No Busy-ness There

Luke 12:14 KJV

And he said unto him, Man, who made me a judge or a divider over you?

Here we find a subtle but none the less important separation between church and state. A man with a disagreement against his brother came to Jesus to seek settlement. Rather than resolving the man's dispute Jesus rebuked him; this was not His purpose in coming.

Oftentimes preachers get themselves into the quicksands of busy-ness, that prevent them from doing the true work of the ministry, because they see themselves as responsible for work that rightly belongs to the realm of civil or even sometimes criminal judges. No doubt we could help resolve some of these cases, but by doing so we run the risk of alienating others from hearing the Word of God and we occupy our attention and mental resources on temporal matters when we would have been better occupied with prayer and ministry of the Word.

Albert Barnes writes,

"Jesus came for another purpose - to preach the gospel, and so to bring people to “a willingness to do” right. Civil affairs are to be left to the magistrate. There is no doubt that Jesus “could” have told him what was right in this case, but then it would have been interfering with the proper office of the magistrates; it might have led him into controversy with the Jews; and it was, besides, evidently apart from the proper business of his life. We may remark, also, that the appropriate business of ministers of the gospel is to attend to spiritual concerns. They should have little to do with the temporal matters of the people. If they can “persuade men” who are at variance to be reconciled, it is right; but they have no power to take the place of a magistrate, and to settle contentions in a legal way."

John Gill adds,

"whereas his kingdom was not of this world, and his business lay not in civil affairs, and the management of them; but in spiritual concerns, in preaching the Gospel, and doing good to the souls of men; wherefore this was out of his province: and besides, it was a matter of covetousness, either in this person, or his brother, or both; which Christ takes an occasion from hence to expose, agreeably to his office; to which may be added, that this man seems to have disturbed Christ in his public work, and was of such a worldly spirit, as to prefer the care of his secular affairs, to the hearing of the word, and the welfare of his immortal soul."