Being an Ambitious ChristianSýnishorn

MYOB

We’ve spent the past few days looking at some advice Paul offered first to the Christians in ancient Thessaloniki, and we’re seeing that his words are good admonitions for the church of today too.

This passage seems to revolve around the English word, ambition. When you think of ambition, what or who comes to mind? Maybe a stand-out athlete, hustling entrepreneur, or the mother of a large family. All of those things require ambition to do well, and so do the things to which the Bible is exhorting us in this passage.

We’ve already discussed two of the things for which the Holy Spirit wants us to have ambition: loving other believers and living a quiet life. The next ambition Paul encourages us to have sounds more like a junior high student’s retort to a nosy classmate.

When I was in middle school, my dad gave me a blue jean jacket he wore when he was in high school. Its sleeves were torn off at the shoulders; it was faded and frayed, and on the back were four giant letters resting on a glaring smiley face: MYOB. Oh how often I wanted to tell people, “Mind Your Own Business.”

Paul’s words are not written with the snark that my younger voice would have bellowed those words, but there is no doubt that his advice to those believers, and maybe to us, too, was to be ambitious about minding their own business.

This is not the only place the Bible exhorts God’s children to keep their nose out of other people’s business:

Proverbs 25:17 - Too much of you may be too much to handle.

Proverbs 26:17 - The best way to not get bitten is to keep to yourself.

Matthew 7:3-5 - Deal with your issues before getting all up in somebody else’s business.

1 Timothy 5:13 - Busybodies get themselves in trouble.

1 Peter 4:15 - Don’t be a meddler.

The Bible also encourages us to love, care for, help, and protect our neighbor, so the instruction to mind your own business does not excuse you from loving your neighbor. Minding your own business positions you to love your neighbor with pure motives and fewer objections.

May you be ambitious about minding your own business!