Saturday, September 10, 2022

 

Saturday, September 10, 2022


Psalm 25

Isaiah 34

3 John


Beloved, do not imitate what is evil but imitate what is good.


If “the elect lady” of 2 John needs encouragement towards truth, Demetrius in 3 John needs encouragement towards love. These two aspects of Christian discipleship, truth and love, weigh very heavy on John's thinking, and so it should be something we deliberate over in our own prayers too.


Demetrius was practising truth without love. Without becoming too proud ourselves, consider the fact the lectionary only gave us Isaiah 34 this morning. Imagine only having Isaiah 34 without Isaiah 35! We would only have part of the story of God.


We do not need to sacrifice truth for the sake of love, either. Consider who Gaius was helping, and why John thought so highly of him. Gaius was helping the “friends”, even though they were strangers to him. These strangers had given up everything they had for the sake of Christ, and so as a fellow lover of Jesus, Gaius extended that love to them.


Truth and love can be difficult to reconcile. We must pray to the Holy Spirit to give us guidance. We must always study the scriptures to see what others have done in this pursuit (some more successfully than others; compare Paul's happy attitude to Jonah sitting miserably under the tree, for example). But both give us confidence. Confidence that we are speaking the truth of God, and confidence that we are acting faithfully as God's representatives on earth, the hands and feet of His love. Truth and love are but two facets on the brilliantly gleaming jewel that is our brother, friend, prophet, priest, king: Jesus Christ.



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