Do Unto Others…

This has nothing to do with my previous post, but it was inspired by James’ post on religion.

At the end of his post, James mentioned a number of teachings from a number of religions, and a bunch of them were along the lines of “don’t do things to people that you wouldn’t want them to do to you”. Good advice that we should all follow. However, if you read carefully, you’ll notice that the teaching from Christianity is a bit different: “And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.” Or, from a more modern translation of the Bible:

So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. (Matthew 7:12)

This is basically the same teaching, but the Christian version is a bit more open-ended, and therefore a bit harder to follow. Christianity teaches that you should not only refrain from doing things that will hurt people, but that you should also actively do good things for them.

Hard teaching, that Christians don’t often live up to—myself included.