27. Diotrephes, the Man of Orthodoxy

by Frank L. Preuss

Let us have a look at what Orthodoxy is all about. Orthodoxy exists since 2000 years and fought everything opposed to them and called it heresy; and heresy was suppressed by this increasingly organized and institutionalized Orthodox Church.

I want to give you a quotation that gives us a lot of insight into the thinking of a typical representative of Orthodoxy. The book I am quoting from is “The New Testament, A New Translation by William Barclay.” This book is from the year 1968 and I am quoting the “Introduction to the Third Letter of John.”

So here comes this quotation:

>>Behind this little letter there is one of the most interesting and important situations in the New Testament.

In the early days of the church there were two kinds of ministry. There was the settled ministry, the ministry of the local congregation, the elders and the deacons. This kind of ministry did its work in one place and within one congregation, much as the ministry functions now. But there was also an itinerant ministry. The prophets and the apostles were not confined to one congregation. They moved throughout the whole church. Their authority was, so to speak, universal and not confined to any one place or any one congregation. The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles is the earliest book of Church Order which we possess. It must date back to very early in the second century, to a time very near that at which this little letter was written. This book gives the order for the Eucharist, and then at the end it says: ‘But allow the prophets to hold the Eucharist as they will’ (The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles 10.7). That this itinerant ministry was not without its problems is seen in the passage which immediately follows: ‘Concerning the prophets and apostles, act thus according to the ordinance of the gospel. Let every apostle who comes to you be received as the Lord, but let him not stay more than one day, or if need be a second as well; but if he stays three days, he is a false prophet. And when an apostle goes forth let him accept nothing but bread; but if he asks for money, he is a false Prophet’ (11.3-6). From this we can see that the itinerant apostles and prophets brought their own problems.

In particular they brought one big problem. They brought the inevitable clash between the itinerant and the settled ministry. The stronger the institution of the settled congregation became, the less it liked the invasion of the nomadic prophets and apostles, especially when these wanderers tried to tell them what to do. And after years of authority the wandering prophets and apostles found it hard to understand that they were no longer welcome.

This is exactly the situation we have in this letter. John is one of the old school. In fact, he was probably the last survivor of the old school. The essence of the situation is in verses 5-10. John pleads for the welcome and the support of those wandering prophets and apostles, who have given up everything to undertake this itinerant ministry. He pleads that they should be welcomed and supported and helped on the way. But in verses 9 and 10 we read of Diotrephes who wanted nothing to do with these wanderers, who will not receive them, and who would actually debar them from the congregation. Diotrephes is the representative of the settled ministry and he finds the arrival of these wanderers nothing less than a nuisance and a disturbance. Demetrius (verse 12) is presumably still prepared to accept the old order.

So then, in this little letter we see the clash between the itinerant and the settled ministry, with the settled ministry resenting the invasion of these incomers with their claim to special and universal authority. In this letter the aged John throws all his weight on the side of the wandering prophets and apostles. But it was a losing battle and before very long the wandering evangelists had vanished from the scene, and the local ministry became the backbone of the structure of the church.<<

So that was Mr William Barclay.

I think this is one of the most revealing pieces of literature coming from Orthodoxy dealing with its emergence and its purpose and its principles.

It shows us that Diotrephes was really the first representative of Orthodoxy. You might call him the first Catholic. That Mr Orthodox is on his side comes out quite well when he says that the settled ministry is much as the ministry functions now. So the ministry that functions now in his denomination is the settled ministry and it has nothing to do with the itinerant ministry. Mr Orthodox is the man of the Orthodoxy and the man that stands at the very beginning of this Orthodoxy is Diotrephes.

John is the person who tells us much about the Antichrist. The first time that John mentions Antichrist in his three letters is in 1 John 2:18:

Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.

The second time is in 1 John 2:22:

Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son.

The third time is in 1 John 4:3:

And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God; and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.

And the fourth time is in 2 John 7:

For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.

These are the four verses in the three letters of John that mention Antichrist. The word is used there five times, four times singular and one time in the plural.

But these four verses in the three letters of John are also the only verses in the whole Bible that contain the word antichrist. I have shown at another place how nicely these three letters build up to the person of Diotrephes and what he is doing, that Diotrephes is already the subject in the first letter and also in the second letter, but that John does not mention his name in the first two letters, he only mentions his name in the last letter, the third.

John says, even now are there many Antichrists. This is another reference to Diotrephes. The best one we find in 1 John 2:4 where John says, he that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.

We are dealing here with men that are very much part of the Christian church but that are really completely opposed to it and whose presence is aimed at everything that is not Christian.

Even now are there many Antichrists. Right from the beginning there were many of them and Diotrephes is the symbol of them all and the very first. At least he seems to be the first that is mentioned in the Bible.

So when we study the letters of John then we get a pretty good idea of what antichrist and all the many antichrists are all about. And when we then also use the above mentioned quote from Mr Orthodox then we even get a better insight into the matter.

The whole problem, and Mr Orthodox says it is even a big problem, is the existence of the itinerant ministry. Now the itinerant ministry is the ministry of the prophets and of the apostles. And that is one aspect of continuous revelation. There are two aspects of continuous revelation. One is the gifts of the spirit working in the assembly and the other is the itinerant ministry of the apostles and the prophets. Now the first one, the operating of the gift, the miraculous happenings coming through the holy spirit from individual members of the congregation, can be controlled and can be suppressed easily by the “settled” ministry. Diotrephes, who loveth to have preeminence among them and who is prating against the real believers with malicious words and who, not content therewith, neither doth he himself receive the brethren, and forbiddeth them that would, and casteth them out of the church, is of course an ideal personality to also suppress the working of the gifts of the spirit.

So the first thing to suppress is the holy spirit. And that is done easily when one has a dominating personality and wants to be first. The next thing then to do is to suppress the presence of the itinerate ministry. When both of these have been suppressed then the main aim of Orthodoxy has been achieved. The whole basic tenet of their theology has then been accomplished. And that is: God is dead.

Antichrist does not really need anything more. With that he has achieved his objective. And he has done so since 2000 years.

And the proof of it all we have here straight from the horse’s mouth, from a theologian, the theologian Mr Orthodox.

Diotrephes is of the new school. The two words new school are not used by Mr Orthodox but he uses the word old school and old order. And that means that what John writes and what the other authors of the Bible write is of the old school and of the old order. It is all superseded. It is all of the past. It gave problems. He actually says that it brought one big problem. The big problem that it brought was that it brought the inevitable clash between the itinerant and the settled ministry. Now what Mr Orthodox forgets to say is that the problem only occurred there where the antichrist had himself established already. Only there where a Diotrephes type of person wanted to have pre-eminence brought it a problem. Only there where God in action was outlawed brought it a problem. The inevitable clash between the itinerant and the settled ministry exists only there where the settled ministry has gone over to the side of antichrist. In the real church there is no such “inevitable clash.” The inevitable clash can only occur in the mind of a theologian who can’t think of anything else than a man-made church, who can’t perceive something that is described in all its details in the Bible – the true church. Theologians call it the primitive church. And they do so because they are carnal and can’t grasp any spiritual thing. It is beyond them.

Mr Orthodox turns the whole third letter around. He makes Diotrephes look like the good guy and John the bad guy – the one of the old order, the one who is far behind everything. Of the negative side of Diotrephes he has nothing to say.

Mr Orthodox sees in Diotrephes a man who has the same problems that he himself has and that are problems with Christians who come and want to discuss spiritual things and who want to argue with verses from the Bible and who want to believe what they find in the Bible. And such people are quite a nuisance for every true follower of Orthodoxy. Such people, and people like itinerant prophets and apostles, bring problems. In particular they bring one big problem. They bring the inevitable clash between the itinerant and the settled ministry. Mr Orthodox says that such itinerant people are of the old school and so is John, in fact, John, says Mr Orthodox, was probably the last survivor of the old school. So for Mr Orthodox the early church, what he would call the primitive church, died in the years about 100 AD and what survived was Orthodoxy and when someone from the old school dared to put his head up then his head was quickly removed from his body.

The persecution of the true Christians through Orthodoxy lasts since 2000 years and this war against God and his people is well the most severe and longest lasting and most comprehensive crime that mankind has seen. With what we here concern ourselves is therefore not a side aspect of world affairs. Against that what has happened there, and what is still happening, are the events of the twentieth century, like the World Wars and the effects of the totalitarian systems, quite meagre.

We are not dealing here with a side aspect of world affairs; what is here discussed is the central issue of mankind, it is the reason why the physical universe came into being. The culmination of all spiritual development is man and his decision for or against God and that means for the right church or against it - for Christ or for Antichrist. The aspects discussed here are the key issues to understand the end-times and Antichrist and his actions.

The clash was inevitable, says Mr Orthodox.

There can’t be much cooperation between Christ and antichrist. Mr Orthodox is quite aware of this. Mr Orthodox is not of the old school. He is of the ministry as it functions now, not of the ministry as it functioned then.

He is full of sympathy for Diotrephes. He can fully understand his problems. They are the same as the ones he has got.

Mr Orthodox has fully understood the importance of this very short book of the Bible. He says, Behind this little letter there is one of the most interesting and important situations in the New Testament.

And he is exactly on the right track. When somebody does not understand what is going on in that letter then he will have problems understanding church history. It is the situation where the change took place from the real church to the man-made one. And Mr Orthodox can feel very much with it and what is involved. The problems have not disappeared during his time and the time of Diotrephes. The battle against God is still going on. There are still people who are listening to the holy spirit and recognize a Diotrephes and bring to light his seeking for pre-eminence and his gossiping maliciously about us.

When Mr Orthodoxy says, ‘They brought the inevitable clash between the itinerant and the settled ministry’ then that statement is an outright lie, proves that he speaks untruthfulness and that again also proves that he and his Orthodoxy are completely outside of God’s spirit because when both sides are led by the spirit of God then there is no such thing as a clash but only harmony and blessing. This statement of his is clear evidence on which side he and his Orthodoxy stand: on the side of the adversary. The settled side is on the side of the opponent of God and therefore has to clash with the itinerant side, which is filled with the spirit of God. But this only applies to the settled side which belongs to Orthodoxy, the real settled side, the side which belongs to the New Jerusalem, has no need to clash with something that is part and parcel of itself.

And that Mr Orthodoxy is a liar is confirmed by the next sentence that follows: ‘The stronger the institution of the settled congregation became, the less it liked the invasion of the nomadic prophets and apostles, especially when these wanderers tried to tell them what to do.’ The same arguments apply which were used for the previous sentence but in addition shows that Mr Orthodoxy is a complete worldly person as he sees strength only when it is worldly strength, worldly power and worldly influence – exactly the ingredients of denominations and man-made churches. Spiritually these settled congregations, which did not like the iterant ministry, became naked and had no spiritual power and their only refuge that remained for them was the world. A Mr Orthodoxy – the theologian - can get away with such a statement only in a world of Christianity that has already completely lost all spirituality and is completely run by Antichrist himself. This applies to the author but is also a strong reflection of all the others involved in publishing such work and in particular of all the readers who read such things and carry on as if nothing has happened.

John confirms that Mr Orthodoxy is a liar when he writes 1 John 2:22:

Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son.

Mr Orthodoxy refers to the Didache and says that the itinerate ministry was not without problems because there are recommendations, how to recognize false prophets and how to deal with them, and then he says:

"From this we can see that the itinerant apostles and prophets brought their own problems."

This also confirms that he is a liar because the apostles and prophets who brought problems were those who already had gone over to Antichrist and where it now was necessary, and still is necessary, to unmask them. But the genuine ones, the genuine apostles and prophets, were fought by Diotrephes - and by him, the Mr Orthododxy. But the genuine ones, the genuine apostles and prophets, brought God's continuous revelation, they brought healing for body and soul.

And he himself, Mr Orthodoxy, is such a false prophet, because with his publications he wanders about and represents Antichrist and his cause, and with the sale of his works he makes money. For the fact that he is a theologian and that he writes books he wants money.

"But if he asks for money, he is a false Prophet."

This is the end of "Diotrephes, the Man of Orthodoxy"

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