of living by these carnal desires is destruction (vv. 10-16). There is no lasting fruit, no life, no divine glory, just spiritual death.

Jude encourages the believers by saying that the Apostles had warned the coming of such false teachers. “They said to you, ‘In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires’ “(v. 18). Jude hopes for something much different and much better for his readers: “But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Ho;y Spirit. Keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life” (vv. 20,21). God is more than able to accomplish this in the lives of Jude’s readers (vv. 24,25), and in our lives.

QOTD: Are you contending for the faith entrusted to us by the Apostles, by “(being) merciful to those who doubt; (snatching) others from the fire; to others showing mercy, mixed with fear- not being defiled in anyway by  corrupted flesh” (vv. 22,23)?