Be Careful What You Imitate

Alba 11-17-2024

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU IMITATE

III John 9-14

In the late 1990s, aspiring actor and writer Johnny Knoxville had moved from Knoxville, Tennessee to Los Angeles, California, and landed work in commercials in order to support his wife and infant daughter. Among his ideas was one to produce an article that involved testing various self-defense equipment on himself.

In 1996, Knoxville was contacted by Big Brother, a skateboarding magazine for which Jeff Tremaine was an editor, and convinced Knoxville to do the stunt and film it. The stunt featured Knoxville testing out pepper spray, a stun gun, a taser, and a .38 caliber gun with a bulletproof vest.

Eventually this led to a TV stunt and prank show on MTV in the fall of the year 2000, and was given the name, Jackass (that seems appropriate). But a year later, Knoxville announced that the series would end after its third season aired because of discontent with MTV and the censors, who, from the start of season two, increasingly gave notes regarding what the show could and could not depict. Maybe someone was getting some sense.

At the time of its first broadcast in 2000, Jackass frequently featured warnings and disclaimers noting that the stunts performed were very dangerous and should not be imitated, and also advised viewers that any stunt video footage sent to the production company would not be opened or viewed. Such warnings not only appeared before and after each program and after each commercial break, but also in a "crawl" that ran along the bottom of the screen during some especially risky stunts, as well as showing their "skull and crutches" logo at the bottom right of the screen to symbolize the stunt performed as risky. Nevertheless, the program was blamed for a number of deaths and injuries involving teens and children recreating the stunts.

So you have to be careful who and what you imitate. The results could be deadly. In life there are good examples and bad examples. People need to choose between the two. But even with warnings against bad examples, some people just don't seem to learn.

That's why the apostle John wanted to be sure that his friend, Gaius, understood the difference, and gave specific examples to help him figure it out. In John's third letter, which is just before Jude and Revelation, after commending Gaius for his generosity and hospitality to the visiting teachers and ministers, he gives the warning in verse eleven, “do not imitate what is evil, but what is good.” The “evil” in that warning was an obvious reference to the actions of a man named Diotrephes. He was not someone to imitate. So be careful because...

1. There Are Bad Examples

And Diotrephes is an example of what not to do.

In Third John verses nine and ten John tells Gaius, “I wrote to the church, but Diotrephes, who loves to have the preeminence among them, does not receive us. Therefore, if I come, I will call to mind his deeds which he does, prating against us with malicious words. And not content with that, he himself does not receive the brethren, and forbids those who wish to, putting them out of the church.”

John says, don't imitate what is evil, but rather what is good. Sadly, even in the church and even in leadership one can find poor examples. Diotrephes is one of those. The problem centers around some traveling evangelists that John sent their way. It was the custom of the church that its members take care of the guest evangelists and missionaries. Apparently, John has written previously and asked that the church support them and take them into their homes for a time and help them along their way. This did not happen. Diotrephes made sure it didn’t happen. Only Gaius did it.

We do not have the letter mentioned in verse nine. Perhaps Diotrephes may have discarded it. Even though Diotrephes was a common name, it was found mostly among the nobility. So some think that perhaps he was a wealthy man who had considerable influence, and wielded his influence like a club!

He apparently claimed some mantle of leadership. But unlike the welcoming attitude of Gaius, Diotrephes hindered the work of the gospel. He was driven by some kind of personal ambition. He wanted to be the leader. He wanted to have all authority to himself. He wanted to have control.

A lot of us would like to think that church politics is an oxymoron—a contradiction in terms. We prefer to believe that church life is above the stuff that politics is famous for. But anyone who has been around church for very long knows better. Church politics exist. It always has. It always will—as long as there are people around.