Diotrephes, Who Loves to Be First
9 I wrote to the assembly, but Diotrephes, who loves to be first among them, doesn’t accept what we say. 10 Therefore, if I come, I will call attention to his deeds which he does, unjustly accusing us with wicked words. Not content with this, he doesn’t receive the brothers himself, and those who would, he forbids and throws out of the assembly.
The trouble in the assembly is not a doctrine but an appetite — a man in love with the first place, which Scripture assigns to Christ alone.
The elder wrote to the assembly — the second epistle, or a letter now lost; the text does not say. Why it failed, it does say: Diotrephes loves to be first — philoprōteuō G5383, a word Scripture applies to no one else, built on a verb it uses exactly once elsewhere, of Christ, to whom first place in all things belongs Colossians 1:18. The vocabulary is the indictment. The seat Diotrephes loves is taken.
Verse 10 files the particulars. He does not accept what the elder says. He accuses unjustly with wicked words — phluareō G5396, empty, damaging talk. He does not receive the brothers himself. And those who would receive them he forbids, and casts out of the assembly — exclusion wielded not to guard the teaching, as the second letter ordered against deceivers, but to guard a seat. The Gospel has seen this door before: the man born blind, cast out by the gatekeepers and found by Christ John 9:34–35.
The elder's answer is no counter-expulsion: if I come, I will call attention to his deeds — named in the open, where the assembly can weigh them. Authority is exercised as light, not force.
settled What this mark means