Self-Help Isn’t a Biblical Benchmark

The grapes in a vineyard are helpless apart from the vine.

Years ago, I interviewed the CEO of a major corporation who talked about how he became immersed in self-help books, audiotapes, and other motivational resources. He was always striving to become a better executive, eagerly studying and testing any technique or philosophy he thought might enhance his skills and productivity.

Sometimes he would be sitting quietly in his den, wearing headphones and listening to the latest self-help message he had discovered. If his children wanted to visit with him, one would warn the other, “Don’t bother Dad now. He’s motivating.”

 

Bookstores – a vanishing breed these days, sad to say – have long recognized the “self-help” section as one of the most popular destinations for customers. Who doesn’t want to improve, whether it’s becoming a more successful person, more adept craftsman, more skilled artist, athlete or photographer, better spouse or parent, or any of myriad other life pursuits?

 

The one exception, I suppose, was the bookstore employee who, when asked by a customer where to find the self-help section, responded, “Help yourself!”

 

In many ways, the self-help approach to life remains the rage. The Internet, especially with resources like YouTube and Google, has only fed our self-help appetite. We can find videos showing how to do virtually anything, from hanging a picture on the wall to assembling a bicycle, learning how to play the guitar or drums to fixing a leaking faucet.

 

You’ve probably heard someone say, “You have to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps.” Have you ever tried to do that? Talk about a superpower! And who has shoes or boots with bootstraps anymore, anyway?

 

We’ve even spiritualized the self-help philosophy somewhat. There’s the adage, “God helps those who help themselves.” This saying has been attributed to Benjamin Franklin, while others contend it was coined by a British politician named Algernon Sidney. Someone quipped a variation of this saying, “God helps those who help themselves, but God help those who get caught helping themselves.”

 

Some folks might say, “Doesn’t the Bible say, ‘God helps those who help themselves’?” No, you won’t find it there, unless you’re consulting the books of 2 Opinions or 3 Babylonians. (Which aren’t in the Bible either.) Seriously, if anything, the essence of the Scriptures is quite contrary to the self-help mindset.

 

British preacher and theologian A.W. Pink summed it up well when he said, “To declare that God helps those who help themselves is to repudiate one of the most precious truths taught in the Bible, and in the Bible alone; namely, that God helps those who are unable to help themselves, who have tried again and again only to fail.”

 

We could cite dozens, even hundreds of passages about how the Lord helps those unable to help themselves, but a good place to start is Jesus. Speaking to His disciples, Jesus used a vine as a metaphor for dependence on Him: 

“Remain in Me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself, it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in Me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in Me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:4-5).

 

The apostle Paul might have had this admonition in mind when he wrote, “I can do everything through [Christ] who gives me strength” (Philippians 4:13).

 

Paul, despite his many accomplishments, never got over his dependence on God. He wrote about a “thorn in the flesh” that he had, although the apostle never specified what that was. It was a perpetual affliction, to the point that, “Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me…. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:7-10).

 

The corporate executive I mentioned earlier discovered this. Someone introduced him to the Bible, and in the process, to Jesus Christ. Before long, he said he disposed of all his self-help resources and started using the Bible, its teachings and truths as his guide, both professionally and personally. And that remained the case for the remainder of his life.

We live in a culture that was birthed with a “can do” spirit, individuals filled with determination and self-will to accomplish great things. They were the original “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps” folks. Certainly, we all have abilities and talents in certain areas. But from an eternal perspective, we truly cannot do anything apart from the indwelling power of God’s Spirit. Paul noted Jesus’ earthly life was filled with the power of God, and “by God’s power we will live in Him to serve you” (2 Corinthians 13:4).