Mind Your Own Business

First Thessalonians 4:11b tells us simply "to mind your own business." The admonition to mind your own business was a common one in secular Greek writings, but in the New Testament this is its only occurrence. Paul may be addressing a particular group within the church or he may be speaking to everyone in general. His message is clear: concentrate on your own lives, take care of your own jobs, and do not meddle in the affairs of others.

Paul later wrote the Thessalonians again about this concern: "For we hear that there are some who walk among you in a disorderly manner, not working at all, but are busybodies. Now those who are such we command and exhort through our Lord Jesus Christ that they work in quietness and eat their own bread" (2 Thess. 3:11-12). Those who do not mind their own business are "busybodies" (v. 11b). "Busybodies" (v. 11b) means to take more pains than enough about a thing, to waste one's labor, to be meddling with, or bustling about, other people's matters. They were constantly running around meddling in everyone's problems, often at the neglect of their own.

Paul's counsel? Don't do it. Don't meddle in other people's business. If they ask you for help or advice, fine. If not, stay out! Meddling in other people's business is unwise, undisciplined behavior that only causes rifts among believers. Such meddling must be left behind. Instead, Paul tells us to work diligently and faithfully at our own jobs, to stay out of other people's business and attend instead to our own affairs, and lead a quiet, tranquil life that serves fellow believers and, at the same time, glorifies the Lord before unbelievers.

When you love one another and excel in loving each other more each day, when you truly seek to lead a quiet life in Christ, the end result will be a life in which you mind your own business. To do otherwise would lead to anything but a quiet life. Follow Christ in showing your love to one another. Amen.