Not minding your own business

"For Herod had seized John and bound him and put him in prison for the sake of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife, because John had been saying to him, 'It is not lawful for you to have her'" (Matthew 14:3-4).

Your colleague at work is having an affair, and you can smell it. Your next-door neighbor lets her daughter's boyfriend sleep over on the downstairs couch and you have a bad feeling about it. While you're at the 7-Eleven for a gallon of milk, you spot two 12-year-old boys with their nose in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition, and you know how your own adolescent discovery of a Playboy in a trash can set the course of your life on fire.

Imagine doing what John the Baptist did. Imagine taking time off from your baptism station in the wilderness to contact Herod's press secretary for a half hour with the King so you can tell him what God thinks about his marrying a woman who is still legally married to someone else.

Now you say: "John is a different case. He is John the Baptist, come on! He is a prophet and that's what prophets do!" There may be something to that. On the other hand, Moses once said with pained longing: "Would that all the LORD's people were prophets, that the LORD would put his Spirit on them!" (Numbers 11:29.) So it is a thing to be desired, not disparaged, by holy men that more people exercise prophetic speech.

God has, as a matter of fact, granted Moses' wish in our time---for those who believe it. He sent Jesus, and when Jesus had purchased innumerable blessings by his atonement, He was exalted to the heavens to distribute gifts via his Spirit. Among the gifts he sends are such ministrations as prophecy, service, teaching, exhortation, financial generosity, zeal, and mercy (Romans 12:6-8); wisdom utterance, knowledge utterance, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, discernment of spirits, tongues (1 Corinthians 12:8-10).

So to return to our point, we cannot wriggle out of John's example in Matthew 14 by throwing him into a different category from ourselves. We are all prophets now to some extent (1 Corinthians 14:3; Ephesians 4:29; 1 Thessalonians 5:11, 19-21; Revelation 19:10)---and some among us have a particular gifting of it.

But my big dilemma is the kinds of cases I mention in paragraph two. I invite your comments and testimonies regarding this. Have you ever, or do you often, take a risk to venture outside "your own business" and address a stranger, with love, regarding a danger you see in his life? I guess I wouldn't blame you much if you didn't. See what it did for John in the end (Matthew 14:10).

To hear commentaries by Andrée Seu, click here.