FIVE SMOOTH STONES - The Five Ascension Gifts in the Heavenly Shepherds Bag

FIVE SMOOTH STONES — The Five Ascension Gifts in the Heavenly Shepherd’s Bag

14 but I hope to see you shortly, and we shall speak face to face. Peace to you. Our friends greet you. Greet the friends by name .”

Can you imagine a Church leader that would refuse the apostle John access to the believers? This is the man who sat next to the Lord at the last supper and laid his head on His breast to hear the heartbeat of the Lord. He was the disciple who the Lord loved as a friend, the only one of the twelve to be at the crucifixion to receive the appointment to watch over Mary, the mother of Jesus. This was a duty which included the responsibilities of the first born being passed on to him, and he accepted. At the time this epistle was written, John may have been the last of the twelve apostles of the Lamb to be alive on the earth, and this Church leader would not receive him. There are two dynamics working here, the arrogance of Diotrephes and the humility of John. The name Diotrephes means nourished by Jupiter or blessed by Jupiter, which is the Roman or Latin equivalent of the Greek god Zeus. In only two verses directly dealing with Diotrephes, the apostle John points out at least seven major descriptions of this leader: 1) he loves to be first or preeminent (vs9); 2) he rejects the apostolic leadership and their teams (vs9); 3) he maliciously spreads gossip and false accusations (vs10) 4) he withholds hospitality from other believers with whom he disagrees (vs10) 5) he requires others to follow his poor example and forbids them to follow or fellowship with others (vs10) 6) he excommunicates or shuns anyone who disagrees or crosses him (vs10). 7) he sets a bad example and influence for the Church (vs11). This spirit is led to high places as sure as goats prefer pinnacles to view from. We recently have the example of a major European leader rise to power stating that he would reign as a “Jupiterian” president – “a remote, dignified figure, like the Roman god of gods” [Reuters 1]. Similarly, in the United States we were subjected to a president who accepted his presidential party nomination on a stage copy of the Pergamon altar to Zeus, now in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin.

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