3 John

Hey,
Another blistering hot day. Kind of like the blistering hot letter that John sent to his dear friend Gaius. Read all of 3rd John, then join me.
Gaius is a good guy but there's a bad guy named Diotrephes who's been running the church and not doing a good job of it. He's power hungry and being nasty. Paul sounds like he'd like to take Diotrephes on in a personal battle. My guess is that Diotrephes wouldn't win.
There's always church conflicts and some leaderships handle it well, Biblically, and other's don't. Then, there are churches that don't confront false teaching/teacher's and everything falls apart with people leaving and much discouragement.
In verse 11 Paul tells his 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." When I think about that small verse, part of me says, but some day, those people will see God and He will destroy them for all the harm they have done.
In the mean time, how do we handle people who cause trouble for us individually, or the church corporately? I think it's our responsibility to counteract false teaching with good solid teaching. I think that Diotrephes epitomizes those who go through life looking for trouble and not caring how much havoc they wreck. Ever met someone like that?
When our children were little I sometimes babysat for a young boy that was constantly looking for trouble. I couldn't believe some of the things that he did and he was only 4! He terrorized the neighborhood kids when he was with us.
I tried many things to stop him, anticipate his actions and even confronted his mother, but to no avail. Sometimes I felt he was headed for prison, some day. It was like there evil in him that controlled him. I don't know how he turned out because we've moved away. I do know that his sister married a friend of ours son and that she's just so sweet and good. Why one bad acting child and one good out of the same family? Only God knows.
That's my point in this, it's God's to deal with. He knows the hearts of everyone and will work His justice. But, we are to make sure that people don't wreck havoc in the church, so if you see or know of something that dishonors God, you have a responsibility to notify the leadership. They're responsible before God to deal with it. We are accountable before God for allowing sin to prevail.

Prayers to you all,
Sandy