Christianity 102: Live to Benefit Others
Luke 6:27-38, 41-42, 46-48
The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) contains what is probably the most famous and challenging set of quotes emerging directly from Jesus’ mouth in all of Scripture. Our passage this week, Luke 6, contains much of the same teaching. While we might outwardly endorse and “amen” His words, inwardly we are prone to recoil at them. This is really tough stuff. Is Jesus laying down the law regarding how Christians are to treat others?
Clearly, Jesus is not saying that people are made right with God by treating others the right way (whew!). But I don’t think His primary purpose here is to tell us how He expects Christians to interact with others, either. I think what He is doing is dealing with the human heart in its most basic dysfunction: selfishness.
Jesus says that following Him is about laying down our lives for others. But the key to this passage isn’t how we treat others; it is how we think of ourselves. The question is: Who’s number one?
John the Baptist said about Jesus: “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30). Of course, Jesus is God, so if we see ourselves properly juxtaposed to Him, we will certainly humble ourselves immediately and accordingly. But here we need to inject a soaring and radical word from elsewhere in the New Testament.
In Philippians 2:3, the Holy Spirit, speaking through Paul, says: “Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves.” So, to build on John’s statement about Jesus, we could almost add a corollary: “Others must increase, but I must decrease.” We can see putting Jesus first. He deserves that position. But putting others ahead of ourselves?
What would obedience look like? In part, we would love our enemies (with our actions), do good to those who hate us, bless those who curse us and pray for those who mistreat us. We would give without expecting to receive, and not clamor for our rights. We would treat others the way we want them to treat us and we would love those who don’t love us. We would neither judge nor condemn, and we would forgive!
Jesus set the example by pouring Himself out for undeserving sinners. He subordinated His interests to ours. Philippians 2:3 tells us to do the same thing. We must put the proverbial horse back in front of the cart. The spirit of Luke 6 is about us laying aside self, not Jesus laying down law. He’s first. Others are second. We’re a distant third.
– The ETB writer for the spring quarter is a South Carolinian who formerly served Southern Baptists in a closed country. We are honoring his request not to publish identifying information.