Follow not that which is evil

John’s exhortation to follow good and not evil is echoed in both Testaments. Among his fellow apostles, both Peter and Paul commend the same path, cp. 1 Thess. 5. 15; 1 Tim. 5. 10; 1 Pet. 3. 13. These experienced men knew that, from the Garden of Eden onwards, the choice between good and evil has always confronted men and women. But the Old Testament writers made the same forceful appeals. At the end of his last address to his nation, Moses set before them ‘life and good, and death and evil’, urging them to choose life (and so good), Deut. 30. 15, 19. His successor used not dissimilar language in his appeal, ‘Choose you this day’, Josh. 24. 15.

Probably, the tone of Solomon’s constant appeals across the pages of Proverbs is nearest to the apostle John’s. Solomon urged his son to realize that ‘a wise son maketh a glad father: but a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother’, Prov. 10. 1. Following good was wise; con-senting to evil was foolish. Several times in the book he indicates that the kind of company a young man keeps is the determining factor in his choice.

Gaius, the recipient of John’s letter was a good man, as brethren had testified to John, v. 3. Clearly, he had made wise choices, as had Demetrius, another good man to whom John refers, as all those associated with John at that time had concluded, v. 12. Sadly, in the circles in which both good men moved, there was a man of a different character - ‘Diotrephes, who loveth to have the preeminence’, v. 9. So different was Diotrephes from John, Gaius, and Demetrius, that to company with him was ‘to follow . . . that which is evil’. Diotrephes refused to allow an apostolic letter to be read to the assembly in an attempt to overthrow apostolic authority, v. 9. He was also given to maligning the apostle and belittling his doctrine, v. 10. We recall that to lie to an apostle was to sin against the Holy Spirit, Acts 5. 3, 4. How much more serious to speak against their teaching!

To follow that which is good does not carry that kind of health warning. We note that there is the guarantee of spiritual health and access to the truth the apostles taught, 3John2, 7-9.