The Golden Rule Reimagined

Luke 6:31

So the conversation started like this:

Me: “Why did you hit your sister?”
Son: “Because of ‘Do to others what you want them do to you.’”
Me: “You want her to hit you?”
Son: “No, she hit me first. Doesn’t that mean she wanted me to hit her back? I mean, if she’s doing to others what she wants done to her, then she must want to get hit.”

I have to admit, that’s a pretty great reimagining of Luke 6:31. Secretly, the revenge-seeker in me likes the idea that the Bible mandates hitting back. But I know that’s not what it means. So, I tried to explain to him that the Golden Rule didn’t work that way. “The verse is telling us how to treat other people up front, not how to react to them.” And, “You can’t control how another person behaves. You can only control yourself.”

I kept telling my son over and over that no matter how someone else is acting, you have to treat them the way you want to be treated. You can’t make someone be friendly. You can’t make someone show love. You can’t make other people do anything. However, you can be friendly to everyone, even the ones who are not. Because you can only control your own actions.

For some reason, no matter how I rephrased it over and over, he just couldn’t grasp the concept. “Why else would they do these things, if they didn’t want me to do it to them?”

“Because sometimes people are mean. Sometimes they make mistakes. People don’t always make good choices. They don’t always do the right thing. Because not everyone follows the Golden Rule.”

And then he had a lightbulb moment: “Do you mean that there are people that don’t do what the Bible says?”

Let that sink in for a moment.

My son, a scientist and mathematician, could not fathom that there are people who don’t try to follow the Bible’s teachings.

In all our years of parenting, we had continually taught our kids that there is a creator and he loves us and has set rules for us to be safe and live an awesome life. It was such a simple concept for our son to grasp that it never occurred to him that other people might not live the same way.

He understands the Golden Rule now, but I can’t help but wish we lived in a world where his reimagined version also applied because everyone followed God’s commands all the time. But then, I guess if everyone followed his commands, we wouldn’t need The Rule, would we?