For the Gospel writer that captured more of Jesus' statements regarding "love" than the rest, it's amazing how he also leads the pack in the most quotes and references to "truth". Through John's writings we learn that biblical love cannot exist without knowing the truth, the process of sanctification is rooted in knowing the truth, and according to this verse one's reputation and associated testimonials must be rooted in the truth.
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How heavy my heart became when reading today that an internal survey conducted by the Church of England determined that 1 out of every 33 clergy in that denomination don't actually believe in God. It astonishes me. I would suggest that they've pursued a career for some reason other than "for the sake of the Name".
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How does "acting faithfully" become transformed into being called "your love"? Isn't that an odd way of describing things? First he compliments them on their faithfulness—their adherance to the attitude and behavior one would expect of Christians—but further states that this behavior resulted in a testimony to their love.
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After being away from home for a few years I returned from the Army to discover that everyone has a "measuring stick". When you haven't seen someone for a very long time, and you're catching up on what's happened in the intervening years, you will notice that they start nearly each and every individual report the same way which also betrays how they judge the qualities of another's life. For instance, one person began each status report with the person's occupation. (Bob's a carpenter, Larry's a doctor (gush-gush), Sheila's still pumping gas (too bad).) Other such examples were how much money a person makes, what kind of house they have, how many kids—one guy qualified each person by how beautiful a wife they married. Even amongst my many Christian friends, there never seemed to be anyone whose "measuring stick" was the quality of one's walk in Christ.
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As proof that I’m probably older than a rock, I was fascinated to learn that children rarely, if ever these days, play “cowboys and indians” like I and my friends did back in the day. Expecting to hear that the reason had something to do with the onset of political correctness, I was mildly surprised to learn that the reason is actually the television and movies produced these days. In my ancient neck of the woods, westerns were in the mainstream; nowadays its police shows and gang violence. Kids have replaced “cowboys and indians” with “detective and drug dealer” or “pimp and prostitute” or “secret agent and terrorist”. Like I and my friends, today’s kids are simply imititating what they see.
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When it comes to dealing with those that have, through their behavior and teaching, established themselves to be a false prophet or false teacher, what are the biblical guidelines? What did Jesus and the apostles do? The repeated example, over and over again, is to publicly and plainly name names and warn as many as possible about them. Jesus told the people “beware of the scribes” :”(Luke 20:46)”: and “beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees” :”(Matthew 16:6)”:. John here declares the name of Diotrephes, and Paul will specifically name Hymenaeus and Alexander :”(1 Timothy 1:20)”: and Philetus :”(2 Timothy 2:17)”: as false.
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John seems to be separating the physical from the spiritual, to be differentiating between two completely independent things: physical health (“…I pray that…you may prosper…”) versus spiritual health (“…just as your soul prospers.”) Aren’t they completely interdependent? As one goes, so goes the other, right?
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