I wrote to the church, but Diotrephes, who loves to be first, will not welcome us. So when I come, I will call attention to what he is doing, spreading malicious nonsense about us. Not satisfied with that, he even refuses to welcome other believers. He also stops those who want to do so and puts them out of the church.

One might understand “loves to be first” as meaning that Diotrephes wants to be at the top of the class. What John means is that he wants to be in control of everything—he wants to be the top dog—and so he cannot tolerate other people who may challenge his position, like John, who was one of the original 12 disciples of Jesus. He began to abuse his position as a leader in the church to shut out John and those deemed to be in John’s camp, going down a path that exposes his heart to evil.

There is nothing wrong in wanting to do well and wanting people to acknowledge that, but not when it leads you to manipulate the situation to get what you want.

When you first learn to speak in English you are struggling with words and sentence structure. But what you are actually doing is train your brain to learn the language. After a while (and I hope, by now) this comes naturally. This means your brain has grasped the language enough to learn as you start to read.

Next comes reading. When you read “silently”, you are letting your brain say the sentences and paragraphs you are reading. This helps your brain to learn “good” English. So try NOT to read too many comics and manga. Much of Social Media English (whatsapp, email, FB, etc) is also not examples of good English. At the same time, as you listen to people speaking in English you are unconsciously picking up the nuances of the language. All of these will help your brain become familiar with English, how it is used, and how it is understood. This is what we call “comprehension”.

When you first learn to write, you were taught sentences and paragraphs. You were taught some rules of grammar and sentence structure. Because you are writing what you are told to write, it is unlikely that these sentences sound natural and these paragraphs “flow”. The trick is to write as if you are speaking, especially if you have been training your brain by reading, listening and speaking in English.

So, the more you read (and think), listen (and think), speak (and think), write (and think), the more you are helping to train your brain to use the language. At some point it becomes natural and you don’t consciously think anymore. This is when you begin to develop a “feel” for the language.

This is how you learn language, by internalising it into your brain.

I am sending him—who is my very heart—back to you. I would have liked to keep him with me so that he could take your place in helping me while I am in chains for the gospel. But I did not want to do anything without your consent, so that any favor you do would not seem forced but would be voluntary.

I read Philemon chapter 1 during the week and this thought intrigued me. Paul sent Philemon’s runaway slave back to him, knowing that the law will put him to death unless Philemon intervenes. But he wants Philemon to do so voluntarily rather than take his consent for granted. Paul trusted Philemon to do the right thing rather than demand it or even assume it. That seems to me the best way to help someone change to be a better person because it is then change from the inside. But it means you have to trust, be patient (because they are not going to do the right thing all the time) and persevere.

My friend has been struggling with his own use of social media. “Self-control” seems very much something that God wants to work with him over; it was something that has cropped up many times in conversation. As fate would have it, if you only believe in fate, he will be in Langkawi today with his family for a holiday.

“Great!” I told him. “Take it as a gift from God and spend some time to think about what you can offer him as a response to his concern for you in the area of self-control.”

A few years after I got the rug, I got a dog, and I couldn’t have a rug on the floor with a dog that sheds fur all over. And so I used it in a room in church where I had created a cosy atmosphere so young people can feel at home. At some point, the young people didn’t want the rug and a group of people, who ran the centre for children with special needs at the church, took it for these children to practice vacuuming on.

Anyway, after all the adventures the rug had, I decided that it should spend it’s remaining days in my bedroom and that’s where I took this picture. You can see my toe at the top left corner in the picture.

(This happened 4 years ago. I’m just reproducing it here as an example of what we can write about.)