https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/mind-your-own-business/

By Mark Ward


A few years ago, College Humor released a video satirizing sanctimonious social-media departures.

I’ve thought of it often:

a self-important man interrupting a party to announce to his oddly quiet fellow party goers, his reasons for leaving their worthless joke of a party, to go do better things with his life.

I think of this video not because I regularly see people leaving their social media careers, but because I often wish we all could. I’m worn out with the fighting, the posturing, and the signaling, along with the self-promotion, the rush to judgment, the ancient Athenian fascination with anything new - and the temptations I feel every day to participate in every one of these things.

I’m also wearied by things that shouldn't tempt me: the conspiracy theorizing, the quack medical claims, the ethnic political tribalism, the anti-Christian apostasies and the divorces. When Josh Harris took to Instagram to say words I can’t bear to repeat, I felt a punch in the gut. He helped me a lot when I was young. I still pray for him.

Following on the heels of the surprising announcement that he was separating from his wife, Shannon, of 19 years, Joshua Harris dropped some more news that was surely just as shocking as the separation. The author and former evangelical pastor described his experience as a “falling away” from faith and stated that he was no longer a Christian.

“By all the measurements that I have for defining a Christian, I am not a Christian,” Harris wrote on his Instagram account.

I’ve reached a point where, when my wife is looking at her phone and says, “Oh no!” I tell her, “I don’t want to know.” I envy my Luddite friends. And when I hear that yet another teen girl has committed suicide because she couldn’t take the online bullying, I wonder if I’m somehow complicit.

I’m just as much a part as you are of our vast experiment in whether a society so dedicated to its phones and internet media can long endure. I’m keeping my salt and light, such as it is, on social media. ...and I’m searching for help getting beams out of my own eye. I want to post to the glory of God.

I think Paul, in his letters to the Thessalonians, for giving us divine guidance for a social-media age.

Not Busy, but Busybodies

Two of his statements can be applied to us:

"Aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you." (1st Thessalonians 4:11)

"We hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies."
(2nd Thessalonians 3:11)

I don’t know whether any of my fellow Christians are walking in idleness. What I do know is that the supreme power of technology now provides, unique in the history of the world, the ability to make me a busybody.

Busybodies comes from the Greek βιζ- (biz-), meaning, “not ours” or “none of our” and -βόδης (bodēs), meaning “beeswax.” (I work at Logos; don’t question my dictionary skills.)

Busybodies are people who go around meddling and prying into the affairs of others that shouldn’t concern them, people who elect themselves overseers of things not theirs.

"But let none of you suffer as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evildoer, or as a busybody in other men's matters."
(1st Peter 4:15).

Sometimes the Bible gives us detailed teaching about virtues or vices. Other times it plops them all into a list and lets us work out their application. “Don’t quarrel over opinions.” (Romans 14:1). “Be gentle.” (1 Timothy 3:3). “Don’t be a busybody.”

Isn’t it worth asking how many of our last 50 plus social-media posts, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or Mines, may have hinged on someone else’s business?

Your Own Affairs

Paul does give more than a bare command. As we saw above, he offers an alternative: “Aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs.”

Gordon Fee suggests that Paul’s wording is instructively oxymoronic, something that becomes clearer in the NIV and NASB versions of the Bible, which read: “Make it your ambition to live quietly.”

Social media is full of people whose ambition is to live louder and bigger and to be more influential. The platform really isn’t set up for those who aspire to occupy the lowest seat at the feast (Luke 14:7–11). Because of inspired instructions like Paul’s, it has to be okay for Christians to either avoid social media, or avoid exchanging personal insults or prying into that which is meant to be personal and private.

So how can we “live quietly” and “mind our own affairs” and at the same time stay involved online? By thinking carefully through what counts as “our own affairs.”

My friends and family are my own affairs. I can pray for them, and I do. I can bless them by posting and commenting. I can give to their GoFundMe campaigns.

As long as I’m not neglecting my family and the people in my church, I see genuine benefit in having a wider network of friends. We give counsel and job referrals and other good things to one another through the internet.

Social media tempts me to ignore the people I can actually benefit and focus instead on broadcasting my opinions louder or faster than the next guy.

Additionally, subjects about which I am informed are my affairs. I like English and Greek linguistics and British choral music. I hope to contribute some value to others by speaking on those topics.

Only two controversies are my own affairs, one with non-Christians and one with Christians. I’ve made them “my business” by doing the hard work of understanding my debate partners and finding constructive ways to speak to them. I’ve tried to love them enough to form careful opinions and persuasive talking points (I pray!) - and to avoid inflammatory language.

But by these standards, Climate Change is none of my business. Kanye West’s true spiritual state isn’t either. - Nor are Starbucks Christmas coffee cups, or the legal complexities of taking military action in Iran.

These matters are more important to some than to others; some are more informed than others; while I have a right to an opinion, a courteously expressed public opinion adds more memorable content and value to any conversation.

Proverbs 18:13, anyone?

"The one who gives an answer before he listens – that is his folly and his shame."

Social media tempts me to ignore the people I might actually benefit and focus instead on voicing my opinion louder or faster than the next guy.

Maybe it’s okay to avoid the latest inopportune dustups and unanticipated controversies if we don’t know anything about them, and if we can’t honestly think of a way our words will minister grace to our readers (Ephesians 4:29).

After all, we will give account on judgment day for every idle word we utter - which includes every word we post (Matthew 12:36).

Mind My Own Business

A simple word in Paul’s epistles - "busybodies" - has given me a new angle to assist in evaluating my use of social-media. It’s given me a vice to avoid. And in his instruction to “aspire to live quietly,” I have found a virtue to cultivate.

I can’t end all the sins of social media, but I can lovingly and graciously and actively mind my own business.


Mark Ward is an academic editor at Lexham Press. He is author of the new book: "Authorized: The Use and Misuse of the King James Bible," and he blogs at: "By Faith We Understand."

I agree, but we have a representative government that is becoming oppressive. A media pushing propaganda. Social media and universities curbing free speech and spying on all of us and encroaching on our God-given rights.

Remaining silent isn't really an option at this time. As much as I wish it were. I was never a 'busybody' until Obama was elected. That was a threat too big to ignore for me to not try and sway others against lefty satanic ideas. I don't think Trump would have run without myself and others speaking up and letting our voices be heard. I would much rather fight a civil war than remain silent and be walked on and over.

I never stopped praying because I know God is always in control but Christians didn't speak up when Hitler came to power and that didn't end well. I think God loves everyone and that includes watchmen and verbal warriors willing to stand in the gap of a decaying nation. I think, being a Christian allowed me to see early on what Obama, Hillary, and others were up to. I admit my anger causes me to cross invisible verbal lines and sin, but only I will have to pay for those sins. I never curse anyone, ever. Dipstick and pitiful aren't as serious, I hope. But calling sin, sin, is one of our responsibilities.

I dislike disagreeing with you on this subject, but I do.

You're not disagreeing with me, Peewee,

You are disagreeing with the author of the article I just posted, if at all, and I believe he is speaking as a professional internet author to those who may be affected by he, himself and others in his profession.

Again, I didn't write the article, but I believe it is addressing such social media accounts as: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and others where so many young people practically live their entire lives online, without understanding the need to protect their privacy.

From that aspect, there is much within this article with which most thinking people do agree.

Obviously, if I agreed with all portions of it, I would not frequent a public political forum. Because this is a representative Republic, we absolutely do have a responsibility and a right to investigate and determine which candidates would best represent our own interests and values, and those of this nation.

- And we do have a right to voice our own opinions on whether our elected officials, once in office, are properly representing us.

To me, the value of the article is in the old fashioned, once common sense Biblical admonition to not publicly delve into other's personal lives, or to air our own private matters in public, but to mind our own personal business, i.e., maintain our own sense of decorum, as in centuries past.

In a nutshell, to attempt to glorify God, by maintaining the same dignity with which our own parents and past generations lived, and the intelligence to understand the difference between public and private information, and why each category should remain so.

That is, after all, why OPP had the wisdom to design this website with both public forums for general conversation, and why they have PMs (Private Messages).

I agree, but we have a representative government that is becoming oppressive. A media pushing propaganda. Social media and universities curbing free speech and spying on all of us and encroaching on our God-given rights.

Remaining silent isn't really an option at this time. As much as I wish it were. I was never a 'busybody' until Obama was elected. That was a threat too big to ignore for me to not try and sway others against lefty satanic ideas. I don't think Trump would have run without myself and others speaking up and letting our voices be heard. I would much rather fight a civil war than remain silent and be walked on and over.

I never stopped praying because I know God is always in control but Christians didn't speak up when Hitler came to power and that didn't end well. I think God loves everyone and that includes watchmen and verbal warriors willing to stand in the gap of a decaying nation. I think, being a Christian allowed me to see early on what Obama, Hillary, and others were up to. I admit my anger causes me to cross invisible verbal lines and sin, but only I will have to pay for those sins. I never curse anyone, ever. Dipstick and pitiful aren't as serious, I hope. But calling sin, sin, is one of our responsibilities.

I dislike disagreeing with you on this subject, but I do.

Amen and Amen I totally agree with you there Peewee thanks for your viewpoint I can see merit with both viewpoints thank you and Zemirah for your posts.

Amen and Amen I totally agree with you there Peewee thanks for your viewpoint I can see merit with both viewpoints thank you and Zemirah for your posts.