Should I Mind My Own Business?

[00:00:03] And welcome to Become A Competent Biblical Counselor. I'm Dr. Dave Jones, and today's episode is entitled, Should I Mind My Own Business? Interesting topic don't you think? But anyway for those of you who are studying and maybe considering becoming

[00:00:36] the biblical counselors, imagine you get a letter like this. The right writes, I mind my own business. Yet my wife thinks that I should mingle with others in the church. I'm content to go to work, come home and take care of my family.

[00:00:54] Am I right or is she right? After all, I don't trouble anyone else, and I don't think that they should bother me either. So there you have it. Interesting question and not an infrequent one. In counseling, there's where you deal with a lot of people regularly, especially Christian

[00:01:17] people, and you'll often find that husbands take this same position. There are times of course when wives do too, but very frequently husbands do not want to socialize with others.

[00:01:29] They just want to come home after work and sit down and take it easy and forget about everybody else and everything else. Now, it's of course not possible to answer this particular person's question without knowing

[00:01:43] more facts, but let's just give a few observations about what the Bible teaches on this question about minding other people's business. There is of course one sentence in which we must not mind other people's business, but there is another sentence in which we must.

[00:02:02] That's why it's hard to know exactly what the writer means in his letter. For instance, in second-test loanings 311, Paul makes it very clear that certain people who were idle, who had no jobs and who were just sort of watering around the Christian community,

[00:02:19] were poking their noses into other people's business, and he warns them that this is wrong that they should not become busy bodies. When this scripture teaches that we should not become busy bodies, looking into other

[00:02:34] matters that we have no right to be poking our noses into, it's very clear that Paul is saying mind your own business. But part of a Christian's business is under entirely different circumstances to look into the matters of other Christians.

[00:02:50] Let me try to explain what I'm talking about. Idle people who go around looking for problems in other people's lives are of course condemned in second-test loanings 311. But people who are not idle and who are not just looking for problems, but who are also trying to

[00:03:10] be truly loving toward their neighbors and who are working with those problems that got for a problem, essentially brings into their lives that have all other individuals are entirely different category from those in their own business.

[00:03:25] Who did not do their own work, but were always messing into other people's work. For instance, if we were to be hermits, if we were trying to get out of society altogether, if we are trying to live a solitary life that had no real relationship with other Christians,

[00:03:42] that would be a direct violation of the second commitment that sums up all of the other commandments. You remember the first commitment is that we are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, all of our mind, and all of our soul.

[00:03:59] But the second commandment which is like it is that we are to love our neighbors with the same intensity as we love ourselves, love our neighbors as ourselves. Now the hermits may try to seclude himself in some place where he can spend deep, long hours

[00:04:19] of relationship with God. He seeks the first commandment but is seeking it so exclusively that he ignores the second. He cannot fulfill the second because he tries to withdraw himself from society and anyone who seeks

[00:04:34] to withdraw himself from the society where the people and particularly in a Christian from other Christians is one who is violating the second commandment because he is not giving of himself his time, his interest, his gifts, his abilities, his encouragement, his presence.

[00:04:52] Whatever it is that other Christians need from him, God did not make us to be individuals on our own who were away from society and away from other people. He made us social beings who were deeply involved with others.

[00:05:09] The good Samaritan parable also shows the involvement that we must have when we run into others in the course of life who are in difficulty. We cannot walk on the other side of the street. We must get involved.

[00:05:23] In Galatians 6-1 and was Paul teaches that if we see a brother who is caught in any trespass that we who had the spirit of God dwelling within us are obligated get this, are obligated

[00:05:36] to get involved in that other person's life and to help him out of his difficulty to help extricate him from the problems in life. That involves us again. We are to restore him in the spirit of jettelists but you see there again

[00:05:54] we are involved with other Christian believers. In 2 John and in 3rd John, we have two letters that are written to deal with the question of hospitality. Hospitality, Christian people must show hospitality to one another. Hospitality was a very frequently mentioned element in the New Testament church.

[00:06:15] All through the letters you read about the kind of hospitality which was absolutely required of Christian believers toward other believers. The person who wants to mind his own business and not mingle with others and so on is an inhospitable person and does not fill the biblical requirements.

[00:06:35] Then the scriptures make it very clear that there is no lone wolf Christianity because we have a church and to which we are incorporated will become to faith in Jesus Christ. We are a part of a fellowship and Hebrews 10 verses 24 and 25 very specifically

[00:06:54] says to us that we should not forsake the assembling of ourselves together as we have become the habit of some. But instead of not forsaking our assembling together as this bad habit had already grown among those Hebrew Christians in the early church

[00:07:10] we should come together for specific purposes. So what are they? Hebrews 10 tells us to stimulate one another to love and to good works and to encourage one another as the difficult times draw near. So we need each other desperately for stimulation to love and to do good works

[00:07:33] for encouragement and time of trial and difficulty and despair. We also need the kind of mutual help that we can get from each other's gifts. And all of the passages that deal with the gifts that God gives to individual Christians

[00:07:48] He makes it explicitly clear that as Ephesians 4 said, they are all given as part of one body. Each person has something to contribute to all the rest of the parts of the body and the parts all function together

[00:08:05] so that they can achieve the purposes of the head who is Jesus Christ. You cannot be alone or as a Christian. You cannot mind your own business and go your own way if that means that you will no longer mingle with others,

[00:08:20] just stay home in your own house and with a couple of people such as your family and no one else involved. You must become a part of other people's lives even as they must become a part of yours.

[00:08:33] Any person who does not willingly associate himself without the believers is in a serious situation. You ought to be very clearly re-examine his life, his patterns and his standards. Maybe he ought to re-examine his love.

[00:08:48] I think that the critical thing to do if you are alone or as to quickly make an appointment with your pastor or your counselor, sit down and have a good talk with him about this problem.

[00:09:00] Let him help you to become a full part of the fellowship of God's people. If you are a believer, others need you and you need them.

[00:09:10] Remember that as we pray, Lord bless those who are alone, show them the desperate need that they have for others in the faith and that others have for them, we pray for Christ's sake. Amen. So, it's just in concept, isn't it?

[00:09:27] But you do have the right to go and help other people, especially Christians. There were times where I've had to speak to people relative to their actions and behaviors in their language and how they speak

[00:09:40] and I would merely go up to them and say, excuse me but I need you to know that you're hurting the cause of Christ. And if they say, what do you mean?

[00:09:48] Because people look at you as the person that you claim to be, you claim to be a Christian. The way that you are acting, the way that you are behaving, the way that you are thinking is not helping the cause of Christ.

[00:10:00] You need to be example of how to handle this situation instead of being so opposite of the way that God wants you to handle it. Anyway, I hope that helps and if you want to get involved with other people's lives, you're encouraged to do so.

[00:10:15] I hope this helps, make it a blessed day. Talk to you later. Bye.