154. Bible Questions: Am I my brother's keeper (or should I mind my own business)?

E154:  Bible Questions:  Am I my brother’s keeper? 

 Am I, my brother's keeper. That's not exactly how my students asked that question. They ask it this way. Am I responsible for the wellbeing of other people? Or do other people have the right to speak into my life? When I'm doing something they believe is not appropriate? That phrase am I? My brother's keeper comes out of Genesis four. Cain said that to God after murdering his brother, Abel God said, where's your brother, Abel. And Cain's response. Am I my brother's keeper? Since when am I responsible for my brother's wellbeing? Do we have responsibility for others in our world? And if we do, why and who are we responsible for?

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And how should we do it? I'm going to answer the why with one word, cue Creek. Look it up on Wikipedia. Q U E C R E E K. On July 24th, 2002 18 men went down into the que Creek. Mine nine went one direction and nine went the other about three hours

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Later. Their drill punched through,

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Into an abandoned unreported mine. Approximately 50 million gallons of water began to pour into the cute Creek. Mine I'll leave the story for your reading. I promise it will be spellbinding and worth. Every moment. Within a few hours,

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Water was pouring out of the portal. 400

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Feet above them. Nine of the miners made it out, but the other nine, the Q Creek nine were trapped 400 feet below within those frantic first few moments. The que Creek nine miners did three things. They scribbled notes to their families. They prayed. And then they wrote themselves together. That was their decision. We will all be rescued together or we'll die as brothers in this watery grave. Four days later, the miracle of Q Creek happened. Read about it. That's the word picture that I hope will stick with you. The Bible teaches our creator roped us together in communities in Genesis chapter two, after making the first man, God made a shocking statement.

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This creation is incomplete. It's not good for this man to be alone. So God created a mate and mating. They had families. Those families gathered in communities and became groups of people. John Don said, no, man is an island entire of itself. Every man is a piece of the continent. A part of the main. We are connected to our brother scriptures, littered with brothers keepers, doctrine and examples, but there's none more powerful than Joshua chapter seven. We looked at this and episode 46, the children of Israel have taken the city of Jericho in the promised land.

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They move on to the next little town, but they get their butts kicked Joshua and the leaders come back seeking before God. What happened? God tells them somebody is taken. What I said is hands-off in the city of Jericho that somebody was Aiken. One guy who took a purple cloth and a small bit of silver and gold from Jericho, which God had said is to be devoted to me completely as an offering in what follows, we learn the principle I sin you suffer the sin of Aiken. One guy had tremendous consequences on his family, on soldiers, families killed in battle who became widows and orphans on the courage of the nation of Israel.

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And on the reputation of God, scribble this statement down in your soul. When I sin you suffer. And it's alternative when I do something glorious, you gain why? Because we're roped together. We don't need the Bible to teach us this common sense tells us this. My sister-in-law is the great niece of the Capone family. Yes, that Capone family Al Capone, because he was kind of a cool gangster. And in our movies, that's not such a bad deal. It's actually a good, great party conversation starter. I'm related to someone related to the Capones, but that would change if she was the great niece of ADA Hitler, that's true of communities.

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Would you like to, to say your hometown was our switch? It's true of professions. It's not an accident that stock traders are the number two most despised professions in America. Why probably a lot of that will be laid at the feet of it. This man, Bernie Maydoff the man <inaudible> for a $64 billion Ponzi scheme. And speaking

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Of stock, we use the word stereotype

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To talk about the stock value of entire people. Groups, stereotypes are general beliefs about a category of people based on a small sampling of behavior. Someone of a certain people group acts stupid or screws up and the reputation of the whole group suffers or on the other hand, someone in that people group does something glorious and the entire group stock goes up. I believe it's. Self-evident when I, as a husband of a wife, a father of a family, a teacher in my school, a pastor in my church, a citizen of my city do something harmful or shameful others suffer.

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And when I do something amazing, their stock goes up. Why God roped us together. Now we come to my students about who am I responsible for and how do I do it? That's a trickier, but the Bible gives us some traction on that too. The first principle is discernment. We need to ask ourselves, which kind of brother is, this? Is this a brother in the human family or a brother in Christ, a follower of Jesus. The apostle Paul in the new Testament tells us to treat them differently. I recently heard a testimony of a Christian. He was 28 and had hardly darkened the doorstep of a church.

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He and his live in girlfriend visited his sister, a committed Christian. She and her husband, who is in the ministry, rolled out the red carpet and put fresh sheets on their bed. They were reflecting the apostle Paul's words in the new Testament. Don't expect nonbelievers to act like believers. Don't expect people without wings to fly. I'm guessing they may have had a different decision that day. If that brother or his girlfriend claimed to be a follower of Christ. There's also discernment in timing and teachability in Proverbs 26, Solomon gives one verse back to back Proverbs nuggets of wisdom.

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He says, make sure to point out the foolishness of someone so that they don't continue that foolishness. But in the very next verse, he says, don't point out foolishness to someone who doesn't want to hear it. He'll just hate you. Did you catch that? Be your brother's keeper to someone who will hear it so that they will make wiser choices, but save your breath to someone you discern doesn't want to hear it at all. It will just make them angry. Teachability and timing is an important part of being our brother's keeper. And so his attitude, Paul and Peter in the new Testament, give us guidance on this near the end of Paul's letter to the Galatians grace relations, which we looked at an episode 1 29.

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Paul says this. If someone is making bad choices, reach out to that person, then help set their choices, right? Like setting a broken bone in a spirit of gentleness and humility as you're setting that bone communicate, Hey, this could have happened to me too. I want to help you get better and promise me, you'll help me on my next life. Fracture Peter, in his first letter at the back of your new Testament, chapter three writes, whenever you talk about the wise practices of faith, do it with a spirit of gentleness and reverence. Reverence means value based.

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Ah, you are precious. That should be our attitude when we are our brother's keeper. And then there's Jesus. Isaiah describes the coming Messiah. Jesus, this way as he's his brother's keeper bruise reads, he will not break off and smoldering wicks. He will not put out as he guides people toward doing the right thing. And speaking of Jesus, Jesus throws a flag on being our brother's keeper. If we don't do it with discernment, with the attitude of gentleness and humility and in the spirit of Jesus, he was surrounded by people who saw all of life in black and white and took it upon themselves to be the behavior police.

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They were called Pharisees and they did great damage to people and to the reputation of God. And since I'm on the subject of right and wrong, black and white, I often get questions from my students on gray areas. Those are behaviors for us and our brothers that aren't so clear cut is right and wrong in this broken world. Does the Bible give us any help navigating through those gray areas? It absolutely does. And we'll look at that in our next Bible Questions.