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II John 10 (NIV)
If anyone comes to you and does
not bring this teaching, do not take him into your house or welcome him.
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| The church is obliged. . . to preserve its own purity.* |
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Is John telling us not to be nice? Aren’t we told elsewhere
to bless and pray for our enemies? To feed them if they are hungry and give
them something to drink if they are thirsty?* Let’s look at some clues that John is not advising us to abuse all the rules of
hospitality:
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At the time John wrote this, there were
no “church houses” – only “house churches,” so a house could be a church as
well as a home.
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The word “your” is not in the original
language. In English, “house” is not a stand-alone kind of word; it needs an
article or a possessive pronoun. It sounds strange to our ears but what John
actually wrote is, “do not take him into house.” (Compare to how Americans say
that someone is “in the hospital”
while the British say “in hospital.”)
·
John was not talking about strangers or
“seekers.” He was referring to people who claimed to be preaching the truth but
whose doctrines were utterly subversive.* They were denying the
Lord Jesus Christ,* not coming over for dinner!
We need to understand that tolerating false doctrine
is a much bigger offense than poor hospitality or hurting someone’s feelings. Allowing
it to continue can have eternal consequences for the perpetrator and for his
listeners. Church leaders must not be timid in confronting those who infiltrate
the church with a counterfeit gospel. Don’t let them preach “under your
roof.” Do not acknowledge them as brothers. But do seek to show them the truth
and bring them back into the fellowship.
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| Sometimes fellowship is more important than a fight. Sometimes not.* |
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