A Ramble About Minding Your Own Business

I wish I could say that I've been pursuing a more openly spiritual path of study and contemplation lately, but in reality I've just been busy working as an event security guard and have recently started work with the Garden Grove School District. I've also been trying to assist where it is appropriate, and where I am able, with the services at the Lutheran Church my family and I became members of this past September, though I received a reminder in the past week that I need to be careful so as not to overstep my bounderies..

To be honest, I think I'm doing good when I can get through all of my prayers for everybody on my list in the morning, although I get unpleasant reminders when I don't pray for the people on my list in the morning by the reports of the disastrous days they've had.

In one of the rare moments when I've really just been able to sit down and a Scripture has jumped out at me, this passage has come to light repeatedly over the past month, Romans 14 (WEB), especially the first several verses:

“Now accept one who is weak in faith, but not for disputes over opinions. One man has faith to eat all things, but he who is weak eats only vegetables. Don’t let him who eats despise him who doesn’t eat. Don’t let him who doesn’t eat judge him who eats, for God has accepted him. Who are you who judge another’s servant? To his own lord he stands or falls. Yes, he will be made to stand, for God has power to make him stand.”

“One man esteems one day as more important. Another esteems every day alike. Let each man be fully assured in his own mind. He who observes the day, observes it to the Lord; and he who does not observe the day, to the Lord he does not observe it. He who eats, eats to the Lord, for he gives God thanks. He who doesn’t eat, to the Lord he doesn’t eat, and gives God thanks. For none of us lives to himself, and none dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord. Or if we die, we die to the Lord. If therefore we live or die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died, rose, and lived again, that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.”

“But you, why do you judge your brother? Or you again, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. For it is written,

“‘As I live,’ says the Lord, ‘to me every knee will bow.
Every tongue will confess to God.’”

So then each one of us will give account of himself to God. Therefore let’s not judge one another any more, but judge this rather, that no man put a stumbling block in his brother’s way, or an occasion for falling. I know, and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean of itself; except that to him who considers anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean. Yet if because of food your brother is grieved, you walk no longer in love. Don’t destroy with your food him for whom Christ died. Then don’t let your good be slandered, for the Kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. For he who serves Christ in these things is acceptable to God and approved by men. So then, let us follow after things which make for peace, and things by which we may build one another up. Don’t overthrow God’s work for food’s sake. All things indeed are clean, however it is evil for that man who creates a stumbling block by eating. It is good to not eat meat, drink wine, nor do anything by which your brother stumbles, is offended, or is made weak.

Do you have faith? Have it to yourself before God. Happy is he who doesn’t judge himself in that which he approves.

But he who doubts is condemned if he eats, because it isn’t of faith; and whatever is not of faith is sin.”

Jesus said explicitly in the Sermon on the Mount, “Don't judge so that you won't be judged. Don't condemn, so that you won't be condemned.” Jesus also said at the end of the Gospel of John, "If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow Me.”

The practice which Jesus and His Apostles taught is a practice of self-regulation, not the attempt to regulate the behavior of others. In a nutshell, Jesus explicitly told His followers, and St. Paul expanded on it, to mind their own business regarding another person's relationship with and obedience to Him.

All too often we make the mistake that the path of discipleship He lays out for one of us is the right path for all of us. It isn't. He will instruct one of us to do things on his journey, and send him down paths that would be counterproductive for another of us. He doesn't ask us to understand, He just asks us to trust Him and not judge each other's path. It is our personal obedience to Him that matters. Not necessarily what that obedience looks like.

I don't agree with all of the beliefs or practices of the average Baptist, or Pentecostal for that matter. The truth is, I really think most denominations are way too far afield from the original practice and teachings of the Church and don't resemble it at all. But, God works through the teachings and practice of each one to speak to people and bring them closer to Himself. Do I think it's the best way? No, but then the relationship of “that guy over there” with God is really none of my business unless either he or God somehow make it my business. If God has told him to do something that doesn't make sense to me or doesn't jive with my understanding of the faith, who am I to question it? I am responsible for the light I have been given, not the light “that guy over there” has been given.

Does that mean we can't hold our own opinions or debate them? No, but it does mean that we can't attempt to force our opinions on others attempting to follow him to the best of their ability. One example of this is the “homosexual Christian.” For me, this is a contradiction in terms, but that is my opinion. It is not the opinion of a friend who happens to be a homosexual and a professing, church going Christian. I can point to all the bible verses I want trying to correct the behavior, but the bottom line is that it's not my behavior to correct. This friend must give their own account to Christ at the Bema Seat just like I must.

The word for “Lord” in Greek literally means “owner.” Fundamentally, I must answer for my actions and decisions to only one person, my Owner. My own journey of faith, while it intersects with others, remains mine and mine alone. Only I can answer for me, and I can answer for myself alone. Either my actions have given evidence of my faith in Christ or they haven't, and it is only by His mercy that I will stand or fall, as I cannot do anything but fall without His mercy. He and I both know the foolishness of my trying to stand on my own merits.

I know I can be the worst about this at times, and I can be quite vocal about it, especially on Facebook, and especially where other pastors are concerned if I think they're being dishonest or teaching something other than what Jesus taught. I know that St. Paul openly criticized and rebuked other Christians and other Christian leaders when they weren't doing what he understood that they should be doing. So there's a line there which needs to be understood so as not to cross it, and I'm not always certain I understand where it is in my own attempts to do what I understand the Lord wanting me to do.

The only person's behavior and practice we must truly be concerned with is our own. Jesus also said, “Why are you concerned about the speck of wood in your brother's eye, but completely ignoring the log in your own eye?” If we do not bind ourselves with the practice of the faith first, why should anyone else want to be bound by it?