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The Diotrephes Spirit

Rev Albert Kang 

The problem of worldly leadership in the church is not a new one. Way back in the first century, there were church leaders who, because of their own selfishness, had allowed worldly ideology to affect them and their churches. Take for example, a church leader known as Diotrephes. John the Elder mentioned about him and his audacity in the Epistle of 3rd John. Diotrephes was probably a pastor of a local congregation in Ephesus. He was so threatened by the effectiveness of visiting preachers that he did not welcome them to his church. He would chastise church members if they wanted to provide hospitality to these traveling preachers. John noticed that Diotrephes was affected by sheer pride and had wanted to be the number one leader all the time. Apparently, Diotrephes’ preaching ability and understanding of God’s will, could not match the size of his pride. Having a Diotrephes in the church is like having the devil in attendance. One such leader can cause a church to go to hell or be hell itself. We should avoid adopting the “Diotrephes spirit” because it is evil and not born of God. Let us be careful as to whom we should follow. A selfish, proud and evil leader, who is concerned about his own gain and power, should be ignored.

Modern Diotrephes

Today, the “Diotrephes spirit” is still very much alive and affecting the churches. Let me clarify up front, before you get any misunderstanding about my concept of church leadership. I believe wholeheartedly that all pastors who are true servant-leaders should be given the appropriate honor and respect. They are the servants of the Lord and have received the biblical mandate to serve and lead the churches. Many of these have made tremendous sacrifices while serving God’s people. For example, the Singaporean pastor, Reverend Simon Loh, who died after contacting SARS from one of his members whom he had prayed for. Many pastors are spending countless hours in counseling, teaching, preaching, visiting their members in the hospitals and conducting weddings and funeral services. On many occasions they would have to respond to emergency calls in unearthly hours. To these dedicated leaders, we must give our fullest support, present every effort to make their ministries enjoyable and also cooperate with them in making the church grow and become strong.

The Bible is very clear about our commitment to our church leadership and therefore no one should quote this article so as to challenge the authority of his or her pastor. Paul wrote in 1 Timothy 5:17-20 – “The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching. For the Scripture says, ‘Do not muzzle the ox while it is treading out the grain,’ and ‘the worker deserves his wages.’ Do not entertain an accusation against an elder unless it is brought by two or three witnesses. Those who sin are to be rebuked publicly, so that the others may take warning.”

We should always honor our church leaders who are putting in a lot of effort into making sure that the needs of the church are being met and that the Word of God is being taught. However, we should be wise to distinguish between the genuine dedicated pastors from the rogue church leaders who are looking only after their own interest. These are people who are bilking the church so as to enrich themselves. They also dominate their congregations by subjugating them with guilt-trips, fabricated doctrines and false prophecies. It is sad that there are many abused church members and very few avenues by which these people may air their grievances. However God is not blind about what is happening in such churches.

Warning From Ezekiel 34

The eternal voice of God that warned the leaders of Ezekiel’s time, is now speaking to us: ^“Woe to the shepherds of Israel who only take care of themselves! Should not shepherds take care of the flock? You eat the curds, clothe yourselves with the wool and slaughter the choice animals, but you do not take care of the flock. You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally. So they were scattered because there was no shepherd, and when they were scattered they became food for all the wild animals. My sheep wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill. They were scattered over the whole earth, and no one searched or looked for them” (Ezekiel 34:1-6).

God is hurt because his flock is scattered by the greed and laziness of these false shepherds. If the flock is trained to look for genuine shepherds then these scam artists will not be able to hurt anyone anymore. The following stories are not new but we have to read them again so that we will become more alert to the scams offered by fake Christian leaders.

The Mad Preacher

In 1978, a shocking report came out of the Guyana jungle. More than 900 members of Jim Jones’ church were killed because they were brainwashed to drink cyanide-laced grape punch. Young children and babies were the first to be killed. Poison was squirted into their mouths with syringes. Many adults simply obeyed and took the poison. They died almost immediately, laying on top of each other. Others who resisted were shot.

I listened to the recording of Jones’ voice as he encouraged his followers to drink the lethal portion. His haunting voice sent shivers down my spine. He was calling his followers, “children” and telling them not to be afraid to join him in “heaven”. Later, the authority found a box of letters at the death site – mostly notes of support that he had demanded his followers to write him. Each was addressed “Dear Dad.”

Jim Jones started his ministry as part of a mainline Christian denomination in San Francisco. His church, The Peoples Temple, initially served as an inter-racial mission outreach for the sick, elderly, poor, homeless and jobless. He insisted that the lowliest in society should be reached with God’s love. He became a respected community leader and among his friends were leading politicians. He was a gifted preacher and his sermons on human freedom, equality, and love attracted many. At one time, there were 8,000 in his congregation. He became engrossed in gaining more political power and so he used the church money to buy influence. The San Francisco Chronicle reported in 1976, “Many a San Franciscan and many a project have received sizable checks from Peoples Temple, accompanied by only a short note from Jim Jones, saying, ‘We appreciate what you are doing.’”

As the ancient Chinese adage states, “Paper will never be able to wrap fire”, the truth of how Jim Jones operated his church began to surface. Former members who left reported that he was involved with drugs and human rights abuses. There was a news report on how he fabricated divine healings and also forced his members to liquidate their assets and give the proceeds to his church. More negative news reports forced Jones to move about 1,000 of his followers to Guyana. In June 1978, Deborah Layton, a follower of Jones, defected from Jones’ camp in Guyana and was interviewed by the press. She revealed the appalling condition and brutality meted on followers by Jones and his security personnel. She also revealed that Jones had planned to get his followers to commit mass suicide. Parents and loved ones of Jones’ followers began to pester the government to intervene so as to get their loved ones home. On 18 November 1978, Leo Ryan, an American congressman was murdered with a couple of news reporters, when they flew to Jonestown to investigate. Within a few hours, 914 bodies were dead along with that of Jim Jones and his assistants. This was the tragic end of ordinary people who followed after a crazed leader and had no courage to stop him. Those church members, who escaped the mass-suicide, testified that they had suspected something was wrong with Jones’s behavior and attitude. The fact was that Jones had gone crazy and no one dared to stop him. Jones was not to be the last case because in 1993, David Koresh, leader of the Branch Davidians, led his followers to resist the United States federal authority for 51 days at Waco. The resistance ended with the loss of 76 lives, 21 of them were children.

The Scam Artists

It is true that not every unscrupulous church leader will become like Jim Jones or David Koresh. However, with their false claims and manipulations, the average deceitful leaders can wreak many lives.

For example, on 21 November 1991, Robert Tilton, an American TV evangelist was exposed by ABC’s Prime Time Live for deceiving his followers. Tilton had promised to pray for every piece of prayer request that was mailed to him but was exposed for not doing so. The envelopes with the prayer cards never even reached his office because they were all sent to a mail processing agency in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to be opened by clerks. Cheques/checks, money orders, cash, food stamps and even wedding rings were retrieved and deposited into the evangelist’s account at a nearby bank. The envelopes and prayer request cards were discarded into a dumpster for recycling. Tilton never prayed for any prayer request and all he was interested in was the money. At one time, his ministry annual income was a staggering US$ 800 million (S$1.4 billion). Many who donated to his ministry were the elderly who gave out of their small pension funds.

In another public humiliation, the magician James Randi exposed Reverend Peter Popoff as a fraud on “The Tonight Show” in the early 1980s. Popoff had claimed that God spoke to him directly and so he was able to point out people with specific diseases in the audience. Randi discovered that it was not God but Popoff’s wife who provided the “prophecies.”  With the help of a hidden listening device in his ear, this fake prophet was able to hear his wife reading the personal information retrieved from the welcome cards filled out by the audience as they entered the auditorium.

I watched the video recording of this scam. Popoff was prancing all over, pretending to pray and then pause to listen to the voice of God. As Randi’s crew had tuned their radio scanner to the same frequency as that of Popoff’s listening device, they could hear whatever Mrs. Popoff told her husband. Popoff was a convincing actor. He began calling out home addresses, surnames and also what the diseases were, and the crowd went wild with “Praise the Lord” and loud applauses.

In spite of being exposed as a fraud, today Popoff and his wife are still on television, deceiving more people. They are now peddling “Anointing Oil Key Chains”. They described the oil in the key chains as being specially mixed to “proper biblical proportions.” Popoff is so creative and apart from this key chain, he has peddled “Anointed handkerchief”, “Holy Honey Pack”, “Anointed Faith Glove”, “Picture of Jesus”, and even “Holy Sanitary Wipe”.  (You may watch the video of Peter Popoff’s scam on this website - http://www.bible.ca/tongues-popoff-39-17Mhz.htm).

The late Jamie Buckingham shared in one of his books about a so-called “Christian prophetess” who after mailing out her prediction that certain part of America would fall off and slide into sea, “announced that she had purchased property above the high water mark and for a reasonable price you could buy a lot and join her in total safety” (Jamie Buckingham, The Truth Will Set You Free But First It Will Make You Miserable, p. 48). She was just another scam artist trying to make some money from gullible people.

Do you remember the Y2K crisis or rather the lack of crisis? Many self-proclaimed prophets were cashing in by churning out “prophetic” publications, apparently given to them by God. At that time, I was pastoring in America and the American television networks were full of these Y2K prophets. Many were encouraging Christians to stockpile food, save water, purchase guns, and even move to isolated area so as to protect their families against the Y2K chaos. They told the audience the urgency of getting hold of their Y2K life-saving manuals or books because everybody would need them during the depressing period. However, after Y2K came and went without any major incident, the false prophets also conveniently changed their tune. Some said that the crisis was averted because of their prayers. I noticed a week after New Year day of 2000; all the Y2K books were selling at a great discount. One pastor who was interviewed on television said that his members and he had to give away tons of food that they had stored because they believed the “prophesies” of these Y2K prophets.

Are These True Prophets?

Are these people, true prophets of God? I really doubt so. Some of these fake prophets are still on television and they could keep on going because there is still a large group of gullible people supporting them. Peter said in 2 Peter 2:1 – 3 – “But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them--bringing swift destruction on themselves. Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. In their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping”.

I am not asking you to be skeptical about God’s voice or His healing power. I am asking you to be wise so as to differentiate between the true and false servant-leaders. John the Elder had specially instructed the Christians not to imitate people like Diotrephes because their behavior and attitude were evil – “Dear friend, do not imitate what is evil but what is good. Anyone who does what is good is from God. Anyone who does what is evil has not seen God” (3 John 11).

Our purpose in this life is to become more and more like Christ. Whom then shall we imitate? Christ, of course! However, since most of us cannot see the invisible Christ, we have to depend upon the Word of God to guide and also our leaders as living examples of Christ-likeness. “Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith.” (Hebrews 13:7). Yes, to become more like Christ, we should imitate the lives of those whom God has placed above us. We should watch out for unscrupulous fake Christian leaders but intelligently choose our spiritual mentors and imitate their walk of faith.

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