Are you weary, are you heavy-hearted?
Tell it to Jesus, Tell it to Jesus;
Are you grieving over joys departed?
Tell it to Jesus alone.
Tell it to Jesus, Tell it to Jesus,
He is a friend that’s well known;
You’ve no other such a friend or brother
Tell it to Jesus alone.
–Tell it to Jesus, words by Jeremiah E. Rankin
Having grown up with the Baptist Hymnal (various editions), I remember singing this song a lot. And I remember liking it too—after all, it has an upbeat tune that’s catchy.
Yet, now as a pastor who has come to consider words more important than catchy tunes, this has become a song that I refuse to have our church sing as a part of our worship. Most of it is rather biblical—certainly we are to cast our cares upon the Lord because he cares for us (1 Peter 5:6-7, Philippians 4:6-7).
But there is one little word sung eight times (or 6 if you skip the third verse) that makes this a decidedly unbiblical song, despite everything else in it: alone.
Whether intentionally or unintentionally, I do not know, by invoking us to “tell it to Jesus alone” the author encourages a keep-it-to-yourself Christianity. If you’re struggling, if you’ve failed, if you’re weary, if you’re anxious, if you’re whatever—tell it to Jesus alone, and thus cut out the family God has put around you to help you grow.
In our culture we already treat our salvation as individualistic. When we see someone in church, it’s like passing someone on the street: “How’s it going?” “Fine, how are you?” “Doing great.” I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: we’re either the most well-adjusted people ever or we’re a bunch of liars.
The embarrassment that we feel about our sins and struggles doesn’t help either. We tend to have this perception we want others to maintain about us: we are better people better off than we actually are. And when it comes to our temptations, surely Paul didn’t mean all the temptations we face are common to mankind (1 Corinthians 10:13). My temptations feel so uncommon.
It’s all part of Satan’s lie to keep us from getting the help we need.
Other than death and taxes, there is at least one thing we can be certain of for our lives: we cannot do this on our own. After all, what does the Holy Spirit inspired wisdom of Solomon say? “Two are better than one…for if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up!” (Ecclesiastes 4:9-10)
We must have accountability in our lives. But it’s not easy because we must fight against ourselves, especially our pride.
Yet this is a fight worth having. After all, the goal in life is not to exalt ourselves but to exalt the glory of God by becoming more like Jesus. And Jesus has given us plenty in his word to remind us of the need for accountability…
Matthew 18:15-17 If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.
Romans 15:14 And concerning you, my brethren, I myself also am convinced that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge and able also to admonish one another.
Galatians 6:1-2 Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.
Hebrews 3:12-13 Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
James 5:16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.
Let those verses sink in. Go, tell him his fault…admonish one another…restore…bear one another’s burdens…exhort one another…confess your sins to one another and pray…
These are the marks of accountability, opening up our burdens, struggles, and failures to others, and helping them with theirs.
A timely word for me. I’ve been deeply hurt at our church by a situation involving a friend of mine who is pursuing divorce for unbiblical reasons. Hebrews 3:12-13 has been on my mind a lot lately.
The post has limited information, but concerning your friend’s potential divorce, I would think his/her hurt far exceeds your own, even as you have empathy for him/her, but that he or she is heavily on your mind reveals your compassion, however, and it is to be admired. If he or she wishes to speak with you about the potential divorce, then he or she gets whatever is on your mind, but absent that, this is none of your business, notwithstanding ponderings on Hebrews. If the church is one in which marriages take place with the understanding that the faith community… Read more »
bapticus hereticus,
I left the information limited for a reason. It is very much “my business” and not at all “yours”. If you believe I have little or no right to be involved in this situation, I wonder at how you feel justified telling me so.
How is another couple’s marriage your business? Yet, if you are counseling the couple or one of the individuals, it would be your business to some extent as the person allows such (and hopefully counsel would respect the other’s right to decide, rightly or wrongly). I would ask, why are you, then, writing about such in a public forum. Third, when you raise an issue in a public forum, you might expect someone to respond? Fourth, are pastors being trained today to make the marriages of others their business? It is one thing to preach and teach about marriage and… Read more »
How is it not? Especially if that couple involves a friend and/or a brother and sister within his local body?
The whole point of my post is that ideas and attitudes in our culture that express what you are saying are highly unbiblical.
It is one thing to be concerned and be available and make said availability known, but it is something else to uninvitedly step inside a covenant that does not include one’s self.
It is one thing to be concerned and be available and make said availability known, but it is something else to uninvitedly step inside a covenant that does not include one’s self. Except as Christian brothers and sisters, especially those within a particular local body, it does include us. We are the person’s accountability… Jesus didn’t say “When a person sins wait for the “person chosen via the community’s process” to act, he said go to them. In Galatians 6, Paul didn’t say, “You who are invited to give counsel” restore and bear one another’s burdens; he said “you who… Read more »
Mike
You recognize that. I recognize that. However, since Nawm here is not a Christian and rejects the gospel, he can’t recognize that.
If one wishes to speak to someone’s behavior that is manifested in public, then have at it if one wishes (but be prepared for consequences that might be unanticipated), but when one uninvitingly inserts oneself in someone else’s marriage, whether it be pastor, laymen, best Christian in the world doing the inserting, one is out of line. Whether the marriage covenant is being honored or not, it is a covenant that is between two people and God, it is not between two people, a congregation, a brother and sister, mother and father, and whatever with God, and it is for… Read more »
Ack. An edit gone bad. The line should read:
I don’t believe that God is coercive ….
If one wishes to speak to someone’s behavior that is manifested in public, then have at it if one wishes (but be prepared for consequences that might be unanticipated), but when one uninvitingly inserts oneself in someone else’s marriage, whether it be pastor, laymen, best Christian in the world doing the inserting, one is out of line. Whether the marriage covenant is being honored or not, it is a covenant that is between two people and God, it is not between two people, a congregation, a brother and sister, mother and father, and whatever with God, and it is for… Read more »
Mike, where does it say that the faith community, the pastor, anyone, has standing to uninvitedly enter into a covenant relationship between two people and God? Do we not undermine the notion that two people become one in a covenant relationship when we assert that others have rights in the relationship between these two people and God? I did not leave my parents to cleave to a community. I left my parents to form an identity with another in a covenant relationship and to express said relationship in a community. The community has integrated the relationship; it has not assimilated… Read more »
Mike, where does it say that the faith community, the pastor, anyone, has standing to uninvitedly enter into a covenant relationship between two people and God? Every verse that’s already been quoted above. None of them make a distinction between public and private, personal and corporate, or whatever… they all have to do with life, period. Do we not undermine the notion that two people become one in a covenant relationship when we assert that others have rights in the relationship between these two people and God? No. The Bible never separates the home life from the community of faith,… Read more »
And again, Nawm proves to us why talking to someone about the faith who rejects propositional truth as found in the Bible is akin to trying to fry chicken in bleach or paint your house with buttermilk–it just won’t work. It’s like Paul says in I Corinthians 2–The natural mind cannot understand the things of God because they are spiritually appraised.
Then in your view of scripture, everything in the community of faith should belong equally to everyone in the community of faith and there are to be no exclusions as to rights of that which is shared, or in your words, ‘never separate[d]’?
If the people had a wedding, then they explicitly invite people to hold them accountable to the vows that they take. That’s the purpose of a wedding. Christian commitment is necessarily public. That’s why someone can’t take the Lord’s Supper on his own or baptize himself. Submission to baptism is a public commitment to the Christian life and the witness of the body of Christ is the accountability the Body affords to that one. This is why Peter, for example, talks about being built together into a spiritual house. Christian marriage is the same. We leave and cleave to form… Read more »
Jim, your view draws a distinction that Mike’s view does not, for his is seemingly dissolves any separation of public and private rights. A high congruence of public and private rights is more prevalent in collective societies, but such an approach is a difficult sell in individualistic cultures, such as our own. For me, the governance structures and processes of churches found in the Christian scriptures are not normative, even if they are instructive. What I do find as normative is that these churches took seriously their responsibility to develop structures and processes perceived suitable to their needs. That is,… Read more »
You seem to beg the question that what we practice defines what should be normative. But I’m holding up what we practice against the Bible. My observation with weddings is that the wedding, and the law, have always recognized that the need for witnesses means that marriage is a public affair. Given the call the “leave and cleave” the families of the Bride and groom in the time of Christ were always involved. The parables and other references that Jesus made to weddings specifically spoke of the influence of the families and friends on the bride and groom. The idea… Read more »
In terms of practice, scripture does not express a single, normative voice, but it does present a record of communities seeking to define themselves in relation to what they believed, and doing so within the circumstance in which they found themselves. Such does not assume that what they decided upon was the best that could have been done, the only thing that could have been done, or that what they did must be followed by others or themselves for all times. Thus, the thing that was considered to be and is still considered normative among us, too, is to take… Read more »
“…it is appropriate for the congregation to involve itself in one’s life that is not normative in Christian scripture…” I think in principle, we agree. We simply disagree on the degree to which it is suggested in the Bible that we hold each other accountable. We would have to go through and look at it exhaustively, which is not a good forum for this. As it is, I think it is rather a lack of submission to Biblical accountability where the Western Church has lost its strength. I think we’ve agreed in general that we want to have the appearance… Read more »
Jim: I think we’ve agreed in general that we want to have the appearance of a godly life while being able to be ungodly in private. That means that we need to be put-off when people of faith want to hold us accountable for sins that we want to stay private so we don’t have to repent of them. That’s what such statements as 1 Cor 12:19, 1 Tim 5:20, Heb 3:13 and their surrounding passages address. bapticus hereticus: Only in the sense that such may happen, given the “prone to wander” in all of us; that is, I don’t… Read more »
Well, I’m glad that you are perfect enough that you don’t need any accountability in your marriage. I myself have a great marriage. My wife is a great woman to go through all the trials of life with. (And we have had our share of trials.) Likewise, I do my best to be the husband that Paul admonished the Ephesians to be: one who gives his life to purify his wife in the same way that Christ purified the church; and the husband that Peter encourages Christians to be: one who lives with his wife in an understanding way so… Read more »
Mike: Well, I’m glad that you are perfect enough that you don’t need any accountability in your marriage. I myself … I wouldn’t dream of trying to do this [i.e., healthy marriage] without seeking out the accountability of godly Christian men in my life. I want them to interject themselves before I screw up royally because I well understand the nature of sin that still plagues me. bapticus hereticus: But, Mike, I am accountable, but it is to my wife … and God … and to any that we choose to make our relationship accountable to, as is your want,… Read more »
Please, forgive me for the above error. Above it should read Jim, not Mike. My apology.
Mike: As your self-appointed Accountability Partner for Blog Grammar, I must tell you your title needs work. 😉
Ain’t nothin wrong wit my grammar, ‘specially here in Mizeruh.
Mike,
I agree that the verses you’ve referenced here don’t offer an escape clause for “personal” matters. Because of this, we should be very careful that we are acting in accord with the Bible, not just meddling.
Ultimately people who refuse to be held accountable won’t be. In those cases we should remove people from our roles, as the Baptist heretic suggests. But to wait until that is our only course of action means a sin of omission regarding those verses you posted.
Mike, your not being realistic. The fact is that at the end of the day we really only have Jesus. There are times hwen others cvan be there for us. There are other times when they can’t or won’t. No one can share your pain or joy as you do individually. This is just human life. It’s part of the burden and the quest. Hymns merely reflect the Christian experience. There are hymns that speak to the sharing of burdens. Then there are those which speak to the silent suffering that Jesus alone knwos and cares about. If you remove… Read more »
The scriptures are saturated with accountability. Just because we don’t do it well doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t. We OUGHT to be better than we are according to the Bible. The solution is not to lower our standards but to recognize the higher standard that we fail to meet up to. If we only have Jesus then we must recognize His work and presence among His Body of believers. If we fail to recognize the Body of Christ, we don’t have Jesus.
Mike,
I appreciate your article because this is such a needed thing in the church today and it certainly is the will of God as He laid it out in scripture. I can’t imagine why anyone with knowledge of the scriptures would have a problem with this. You gave a great list of scriptures but add to it chapters 5 and 6 of 1 Corinthians and Hebrews 10:24, 25. It’s clear the lone ranger Christian is foreign to the Bible.
John, it’s one-sided. He explained the community aspect while neglecting the other side to it: the truth that we are born into this world alone and exit it alone. And that we know joy and pain in between that is unknown to those we ourselves cannot know. We come to God and find that he is permanent while people are transient. We share our burdens and our sins with church members, and church members burden us and sin against us. So we go back to Jesus, the One who knows, and find out what Baptists should have known all along,… Read more »
Sal,
One does not negate the other. The article was about our accountabilty in the local fellowship. Our solitary standing before God does not trump the truth of accountability. It does not trump the overwhelming amount of scripture that teaches we are to operate in those parameters.
Hi John,
What I said I said. I’m not talking about being a Christian and sinning and not wanting to confess that and seek forgiveness. What I’m talking about is the existential predicament that even the Christian faces. I’ve seen such darkness in churches (and such light) to know not to take the community of faith as seriously as I take my Lord. I have a responsiblity to support it, to love the people that comprise it, and to participate in its life. But we often find at the most difficult times that no one is there but Jesus.
Honestly, I don’t think I can agree with this statement from personal experience. Is Jesus my main comforter during dark times? Her certainly is. However, I find this is often accomplished by him bringing others form the body of Christ into my life who have suffered similar dark times to provide encouragement for me. I don’t think anyone is really saying that we don’t Jesus to get us through times of trouble.
Fletcher, thanks for your thoughts. They deserve an adequate response. Many people who come to church are hurt and continue to hurt, and that sometimes means they hurt others. Then, some people who continually come to church remain uncharitable for reasons I don’t entirely understand, though I suppose these issues are much less prominant in the SBC. I’ve known that Christians can remain dysfunctional for years, and some of that dysfunction is so overwhelming they just have to unload it onto someone else–and then someone else is hurt and so on. They often find healing and that’s a slow process.… Read more »
While I agree completely about your point on accountability, I’m not quite sure this song is promoting an unaccountable life, especially in regard to the Bible verses you quoted. They all admonish believers to correct and rebuke each other, as well as to confess when appropriate, when facing sin together. The song does not make a reference to sin or unbiblical behavior. It is focused on trials and tribulations. Although the song was an illustration and not a main point, I don’t think you can make a case for it being “unbiblical” on these grounds. The point of it is… Read more »
It sounds as though, inasmuch as two pastors can disagree, that this hymn isn’t clear enough. Having gone through trials and tribulations, it tells me that I shouldn’t expect any fellowship from the others in the Body of Christ that would help address a difficult time in my life – that maybe I’m just better off keeping to myself and talking only to Jesus about it so I don’t disturb anyone else. How many times is this hymn properly contextualized to convey the right message from it?
Jim, I think you misunderstand it. What it seems to convey to me is that people simply can’t be there for you in the way that God can. To expect help from others will cause us to feel hurt when that assistance and understanding is not forthcoming. Some times it will come. Other times it won’t. God, however, is always there. I think that’s the message one would usually leave the hymn with. Lyrics should not be taken literally. I have a feeling that theologians are the only ones who do that. Lyrics are not sermons. They express something imprecisely… Read more »
So, when I was feeling suicidal I shouldn’t have hoped for anyone at church to really care? God wasn’t going to send anyone to help me so I should just have taken my own life in a fit of irrational thought to go expedite my being with God? I didn’t do that, thank God, because I did have a few that happened to be there that I could depend on to help me get the help I needed. They were there because God provided them just as Paul indicated in such places as 1 Cor 12. But too often we… Read more »
Jim, I’d hope someone would be around wtih an ounce of charity to deal with someone in need. The problem often is that most people are struggling with emotional stuff and can’t seem to get it together enough to really help anyone else.
“I’d hope someone would be around wtih an ounce of charity to deal with someone in need.”
Unless someone took the Bible seriously enough to follow what it clearly says, there won’t be.
Thanks Matt, that was the idea I wanted to communicate. That lives don’t necesssarily overlap when it comes to tribulation. People’s worlds may remain opaque to each other. And when that happens, no one can help us but Jesus.
If a Christian friend is in trouble, so are his friends troubled for him and with him. We are no longer in isolation in a Christian community. What hurts one, hurts all. And the marriage of a Christian couple is a sacred bond that needs the support of a loving Christian community, not in an ‘intrusive’ way . . . no. But in the way that says . . . we care deeply for you both, and we are sad if you are hurting, and we pray for you both to find peace with each other and with the Lord,… Read more »
That is not always the case. Churches are made up of different kinds of people. Some churches have many competant members who are capable of ministry. Other churches are loaded with troubled people or people who are ill-equipped to get beyond themselves or their safety zone. Some churches have many people who would heal others if given the chance, while other churches have many people who would hurt others unknowingly if given the chance. Churches can offer solace as well as aggravation, depending on the particular situation and circumstances. The upshot is that we should try to carry each other’s… Read more »
SAL, I’m think of Galatians 6:2, known as ‘the Royal Law’: “Bear you one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” And also of the idea that the Church contains those who are one body, one Spirit, one Lord . . . we pray for one another’s needs, and we help when and where we can, we help humbly, not intrusively. , , we serve . . . we serve Him. . . and our serving overflows to include all in need whom He has placed in our pathway. Try to think of that helping in the frame… Read more »
Christiane, you are correct. That is true in theory. In practice, many people just don’t have the intellect or the healing within to reach out and help someone else. THey’re drowning in their own baggage. Sometimes someone can understand someone else and be there for them. That’s wonderful. Many times, however, people are caught up in their own stuff and have difficulty getting beyond it.