“What does the Bible say about codependency?”……Codependency is a mental health designation for relationships in which people use one another to get their own emotional needs met, but in a selfish and destructive manner.

Codependency is not a mental health diagnosis, but a symptom associated with many psychological disorders.

Originally, codependent was a term used to describe partners in chemical dependency or in a relationship with an abusive person. Today, however, the term has been broadened to describe several types of destructive relationship patterns.……Codependency comes in many forms, but they are all similar in nature. They all revolve around what a person can get from someone else by giving him or her something in return.

For example, a parent may expect to control an adult child because of the parent's financial support of the child.

Another common scenario is when a friend will not confront another friend about his drug use for fear of losing a relationship with him.

At the core the relationship is a focus on using one another rather than giving unconditional love and honest acceptance.

This stems from our selfish human nature. Codependent people are like a parasite and a host: they each use the other to get something for themselves. Such relationships are not helpful, because neither party is willing to be truthful, and both parties are selfishly clinging to whatever it is they are getting (money, sex, friendship, admiration, power).……One result of a codependent relationship pattern is that God takes second place to people. Codependents rely on each other for emotional needs and even some physical needs rather than take care of themselves.

They also lack faith and trust in God to care for their needs and, as a result, manipulate others to get what they want.

Codependent people typically are attracted to one another and will keep each other stuck in a dysfunctional blind spot by telling each other what they want to hear. This way, they both can feel okay, despite the chaos their choices are creating. Obviously, people who avoid telling the truth in love have trouble recognizing their own sinful habits or need for repentance.……Related to codependency are other issues such as pride, fear of manand boundaries.

Proverbs 29:25

Fearing people is a dangerous trap, but trusting the Lord means safety.

Pride blinds us from seeing our true self the way God sees us.

While God loves us regardless of our sin, He has declared that we are 100 percent wicked and in need of a savior

Mark 10:18

"Why do you call me good?" Jesus asked. "Only God is truly good.

That message offends our pride, which tells us we are basically good. Codependent people are loyal-in a destructive way-to their friends, so that they support sinful or even illegal behavior. Through denial or idealization, codependents keep each other feeling that they are not the ones with the problem. Codependency is a way to keep the blinders on and so ignore our sin. ……The same is true with the fear of man. We want people to think highly of us. Many times, this results in people-pleasing behaviors to create a faÔö£┬║ade to hide the genuine, flawed self. ……Finally, everyone needs healthy boundaries to maintain convictions and avoid being manipulated. However, codependent people don't feel like a whole person and tend to copy others or attach themselves to people to gain a sense of identity. This results in an inability to make their own choices, because they want to preserve their dependent relationships. They also overstep others' boundaries and try to control others rather than focus on themselves.……The Bible addresses these issues by telling us how we ought to relate to one another. One concept found in Scripture is interdependency, which is the state of being mutually responsible to others while sharing a common set of principles.

In the case of husband and wife, the Bible indicates that both spouses are dependent on each other for completion.

Genesis 2:24

This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one

Both Jesus and Paul quoted this verse, and these three elements:

leaving, cleaving, unitingand are often cited by marriage counselors as the major principles of a biblical marriage.

Other passages also show this interdependence of husband and wife:

Ephesians 5:22-33

For wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23 For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of his body, the church. As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything. For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God's word.( Greek washed by water with the word) He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault. In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies. For a man who loves his wife actually shows love for himself. No one hates his own body but feeds and cares for it, just as Christ cares for the church. And we are members of his body.As the Scriptures say, "A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one."(Gen 2:24)…This is a great mystery, but it is an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one.So again I say, each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.…1Timothy 5:8 …But those who won't care for their relatives, especially those in their own household, have denied the true faith. Such people are worse than unbelievers Proverbs 31:10-31 A Wife of Noble Character

Verses 10-31 comprise a Hebrew acrostic poem; each verse begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet.

As each spouse fulfills his or her role, the other benefits. This is biblical interdependency, and it should be embraced, not avoided. The Lord's emphasis in dependency is on service, not on self.……We also find the concept of interdependence in regard to spiritual gifts:

1 Peter 4:10

God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another.

Both Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12 expand this teaching in the explanation of spiritual gifts.

Ephesians 4:11-16exhorts us to work with, depend on, and serve one another as the Lord has enabled us. …Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. Their responsibility is to equip God's people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ.This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God's Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of ChristThen we will no longer be immature like children. We won't be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth.Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church. He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.

In so doing, “the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

Hebrews 10:24-25commands us to, consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds

Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works.And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.

Let us encourage one another-and all the more as you see the Day approaching."……Christian interdependence is vital to the body of Christ and its individual members. We are to love one another, eschew selfish ambition, and exercise the gifts of God for the benefit of others

John 13:34-35

So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other.35 Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples."

Romans 12:3-6…Because of the privilege and authority(Or Because of the grace;) God has given me, I give each of you this warning: Don't think you are better than you really are. Be honest in your evaluation of yourselves, measuring yourselves by the faith God has given us.(Or by the faith God has given you; or by the standard of our God-given faith.)Just as our bodies have many parts and each part has a special function,so it is with Christ's body. We are many parts of one body, and we all belong to each other.In his grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well. So if God has given you the ability to prophesy, speak out with as much faith as God has given you.

Philippians 2:3-4

Don't be selfish; don't try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don't look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too.

This is diametrically opposed to the selfishness, dishonesty, and destructiveness of codependency.……Resource: When People Are Big and God Is Small: Overcoming Peer Pressure, Codependency, and the Fear of Man by Edward Welch.