Minding Our Own Business

June 19, 2026June 19, 2026Todd R 3 Comments

Have you heard the term “virtue signaling”? The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines it as “the act or practice of conspicuously displaying one’s awareness of and attentiveness to political issues, matters of social and racial justice, etc., especially instead of taking effective action.” The phrase seems like it’s been around a long time, but the first use of it may have been as recent as 2013.[1]

Maybe the words “virtue signaling” are new, but the idea is at least as old as the Bible. In chapter 26, verses 6-13 of Matthew’s gospel, he tells the story of a woman who came to Jesus with “an alabaster flask of very expensive ointment” which she poured on Jesus’ head in front of the disciples. In Jesus’ view “she has done a beautiful thing to me…to prepare me for burial.” But the disciples didn’t see it the same way Jesus did. They indignantly said “Why this waste? For this [ointment] could have been sold for a large sum and given to the poor.”

Jesus responded how it was “a beautiful thing”, but also made another comment that made it clear the disciples were virtue signaling. He told them not to “trouble the woman.” “For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me.” I think Jesus had at least 3 points in this phrase, related to virtue signaling.

The first is that knowing what to do isn’t enough. In fact, it just increases our responsibility. James 4:17 says: “So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.” Although the disciples knew that giving to the poor was good, in this case were more concerned about sharing that knowledge than about using it. Today, we might call such people virtue signalers, but the Bible calls them “busybodies” and “meddlers”[2] People who go from person to person evaluating and criticizing their work instead of minding their own responsibilities. These people are common on social media.

Second, that there is always an opportunity to help the poor – they always will exist and aren’t hard to find – and each disciple surely missed opportunities every day. On what basis could they pick on someone else’s failure to help the poor? By criticizing the woman, they revealed that virtue signaling was more important to them than actually being virtuous.

^{Photo by Guillaume de Germain on Unsplash}

The last point is that service flows from worship, not the other way around. When we worship Jesus, the ultimate servant, our own ability to sincerely serve others increases as a result. The woman with the ointment knew this may be the only opportunity to anoint Jesus for burial, and knew she shouldn’t miss it. On the other hand, the disciples wanted Jesus to punish the woman when they should have been minding their own business. An internal posture of worship may be the best antidote to hypocrisy and the temptation to merely signal virtue.

The phrase “mind your own business” usually is said to someone we want to leave us alone, but the words actually mean that we should consider our own activities and motives more important than the policing of other people’s activities and motives. We “always have the poor” with us and fall far short of the standard we need to meet to judge other people’s use of resources.

When we all stand before God in judgment, Jesus will tell the blessed: “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’” In other words, the blessed minded their own business instead of just criticizing others (virtue signaling). Jesus notices when we take effective action and doesn’t care much about our opinions of others’ effectiveness.

Therefore, pray that we can all mind our own business, in worshipful service, “for you always have the poor with you,” and thank God for His forgiveness, because I know I don’t mind my own business nearly as often as I should. Sometimes I just blog about it.

“Many a man proclaims his own steadfast love,
but a faithful man who can find?” – Proverbs 20:6

[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/virtue signaling
[2] 1 Timothy 5:13; 1 Peter 4:15

The Tribulation of the Cross, Part 1

May 25, 2026June 6, 2026Todd R 1 Comment

Do you ever get so frustrated with the world that you just want to check out? I certainly do. For example, as a blogger who posts to both Facebook and on WordPress, for me it is a lot easier to keep up with WordPress, since I can choose to see only what I want to see. Facebook, on the other hand, exists to sell advertising and sometimes the best advertising is the kind that sparks emotion – even (or especially) bad emotions.

While Facebook is great for keeping up with friends and family, but sometimes you get lots of posts with statements like one I saw that said, “The time is coming when good people will have to do bad things to very bad people.” There are lots of examples of other sarcastic, angry, and bitter political posts. Like many, I like to have my comfortable space where I’m in control, and I didn’t want to be on Facebook while knowing they were trying (and, sadly, succeeding) at manipulating my emotions. I started feeling sarcastic, angry, and bitter, which was by their design. Sometimes I ask myself why I am even there?

Some surprising advice comes in Philippians 2:6-8, where Paul writes about Jesus that, “though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” In times when I want to check out from the uncomfortable parts of living in this world, these verses remind me that Jesus, as God, might have taken an attitude of preferring to stay in a comfortable space where He could be in control, but instead He jumped into the mess that is this world we see every day to show the world what love is.

Another verse that calls this to mind is the familiar John 3:16 – “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

When I’m struggling to face the world as I see it, I ask about John 3:16, “Exactly which world did Jesus love enough to die for?” The answer is this one. The world He died for is the one where sex, anger, bitter tribalism, and political partisanship sells. The one with a lot of sarcastic, angry, and bitter people. The one with a lot of people who are more like us than we’d usually like to admit. The one where it’s easy for our love to grow cold if we focus on the problems, and not on the cross, where God took the punishment for all of it.

To be continued tomorrow…

Letting God Set the Agenda

February 28, 2026February 27, 2026Todd R 1 Comment

One of the most significant ways the media influence us is by what’s called “agenda setting,” which means is that they tell us what is important and what we should care about by choosing what issues or topics to cover most often and most prominently. For example, if a topic appears regularly on the front pages of newspapers or the covers of magazines or in the “Breaking News” of a TV news program, those editors have decided those items are more important, and want us to feel the same. Unfortunately, there’s also an old saying in journalism that “if it bleeds, it leads,” meaning that bad news should get more coverage because it’s good for the business of journalism.

Related, but not the same, is “framing” which means the way the media covers something (the words they use, the sources they cite, etc.) affects our attitudes about it. When the media consistently use words like “radical” or “extreme” to represent only the other side, or if they lump all the news that bleeds to a specific group of people and not another, they’re employing framing.

The problem is that the same issues aren’t always as important to all people, and often the media’s agendas don’t align with what should be each person’s agenda. It’s like news coverage is designed to make us think the world is so evil that we can’t do anything about it, but also that very little is our own responsibility (or fault). As Corrie ten Boom wrote about her time in a Nazi concentration camp: “this was the great ploy of Satan in that kingdom of his: to display such blatant evil that one could almost believe one’s own secret sins didn’t matter.”

Is it really good or healthy to feel all the world’s problems are on our shoulders? However, all media have to make choices about what to cover and how to cover it, so there is no avoiding these problems…unless you have another source for your agenda and the framing of it. That source is God, and here are some verses from His word that can guide us:

Cast Your Anxieties
“Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.” – 1 Peter 5:6-7

We can recognize that there is a sovereign God, and ultimately His agenda is the only one that matters. With that knowledge, we know that there are many times where all we can do is pray to the One who sees all the bad news we do, and much more. He is in control.

If It’s Worthy, It Leads
“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” – Philippians 4:8

We can recognize that good news isn’t always easy to find, but we should seek it out, even if it’s in our own homes, families, or neighborhoods. There is always something worthy of praise to pay attention to.

Frame Your Responsibility Locally
“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” – Ephesians 2:10

Too much attention to the big picture problems of the world can distract us from the work God has put right in front of us, which we were created to do. God wants us to be faithful, not to save the world (He has already done that!)

I agree with C.S. Lewis, who wrote: “I think each village was meant to feel pity for its own sick and poor whom it can help and I doubt if it is the duty of any private person to fix his mind on ills which he cannot help. This may even become an escape from the works of charity we really can do to those we know. God may call any one of us to respond to some far away problem or support those who have been so called. But we are finite and he will not call us everywhere or to support every worthy cause. And real needs are not far from us.”

Yes, global problems matter and there is always a lot of bad news, but today let God set your agenda and frame it through the lens of His eternal victory in Christ.

Love When Bad Things Happen

February 23, 2026February 22, 2026Todd R 2 Comments

Fellow travelers,

Sometimes things happening in the world grab our attention and make us assign more significance to them than they deserve. Sometimes these are natural phenomena, like earthquakes, comets, or eclipses, and sometimes they are manmade phenomena, like wars.

One reason we do this is that passages in the Bible like Mark 13:5-23 describe what events will happen before Jesus returns again. We want Him to return! While it’s right to anticipate with excitement that Jesus is coming back, it’s important to sort out such passages by what is describing what will happen (descriptive truth) and what God tells us to do when these things happen (prescriptive truth). In all circumstances, the God’s primary commandments for us are to love God and to love our neighbor, even if they are our enemy. No phenomena should pull us off that path, and Mark 13:5-23 recommends that.

In the table below, I paraphrase and categorize Mark’s message into what is descriptive vs. prescriptive truth:

Descriptive	Prescriptive
Many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he!’	See that no one leads you astray
You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, and nation will rise against nation	Do not be alarmed
Earthquakes and famines in various locations	Be on your guard
You will be beaten in synagogues, and you will stand before governors and kings for my sake	Bear witness before them and do not be anxious beforehand what you are to say
Brother will deliver brother over to death and you will be hated by all	Endure
False christs and false prophets will arise and perform signs and wonders	Be on guard

To Jesus, none of the things in the descriptive column are new information. All were included in His plan from eternity past. The actions He recommends are not new information either. The “Prescriptive” column tells us not to panic, but to endure, to keep doing what we should be doing before these bad things happened – Love God, love your neighbor, even if your neighbor is your enemy.

On the other hand, false christs and prophets will tell us current events are unprecedented and a fulfillment of prophecy and they will tell us what we should do. The false prophet takes the descriptive of evil in the world and creates their own false prescriptive. They recommend an incomplete and inaccurate narrative of current events as an ultimate solution. Their own Babel which God must “come down” from heaven to even see (Genesis 11:5). But the true Christ calmly says, “be on guard; I have told you all things beforehand”. (Mark 13:23). The true Christ comes down from heaven and demonstrates how to create a true ladder back to heaven, offering forgiveness to all, even those who refuse to accept it or practice love. He will be thoroughly and eternally glorified by manifesting His kingdom as the only eternal kingdom, ruled by love, not by panic over current events.

No matter what we see happening in the news or in the world, Jesus knew it was coming and He told us that in any circumstance we should obey and glorify Him, through love for Him and neighbor. He doesn’t panic and neither should we.

Amen.