Anyone who runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. (2 John 9)There are two kinds of people who forsake leadership and run on ahead: 1) children, whose naïveté causes them to ignore the consequences of getting separated from those with more experience, and 2) adults, whose arrogance convinces them they are more qualified to lead because they know better. Either one will get people lost, and both should be cured by growing up.
The writer of 2 John speaks of those who have determined they know better than the teachings of and about Christ... specifically the teaching of his incarnation. These persons who arrogantly think they know better are the Docetics, who insisted that Jesus was purely spirit and only appeared to be flesh. Even after the Docetics were gone, their teachings were adopted by the Gnostics, another heretical group.
The point is, while it's easy for us to point fingers at heretics, don't we have the same headstrong tendencies? Once we think we know the way, why listen to directions? Once we think we know how, why read the instructions? The elder admonishes us to never get too big for our britches. If we know everything, what is there to learn?
Blessed are the teachable. What have you learned this week?
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[T-Shirt Quote: Arrogance is the anesthesia that dulls the pain of ignorance.]
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