Neville Goddard on 3 John 1:9-10 - Mystical Bible Interpretation

Read 3 John 1 in context

Scripture Focus

9I wrote unto the church: but Diotrephes, who loveth to have the preeminence among them, receiveth us not.

10Wherefore, if I come, I will remember his deeds which he doeth, prating against us with malicious words: and not content therewith, neither doth he himself receive the brethren, and forbiddeth them that would, and casteth them out of the church.

3 John 1:9-10

Biblical Context

3 John 1:9-10 recounts that Diotrephes would not receive the writer and speaks maliciously against the fellowship, even expelling others. It invites us to notice the inner dynamics of unity vs. separation within our own consciousness.

Neville's Inner Vision

Diotrephes is not a man alone but a state of consciousness that loves preeminence, the impulse to be first at the expense of harmony. The church scene becomes an inner community where I AM awareness either welcomes or rejects its own parts. When Diotrophes 'receiveth not' and casts out the brethren, the voice you hear is the habit of pride and fear that would exclude what seems other than your own central self-image. The true brethren are living ideas and qualities within you, and the church is the field of your awareness where unity or division is decided by attention. If you revise this scene in imagination and affirm, 'I am the I AM, and all are welcome in my consciousness,' you dissolve the illusion of separation. Your responsibility is not to judge others but to hold the oneness from which all acts and words arise. The moment you choose love over defense, you align with the reality that all expressions belong to your interior life. Practice: repeat the revision until the feeling of unity lies as real as any memory.

Practice This Now

Imaginative act: sit for five minutes and assume you are the I AM welcoming every brethren within your consciousness. Revise the impulse to cast out by affirming, 'I receive all in love, and I am one with all.'