Dr. Manny Arango (0:00)

Hey, Bible nerds. This is Dr. Manny Arango and I'm your host for the Bible department podcast powered by Arma. This podcast follows a Bible reading plan we created to help you read the entire Bible in a year. You can head to the show notes or thebibledepartment.com to download our reading plan and join the journey. To all my fellow pastors, I've got a question for you. Does your city know that your church exists? Listen, I get it. You're preaching, you're leading, you're discipling, you're doing ministry. We are in the same boat. And let's be honest, social media and marketing, not your strong suit. Not mine either. And that's probably the last thing on your mind. And that's why we chose to partner with Church Candy Marketing for our church plant the garden. We out here, y'all. They help churches get more actual guests walking through the doors on Sunday without your eye having to stress over ads or algorithms or trying to crack the social media code. Right now, Church Candy is helping nearly 400 churches reach their communities with simple invite ads. And it works. It's super effective. I can tell you from firsthand experience. So if you're tired of being your city's best kept secret, how about you do this? Go to churchcandy.com Manny and book a free consultation book a discovery call. Their team will break it all down and show you how to start seeing new faces at your church this Sunday. I'm in the trenches with you trying to grow the church. And how about we just start a whole campaign? No more empty churches. So let's partner with Church Candy and get our churches full for the glory of Jesus. Let's go. If you've done the reading today, I am proud of you. We got two full books of the Bible today, but don't worry, they are very, very short. We got two John and three John. I actually really, really love these two books of the Bible. I think that these two books of the Bible kind of get overlooked a lot. But, you know, they're. They're small, they're short, but I think they pack a lot of truth. And like always, I'm going to give you some context clues. I'm gonna give you a nerdy nugget. I'll give you a timeless truth. I think there's a lot to gain out of two John and three John. And on the Bible reading plan, we have organized all of John's content together so that we can get a good sense of kind of John's Writing. Okay, so we've got the Gospel of John, first John, second John, three John, all grouped together. And then, you know, tomorrow we'll head into the book of Revelation, which is also written by John. So if you've read 2 John and 3 John, let's dive in. If you haven't done the reading yet for today, go ahead, pause this, stop listening, stop watching, go actually do the reading. It'll probably take you, I mean, maybe five minutes, like, to get the reading done. It's, it's just not a lot of reading today, but really, really, really impactful. I remember one time I, I was preaching at my church and our bishop, who was like in his 70s at this point, you know, his way of complimenting me, it was to say that Manny Orango, man, he's a small piece of leather, but is well put together. And I remember being like, did this man just call me a small piece of leather? And obviously I'm short. Well, that may not be obvious to you, but I, I'm a, I'm a short, I'm a short fellow. And like, like me, Second and Third John are short books. Really, really, really concise. Not long at all, but they pack a punch. So let's get context clues. I want you to see Second and Third John as kind of the flip sides of the exact same coin. So in Second John, John is going to tell these house churches that he's overseeing to not be hospitable to people who are teaching heresy to people who are teaching false doctrine. In 3 John, he's actually going to say you need to be hospitable to itinerant speakers who are teaching good doctrine. Okay, so on one side, hey, don't allow people who are teaching Greco Greek Gnosticism into your house. Now why is that important? Okay, that's important because these are house churches. So it's not just inviting people into your home. If your house doubles as a church, you're also inviting people into your church gathering. Now, we live in a day and age, especially in America, where itinerant speakers, traveling evangelists, guest speakers at churches are typically placed in a hotel and then they speak at the church. But that's not the context of the first century. In the first century, you'd have itinerant speakers, traveling evangelists who would rely on the hospitality of Christians. So they would stay at like a church leader's house. They'd stay in the same property that a church leader would have a church gathering in. So the house and the church are, are one and the same. These are house churches. Now John is an overseer. So when you think about Ephesus, I want you to remember Timothy is a local church pastor in Ephesus. John is overseeing a group of churches not just in Ephesus, but across Asia Minor. And so this letter, both of these letters, Second and Third John are actually right around the size of a normal Greek letter. So I think sometimes because we're used to letters in a church space, so we're used to letters like Corinthians and Romans. We think that that's normal, but that's actually not normal. Second and Third John would actually be more normal to the kind of letter that would have been sent in the Greco Roman world if, for anyone who cares. Okay. Second John is. Okay, I'll say it this way. On average, ancient Letters were about 300 words, okay? And that's actually the amount of words that can fit on one sheet of papyrus. So that's why they were 300 words because that's what people had space for. So on average a letter in the Greco Roman world was about 300 words. Okay? Second John is 301 words, 301 words in English and 245 words in Greek. And then third John is about 25 Greek words fewer. Second John is 245 Greek words. And then John, you're looking at about two hundred and twenty Greek words for third John. Third John is actually the shortest book of the New Testament. It's also the shortest book in the entire Bible. Okay, so there we go. That's a lot of context. Let me give you just one more layer of context before we move into like our nerdy, our nerdy nugget. Gnosticism is the main heresy that's going around in the ancient world. And Gnostics would have kind of put everybody into three categories. The lowest form, the most, like low brow form of Gnosticism would be people who would essentially say things like, you know, my soul or my spirit is the pearl and my body is a shell and it doesn't matter what I do with my body, it doesn't affect my spirit. Those would have been the people who were given over to drunkenness and orgies. And those are kind of the Gnostics that we see in books like Corinthians where Paul has to tell them, whoa, you need to have a higher view of your body. Your body's the temple of the Holy Spirit. You have a low view of your body, which is causing you to live in a way that's just super immoral, super sinful. Okay, that's kind of like the, the trailer park version of Gnosticism. Okay, that's just kind of like the hood ghetto Gnosticism. Then there was like this, this highbrow narcissism, the more like respectable form of Gnosticism which can be found in asceticism. They also have a low view of the body. But these are people who didn't get drunk, they didn't do orgies. These are people who were super, super disciplined. Actually, you can see this a lot in books like Colossians because Paul says, oh, I know there are people who treat the body harshly. And he's talking about Gnostics who believe in a lifestyle of torturing the body, of neglecting the body, of the spiritual is so good that they don't actually have a high view of the body. They still have a low view of the body. But instead of it creating licentious, loose lifestyles, it is created kind of like a snooty, like, oh, you, you drink. It's kind of like the purity culture of the first century. Like, my identity is not in Christ, but it's in what I don't do, you know, Like, I don't do that, you know. But they're not Christians. They're just Gnostics. Like, this is just secular culture. And then Gnostics would have had this third category that's kind of like people that are in the middle. Gnostics saw Christians as prime candidates for Gnosticism. So if you're a traveling itinerant philosopher and you are preaching Gnosticism, churches are like sitting ducks, right? Like, you see churches and you're thinking crabs. These are just crabs in a barrel. And, you know, as a traveling Gnostic philosopher, you're aware that Christians should be hospitable, okay? That Christians, like, are required by the Bible to be hospitable. And so it's easy if you're a Christian, if you're a non Christian Gnostic philosopher to target Christians with your, with your heresy. And so two and three, John is John trying to protect the sheep against Gnostic heretics who are targeting them. Coming to their houses, essentially doing the Jehovah's Witness, like knocking on doors, like coming into the church, gathering on Sundays and speaking and creating fractured theological ideas, like allowing heresy to really, like, permeate through these house churches. And so what John is doing through second and third John is creating a standard of truth. Okay? So you're going to actually see the word truth 11 times through second John and third John. So these, these are small books. And so the word truth is repeated over and over and over and over and over. Actually, we'll. We'll look at it now. So let's get to our nerdy nugget. Let's actually get into the. The. The core of. Of the book. It says this second John. I'll kind of introduce characters as I go, to the lady chosen by God and to her children. We'll talk about who that lady may be as we get deeper into our nerdy nugget. To the lady chosen by God, into her children, who. Whom I love in the truth, and not I only, but also all who know the truth because of the truth which lives in us and will be with us forever. Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Father, Son will be with us in truth, in love. It has given me great joy to find some of your children walking in the truth. Okay, we're four verses in, and John is just hammering home one word. Truth, Truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth. Which means that for the Christian, Christians don't define love the way that the secular world defines love. The secular world defines love by tolerance, by acceptance. But that's not how the Christian defines love. In order to really walk in wisdom, you can't just adopt vocabulary, but you actually have to adopt the definition that that goes with that vocabulary. If two people are in a discussion and they mean something different, but they're using the same word, that's only going to create a frustrated conversation. You have to define, okay, what do you mean by love? Okay, what do you mean by love? Because we're both using the word love, but I don't think we mean the same thing. And I think in 2000 years, this has not changed. This is the conflict that's happening in, in. In second John and Third John. That John is saying, actually, until you have truth, you can't have love. Like, love doesn't exist outside of truth. It's funny because when I was a youth pastor, I used to give this analogy. I used to have. I would get up on stage, I would play an episode of Catfished. Okay, Great show. Okay. I'm aging myself, by the way. Let's go like millennials, baby. Play this show Catfished. And what would happen is they would interview, you know, say, DeAndre, right? They'd be like, deandre, do you love this girl? You've been texting her, emailing her, whatever for a year. Like, I love her, man. I love Felicia. Felicia, bitch, man, I. I just love Felicia. I Talk to her all the time. And you know, Felicia and DeAndre have created this, you know, irrevocable bond with each other. And they're like, okay, Felicia has, has decided to meet you at this park at 3:00. And they interview DeAndre. They're like, you love Felicia, right? He's like, I love Felicia, man. I love her so much. And then, you know, Felicia comes out and she's like £300 more than her profile picture. And she's a whole other. Like she, she's, she doesn't look anything like any of the pictures that she's been sending. And of course DeAndre's crushed. He's like, I can't believe Felicia been lying to me, you know? And then they interview DeAndre afterwards, like, you love Felicia, right? And DeAndre like, no, I don't love her. I don't love her. Okay, why doesn't you? Why don't you love Felicia? What is the answer? The answer is I can't build love on a lie. In order to have love, I have to have truth. Truth is a necessary ingredient in order to have love. This is what John is saying. He's like, whoa, the world defines love by tolerance, by acceptance, man. You know, you gotta, you, you've gotta tolerate whatever idea. And John is saying, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah. Don't let these gnostic traveling itinerant speakers take advantage of the fact that Christians are loving and hospitable. Don't let these people into your house. Don't let these people into your church. Don't let these people talk in front of the church. Because Christians are sheep. And a job of a shepherd is to protect sheep. And if I know that Jimmy, who's at the house, church is going to be curious by what this gnostic teacher is saying, then it's irresponsible of me to act loving and hospitable towards this heretic who's then going to spew ideas that's going to lead Jimmy to hell. That's not loving. That's actually irresponsible. That what is loving to Jimmy and what is loving to the heretic is to both, is to say to the both of them, let me tell you the truth. The truth is that you need to come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. That's the truth. And the most loving thing I can do is to be truthful with you, to be honest with you. If I'm a doctor and I run an examination on you, and I know that there's cancer going through your body, you have a week to live. Is not loving for me to say. All right, go home and enjoy a long life. Take, take. Take these. Take these. Motrin. That's not loving. What will be loving is to say, I've got bad news. Like, I know this is not news that you want to hear, but you need to get your affairs in order. You need to say your goodbyes. You've got a week to live. You need to do the things that are in line with this fact, with this truth. Okay, so two and three John, okay? Same side, opposite sides of the same coin. In Second John, John, the disciple, the apostle, is saying, hey, do not allow people to come into the church, like, be a guardian. Don't just let your hospitality be something that these Gnostics are taking advantage of because they're going to lead sheep astray. That's not how leaders lead. And now we get to Third John. Third John is the exact opposite. He's like, hey, the evangelists and the itinerant speakers who actually, like, profess Christ, accept them. And John is so gangster, he starts name dropping. Okay, so if you go to Third John, I'll flip over to Third John, verse one. To my dear friend Gaius, whom I love in the truth. Okay, so John's gonna hammer this home. Verse 3. It gave me great joy when some believers came and testified about your faithfulness to the truth, telling me how you continue to walk in it. I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth. Verse 8. We ought therefore to show hospitality to such people that we may work together for the truth. Truth. And then he gets real gangster. I wrote to the church, but Diotrephes, who loves to be first, will not welcome us. So he's saying, I've already written a letter to you guys about this whole debacle. And you know what? Diotrephes is in rebellion like Diotrephes. You gotta stop listening to Diotrephes. Okay? But then he's like, verse 12, Demetrius is well spoken of by everyone, and even by the truth itself, we also speak well of him. So he's like, hey, except Demetrius, okay? Listen to what Demetrius has to say. Stop listening to Diotrephes like he's pastoring people. He's literally just stepping in as a leader, as a pastor to say, hey, Diotrephes is a wolf in sheep's clothing. Hey, hey, there's Gnostic people who are coming into the gathering, and they're spewing toxicity and garbage and they're not teaching the truth. Hey, hey, lock the door on them. Hey, when the Jehovah's Witness rings the doorbell, don't answer, all right? Just close the curtains, act like you're not home, okay? That's essentially what John is saying. He's like, when the Mormons walk by, all right? Hey, don't let Mormons into the house, all right? Because the reality is that the Mormons are just there. You get, I'm using Jehovah's Witness in Mormons as like a modern day example of, you know, Gnostics. Hey, don't, don't, don't have a discussion with the Mormon missionaries in the living room while there's 25 people gathered there on a Sunday for, for church. Like, that's just not. That's not wise. But don't take it too far. Don't stop accepting the Christians who have, like, good things to say. I want you to not throw the baby out with the bath water. Be hospitable, but don't allow these gnostic heretics to take advantage of that hospitality. Out, Bible nerds. I have an announcement. My brand new book, Crushing Chaos releases May of 2025 in pre orders are officially open. When I began to learn Genesis in its proper context, I learned that the creation account is not primarily about God creating something out of nothing, but rather God bringing divine order to the chaos of the cosmos. That one nugget, that was a game changer for me because I've been preaching to all the kids in my youth group that peace was a solution for their anxiety. But really God's solution to chaos is never peace, but rather order. Peace isn't something that you stumble into. It's something that you intentionally step into and that starts with aligning your life with God's order. I think that this book is a game changer. It's nerdy, it's practical, it provides a very contextual understanding of the book of Genesis. And if you grab a copy, you'll learn why there's a huge dragon on the COVID Head to the link in the show notes to pre order or head to crushingchaos.com to see the really dope trailer that we made for this book. I think it's time for you to crush the chaos in your life. And that starts with grabbing a copy of this book. Now back to the podcast Third John, written to a guy named Gaius with just really, really practical instructions on how to lead in a way that is intentional. Nerdy nugget. This third John, verse 13. I have much to write to you, but I do not want to do so with pen and ink. Right there. That's probably when, when he started running out of space on the sheet of papyrus. So that's a clue as to why is this letter just 220something Greek words? Well, because that's just, that's how much space he had on the paper. We get something similar. If you go to 2 John, verse 12, I have much to write to you, but I do not want to use paper and ink. Instead, I hope to visit you and talk with you face to face so that our joy may be complete. All right, now let's go back to second John. And it says to the lady chosen by God and her children. All right, there's two different camps, two different opinions. One camp believes that this is Martha, the sister of Lazarus. And we, a lot of people think that, because if you look at the end verse 13, it says the children of your sister, okay, who is chosen by God, send their greetings. So your niece is a nephew. And a lot of people would say, oh, that's probably Mary's children. Okay. And so this letter may be to Martha. That's a possibility. A lot of people. So that's one camp. Other scholars just believe that to the lady chosen by God into her children refers to the church, like the bride of Christ. The lady is the church. I would maybe go a third route. It's probably just. It's actually a real woman and we, we just may not know who it is. It may not be Martha. But I do think that both second and third John are written to real people with real situations happening in their actual house church gatherings. Like, I, I think that John is stepping in as a leader to like, pastor the situation and, and give oversight to these leaders who are leading house churches. Okay. The main, like, key verse for at least two John is going to be verse nine, second part of verse nine. I'll just read the whole thing. Verse nine and ten. Anyone who runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ does not have God. Whoever continues in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. So you can see how now truth and teaching are being used interchangeably. Okay, so John isn't using the word truth anymore, but teaching is truth. Okay, if you're going to teach orthodoxy, what does that mean? Whoever continues in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. So you don't get God without teaching. Like, the reason that we guard what's being said at churches is because teaching is a vehicle by which people get to know Jesus and they get to know the Father. So what you teach people matters. This is why in other places in the New Testament, the Bible's gonna say, whoa, those who not many of you should wanna teach and preach because you'll be judged double. You'll be judged at a completely different standard. Why? Because teaching is the vehicle by which people know Jesus and know God. Verse 10. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, if they don't bring orthodox teaching, do not take them into your house or welcome them. Anyone who welcomes them shares in their wicked work. It's like, hey, do not let anyone in to your house who's teaching stuff that is not true. If you do, you are complicit with them. If you do, you share in their wicked work. Man, that right there, that should sober everybody up to go. You know what? Yeah, we should be very, very careful, Like Christians, even in. I don't need a house church. But, man, what I share on my Instagram story, you know what if somebody clicks on that person's page and they go to that page and they're sharing a bunch of stuff that could lead people astray, man, I'm held responsible because. Because I'm using my platform in the ancient world. Your house is just your platform. Well, I have a platform, and I have to guard that platform so that people don't go astray. Okay? I have to be cognizant of giving people truth and that I'm not complicit in sharing stuff that is not in line with orthodox teaching. Now, when it comes to this, I would say, man, I commend the Baptist, Reformed side of things, because I think that Reformed pastors and ministers do a really, really, really good job of just letting their sheep know, hey, that's not true. This is true. Now, do I always agree with where they put those boundaries? No, I don't always agree, but I think it's at least a conversation where sometimes in Pentecostal spaces, we just let our sheep eat any grass. And I just don't always know that that's helpful. I think that that can bring confusion. And John is stepping in as a good shepherd to say, hey, nope, this is where you guys should eat grass. You don't eat grass over there. And we're gonna put you on a diet of truth, because truth leads to Jesus and truth leads to God. All right? And to be honest, I seamlessly went into our timeless truth. Okay? That right there, that's our timeless truth. Like. Like, we uphold truth. We define truth in a very, very different way. We don't define truth. We don't define love the way that the world defines love. We define love in the bounds of truth. And we have to guard. You have to guard against false teaching. False teaching is not just something that exists in the ancient world. False teaching is alive and well. There's all kinds of wacky stuff for people to believe, and when they come to church, the reality is that fruit if. If we're doing ministry that's effective, it should be fruitful. And fruit attracts flies. So the. The proof that there's fruit is that flies come. And a good pastor knows how to guard the fruit of their labor against the flies of heresy. So. All right, tomorrow, guys, I'm very excited about this. Tomorrow we get into the Book of revelation. So that's 75 days down. If you're on a streak, do not break your streak. I'm super, super, super proud of you. I believe that if you commit this year to reading the Bible in its entirety, it will change your life. I love you guys. I'll see you right here for tomorrow's episode as we dive into the Book of Revelation. See you. Thanks so much for joining us on the Bible Department podcast. You can find us online and learn more about the show@thebibledepartment.com and on Instagram hebibledepartment. If you enjoyed this episode and want to dive deeper into the Bible, you can get free access to our library of courses@thebibledepartment.com we'll see you back here tomorrow.