The elder said to Gaius, "Beloved one [agapete], do not imitate the bad." Any exclusion of members of the Body from fellowshipping with the whole Body of Christ is bad. It is not perceiving God.
3 John: Hierarchy’s Harm
Over the centuries, beginning with Ignatius’ letters in the second century, this crucial aspect of the church gave way to the surrounding culture, so that one of Christianity’s distinctives was eroded to mere words, tucked away here and there among the gospels and epistles.
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3 John: Lord It Over
Much harm has come to the church because of this hard stop put upon the organic growth of the Body of Christ, which had been meant to be nonhierarchical in its life.
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3 John: Gaius the Beloved
John was particularly thankful for Gaius, for there was a serious matter John would need someone like Gaius to handle—a matter that was threatening to tear the church apart, and had little to do with Gnosticism.
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1 Peter 5: Presbyter and Episcopate
The sense of hierarchical governance and rule are completely wrong in the church setting.
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Gospel of John: Mutuality and Equality
If we as Christians operate from the worldly flow chart, where there are those who command and run the show, and there are those who only get to obey, then those at the top of the flow chart have made themselves to be greater than their Master.
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Gospel of John: Rank and File
How do you teach people who eat, breath, and live hierarchy that the kingdom of God is about equality not rank, family not a flowchart, kinship not kings? Well, you wash their feet.
