Pastor Powell's Column

April 2008

How Helpful?

Customer: Could you show me where the self-help books are?
Clerk: I'm sorry, but that would defeat the purpose…

How much should we help other people? If we help too much, will we create dependency? Questions like these come up as we walk downtown streets . . . as we try to raise teenagers . . . as we discuss public policy . . . or as we simply see a friend in need. Seen in the context of local church life, it becomes a riddle in Galatians chapter six:

6:2 "Carry each other's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ."
6:5 "…each one should carry his own load."

Is this a contradiction? Do these two verses somehow fit together? How should we best understand - and practice - these directives? Although Paul mentions it only briefly here, he expands his philosophy much more in another letter, notably Philippians, chapter four. Let's take a look at a very well known verse , but this time in its context.

4:13 "I can do everything through Him who gives me strength."
4:14 "Yet it was good of you to share in my troubles."

Verse 13 is the summation of Paul's teaching on contentment. He has peace and contentment in the Lord, regardless of poverty or riches. He is a burden on no one. This is carrying his own load, in the Lord's strength.

Yet verse 14 begins a section commending the Christians at Philippi for their willingness to help carry Paul's load. They gave him very practical, material help when he was in need. This is God's plan, and they are warmly commended for it.

In other words, when it is my own needs I am thinking about, then I should try to carry my own load. Christ-centered contentment leaves me no room to fuss and fume about why others are not doing their part to help me.

On the other hand, when it's the needs of others under consideration, then God calls me to help carry their burdens. There's nothing here about lecturing them to carry their own load.

We so often get this backwards, don't we? I want to apply the carry-your-own-load philosophy to others, but for myself it's "Everybody help." That's human nature. And increasingly our society is making self-centeredness into a social norm. We are warned about compulsive helping syndrome, and we worry that too much helping will stunt self reliance. Doubtless this is true in certain cases. But this new syndrome, this new insight, true though it may be, has been over stretched to cover everything in life. It becomes a convenient rationale for isolation from the needs of others and for narcissistic self-absorption.

When is someone going to stand up and shout: Selfishness is still the human problem! We are NOT plagued with an epidemic of selflessness!

It's true enough that Scripture warns us about doing for others what they are perfectly able to do for themselves. "If any does not work, neither should he eat," (2 Thess 3:10). But we dare not dismiss every need as mere laziness. Everyday we encounter people who are broken, whether physically, mentally, emotionally, or economically. In our complex world, there are so many ways people get stuck and need a hand. In most cases, the feeling that help will hurt owes more to an over-wrought sense of American rugged individualism than it does to any Biblical sense of the Good Samaritan.

Galatians chapter six, verses two and five. Philippians chapter four, verses 13-14. The same twin principles. When you invert these twin principles, you get a society of whiners where everyone is protesting his own rights, jockeying for his own fair share of the pie. But what do you have when you see it in the Biblical order? You have a harmonious church where each one has learned contentment in Christ, and the love of Christ flows freely.

"For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." Mark 10:45