The Greek expression used by John in this verse was a common salutation in his day. It was equivalent to wishing someone health, success and prosperity. According to John, Christians should neither greet heretics with such salutations nor welcome them into our homes. To do either is to legitimize their false teaching and to encourage them in its propagation. Thus, any Christian found to be hospitable to or a well-wisher of some heretic is actually a “partaker of his evil deeds.”
Christians today are often guilty of violating this prohibition and partnering with heretics in the spreading of their heresy. It is not just receiving door to door visiting cultists into our homes and wishing them well as they go on to visit the homes of our neighbors, but also our participation in things like ecumenical services, which gives people the false impression that Christianity is nothing more than just one of many menu items that may be chosen from our world’s ever-increasing religious smorgasbord.
Legend tells us that the Apostle John was at a bath house one day when the well-known cultist and false teacher Cerinthus also arrived. Upon Cerinthus’ arrival, John jumped out of the water, grabbed his towel and clothes, and took off running from the bath house. John exclaimed as he ran out, “Let us hurry from this house, lest it fall on us. Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth, is here.”
To many Christians today the apostle of love and beloved disciple’s reaction to a well-known cultists of his day may come as quite a surprise. Yet, John understood, as I fear few Christians do today, that the immortal souls of lost humanity are hanging in the balance. The lest little misrepresentation of the truth, even that deduced by others over our indiscreet and indirect association with known antichrists, may be all it takes to tip the scales against some lost souls.
