Then one from the crowd said to Him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”…He said to him, “Man, who made Me a judge or an arbitrator over you?” Luke 12:13-14 One day a man approached Jesus and asked him to settle a domestic dispute. This man had an inheritance coming to him, but he and his brother were fighting about how the inheritance should be divided. So the man decided to go to Jesus—the man who seemed to have all the answers. But Jesus does something interesting. He basically tells the man, “No, I’m not getting involved with that because it’s really not my business. Let the proper courts take care of it.” As God, Jesus possesses authority over all things. But as a man, He understood there were certain things that just weren’t His business, and this was one of them. There’s a great lesson here for us. Some things in life aren’t our business, and it’s not our place to meddle. It can be very tempting to try to solve other people’s problems. The Bible describes a person with this tendency as a “busybody” (1 Timothy 5:13). Literally, that word means to “work all around,” and it describes a person constantly over-stepping healthy boundaries. Of course, balance is important. As Christians, we are called to proactively reach out and help others. But our outreach needs to be led by God’s Spirit, not by a “busybody spirit.” In many instances, God wants us to steer clear and not interfere with what’s going on. Rather, we ought to entrust its resolution to the appropriate people, just as Jesus does here. "He who passes by and meddles in a quarrel not his own is like one who takes a dog by the ears." Proverbs 26:17
Posted on: Sun, 01 Sep 2013 13:11:42 +0000