"Do to Others as You Would Have Them Do to You” | Luke 6:27–36

Show Notes

Episode 735: 
In this episode, we jump into a discussion on Luke 6:27-36, where Jesus teaches about loving our enemies and doing good to those who hate us. I emphasize the importance of the qualifier "to those who are willing to listen," suggesting that loving our enemies means treating them as we would want to be treated ourselves. We explore the challenges of this teaching, especially when it comes to doing good for those who have wronged us.

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You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun in practical ways. Well you heard it, Wesley, This one better be fun and practical. Yeah, it's got to be right. Well, hey, last one, it's fine. This is you are. Listening to the last day of Platinum Edition Bible Guys. Wesley Woods is with us. He's filling in Chris Zarba's chair, and I'm Jeff Forster and we're so glad that you decided to join us today. Des is our faithful assistant. She's the one, like the maestro behind the scene. Well, she's the one who makes it happen. I mean, we Chris and I we just stumble in and find out what it is she told us we have to do. She's amazing, and so she has the segment Hot Takes Showdown. Okay, and these are hot takes, and we have to have a bold, controversial position and we have to either defend it or debunk it. There's no little ground, okay, So we can't say either or we have to take a strong position. All right, So here's hot take number one. Jack could have fit on the door in Titanic he just didn't want to remember. At the end, I remember, so she's on the door, they're cold. Jack's on the side looking at her like that. I don't think it was that he didn't want he couldn't. Oh why, well, I think he was like half frozen or whatever. Yeah, yeah, well so was she though it was a big door. It was a big door. I promise you we watched that movie. Yeah, and uh, any movie that has like Nudi the Inner what I always wait till the movie comes out and we'll find where that's at. Skip that part of it. So, uh, so we're watching it first time. I'm all excited to go to watch this movie. It's supposed to be so great. We get to the end. It was intense, right, the whole movie is intense. It's such a wonderful love story, it's so sweet whatever, and then I'm like, just get on the flipping door. I remember, I couldn't believe this dude's gonna die because I didn't know how he was exhausted. I was. I don't want I don't want to ruin it for somebody who's never seen it. But Jack dies and I was so mad, like just move over, lady, Just make some room because I'm looking at the door. The door is big enough. He could have fit on there too. So you think he just wanted to die. And I don't think he wanted to die. I think it was the exhaustion. The So the girl is tougher than him. She could get up on the on the on the on the doors. Yeah. Wow, Okay, you and I are not on the same page on that one. I'm just telling you. The first time I wrote it ruined the movie for me, Like, come on, man, I was so mad because it was such a blockbuster. Then that. Okay, here's here's another one. Hey, Dez, this is a good question. I hadn't seen this one. The cookie part of the oreo is better than the cream? Oh yes, definitely rerually, But I'm so I'm a Wesley. I'm a brownie cookie, the bun, chocolate chip cookie person, so I don't care about the I'm not even a big ice cream person. Oh yeah, you know. So I'm a brownie guy, a chocolate chip guy. So I would take the cookie part over the cream partly. Yeah. No, see, because I feel like the cookie part is the conveyance for the cream part. It's how you get the cream part, so it's kind of like a sandwich for you. The bread is just the vehicle for the meat. I can't remember one time we got a double stuff my mom. You know, we didn't have a lot of money when I was a kid, but so oreos and things like that. They were a special treat. So my mom got some, and my brother and I snagged him. We stole them and we took him in our bedroom, were hiding him, and then I got a butter knife and I took all the cream off and made a pile double stuff oreoles, right, And then we just sat there and ate all the cream. We kept the cookies. Weally hate the cookies, but it was like man, and then at that point, after we got about halfway through the giant pile of other cake, stomach from it. There's too much of a good thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, So you prefer the cookie part over the creaky part any day. Yeah, Wesley, I don't know what to do about it. I don't know what to do about it. This is the platinum edition, so who might argue? Who might argue with Wesley Woods? I can't. I can't do it. But my goodness, what's kind of like. When I go to Cinnabon, I even tell them to go light on the icing. What Like, I'm not a big like. Person, Dude, we should go to Cinnabon together. Then, just as I put it on mind, Yeah, put his mind again. Cinnabon is the same thing that icing. The first three bites, icing is amazing. Yeah. Then by the end you got like a sugar headache. Yeah, just pure sugar. Yeah, Cinnabon. Man, I haven't thought about Cinabon a long time. They keep closing them, I know, so you know, I don't know. One not far from here, but they close that. Yeah, you're right. Okay. Well, hey, as we're wrapping up, we're gonna pivot to Luke chapter six for twenty seven. And it says, due to others, as you'd have them do to you. And so this is what I'm thinking is if you want my cookie, I'll take your I'll take your stuffing. That'd mean all right, we'll just trade. Yeah exactly, So Jesus says in Luke chapter six, verse twenty seven. But you who are willing to listen, I say, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who hurt you. If someone slaps you on one cheek, offer the other cheek. Also, if someone demands your coat, offer your shirt. Also give to anyone who asks. And when things are taken away from you, don't try to get them back. Do to others as you would like them to do to you. Where am I going? Verse thirty six? Oh, I get to read some more. If you love only those who love you, why should you get credit for that? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good only to those who do good to you, why should you get any credit? Even sinners do that much. And if you lend money only to those who can repay you, why should you get credit. Even sinners will lend to other sinners for a full return. Love your enemies, do good to them, lend to them without expecting to be repaid, and then your reward from heaven will be very great, and you will truly be acting as children of the most High, For He is kind to those who are unthankful and wicked. You must be compassionate, just as your father is compassionate. Yeah, these may be the toughest words, Jesus says. Yeah, I was going to say there are some people who are like man, I shouldn't have tuned in the day. Yea. I shouldn't have showed up at this one. I should have said no, this is the Wesley Woods edition. Yeah, yeah, but it says but to you who are willing to listen. I think that verbiage is interesting. I say, love your enemies. But here's the key thing. There's like a qualifier here. It's not just love your enemies, because that can be open to interpretation. But I think the deeper meaning is love them like you would love yourself. So the same way that you like you is how you should like them. And I think when you put it in that perspective, it's like, whoa, this is deep here, because again, like I said, just love your enemies, different people could interpret that differently. Well, I didn't slap them, so that was loving them, you know, but Jesus says, no, I wouldn't. Treat them as bad as they treated me. Yes, it is a pretty subjective yeah response. Yeah, but yeah, love them like you would love yourself. And then not only that, do good to those who hate you. So that takes it even a step further. Now I want you to do good to them, which can be very tough when someone has done you wrong and you feel like you've been mistreated and you legitimately are in the right. Yeah, the Bible still says do good to those who hate you. So it's interesting. It doesn't necessarily mean love the people you hate. That's not what you're saying. It doesn't mean that you have to have enemies, right. It's possible to be a person who's not walking around having enemies. Yeah, but that doesn't mean that other people don't view you as an enemy, right. So I want to live my life in a way that for the most part, I'm not creating a bunch of enemies. I'm thinking of a story with my mom. Years ago. My mom worked at Chrysler and she got a job working on the line, you know, on the factory part. And she's new there, only there like a month, and she's just doing her job. She's friendly with everybody, and a woman walks up to her and says, so you wanna well, I can't say exactly what the woman said, but you want to whoop my tail, whoop my tail? And my Mom's like, what in the world is going on here? Where this lady? For whatever reason, was angry at her for whatever reason, and my mom was completely clueless as to what was going on. So I think of that. Story where sometimes people just make you their enemy. They don't like what you're about, they don't like your faith, they don't like how you do it. They just don't like how you look. They don't like how you view the world, they don't like how you vote, whatever, they just don't like you. Sometimes people can not like you because of the happiness in your life. Yeah, yeah, you know you. Have joy in your life. Well you should be miserable, like I'm miserable. Why are you so happy all the time? And you know, so it doesn't have to be that you've chosen some enemies and now Jesus is saying you should love them. It can be that even if people have chosen to hate you for some reason, Jesus is saying you should love them. But then he doesn't leave it up to just love because you and I can claim to love people and nobody knows. Yes, you know, I'm such a good Christian. I love all my enemies. The proof of it is always in the action. Yes, So in the same way that you know, we read a few days ago, where Jesus was talking about the action matters. In this one, the Jesus was saying about it says that he loved his disciples and then he washed their feet. Yes, he served them in the same way. So love does action is the proof of the love. Otherwise love is just a word. It might be a fuzzy feeling. But action is what demonstrates love. And so this is what he kind of puts it on. Is to go beyond just saying I have a fondness for a love for some spiritual claim that nobody can prove, because you can prove whether or I did good to them right to bless those who curse you. It's hard. It's hard when when when you find out somebody said something bad about you, and you know you and I were public figures. We say a lot of words on a given Sunday. Any given message is going to have somewhere around I'll say twenty five or thirty thousand words on a Sunday morning because we do four identical services, right, Yeah, maybe maybe maybe forty thousand words. I'm gonna say dumb things. Yeah, I'm going to say something that's going to offend somebody or whatever, and then it's gonna make people med. They're gonna they get mad at us. And so then people say stuff. It's a shocking you see it more than I do. Even sometimes people leave reviews online. Yeah, and it just means stuff sometimes, you know, on social media or on Google reviews or something. They just give these horrible reviews and like, dude, I don't even know you, why are you just shredding me like that? And with that in mind, I remember we got a bad review for something we didn't even do. I remember that when I won't even going to the story, and I'm like, wait. That wasn't us. Yeah, so's it's just a funny thing how that happens. And so I try. I try when when when I find out that somebody says something AboutUs or some every once in a while pastor believe not, pastors were not always good Christians. Either our pastors say something bad about me or or whatever. I always try to find a potential other meaning behind what they said or what they did. Yeah, I try. I don't always do it, but this idea, bless those who curse you, and then you know, pray for them. Bless them. He says, if someone slaps you on the cheek, offer the other also, and what do you. Think that means? Jeff, I mean if because growing up, you know, I've heard this particular verse twenty nine preached a lot of times. You know, what do you think that means? Is it a physical slap? Is that? What do you think the meaning. Is behind that one? I think it can be a physical slap because so there's a difference between a fight like I'm going to do damage, I'm gonna I'm going to harm you, yeah, and the offensive slap like you ever watch any of the old like I don't know, smack their face. Yeah, or they'll use a shoe. Yeah, in the Middle East of culture, they'll use a shoe and they'll smack you. Or if they can't do that, it'll be an open handed smack. It's not a punch. We're not fighting. I'm insulting you with this open hand. I'm not gonna do any real damage. I'm just in front of everybody. It's a dominant move. Yeah. Well, when they when they go to make this dominant offensive move, slap you with their gloves, slap you with their shoe, open handed smack. That dominant move Jesus says, just off from the other cheek too. One that's pretty pretty tough. It's such a cool response. The other side of it is, if you're feeling that dominant, here, here's another one. And what you're saying immediately is you're not dominant over me. You're offering this, this, this other cheek. What Your words aren't gonna hurt me, your actions aren't going to hurt I'm just gonna be refused. I'm going to refuse to let you bait me into what you're trying to bait me in. And likely that person wouldn't know how to respond in that instance, like wait a minute, well that didn't work, and you know that kind of thing. So it's there's not a sass to it necessarily, it's just an off putting response to because you would think I smack you with my glove or you know, in the in the olden days, you know, I challenge you to a duel that kind of thing, and oftentimes that required the smacking of the glove. They wouldn't know what to do because you're what you're supposed to step up to it. Now your manhood's been insulted, so now you have to match that insult, and then ultimately it's gonna take us to a duel. That's the idea. And so instead of matching the insult, in order to protect your own manhood, your own dignity, you go ahead and go, oh no, hey, if this is important to you, go ahead hit the other one too. Yeah. Right. It's kind of a confusing thing, like, wait a minute, thought this was gonna go. You know it, diffuse it, yeah, yeah, yeah, I uh, it takes two to tangle. You've heard that before. I've had people before that. So I used to like to box when I was a kid, and and even not boxing, I liked fighting kid, not mad, just fun the sport of And I've told this, I think on this podcast before you know. I grew up out in the country. We my my block was a square mile. There were like six other boys, seven other boys that lived on the on the block, and we watched I can't remember Muhammad ali Is Mike Michael spin fight, Yeah, and it was super cool. So now of a sudden, we want to be boxers. Yeah. So so we're out there boxing in the backyard and stuff, and then we were fighting over a football game. We were playing football baseball rules something like that. We were arguing about it. Yeah, and uh my dad just said, I'm sick because he just hear us arguing. We had a really big piece of property and he was doing some work, but he's just sick of us arguing. She comes and said, hey, listen, when I was a kid, what we do is we draw a circle, and whoever got knocked out of the circle they lost the argument. That way, you put some energy behind what you're doing. He said, we can't fight because you're angry, and show you guy, you know it's okay. So then it stopped being football and basketball. We just wanted to baseball. We just draw the circles and we would fight just for fun. We go home with bloody lips and black eyes and stuff. You know. We weren't fighting to do damage. We were just fighting to see who was tougher, who could knock the other person off the circle? Oh wow? Who loved it? So because of that, you know, by the time I was a teenager, I'd taken a lot of punches, bare knuckle punches, you know, so getting punched isn't a big deal. Yeah, it's shocking to somebody when they haul off and give you their best and you don't do anything. Yeah, they're wanting to fight. Yeah, and what Jesus is saying is it's really hard to fight with a person who just won't fight. Yeah, that's what he's saying. Yeah, it's it's so shocking of a response that it's very likely to diffuse the whole thing. Yeah. I heard her pastor talk about this, how he was having an argument with his wife, and his wife had decided she wasn't going to argue back. She wasn't going to fight or anything, and not physically fight, but not argue back and forth. So she left the room and he just continued on having the argument with himself. This doesn't make sense, his love. And then she came back and said, isn't it sad you are in this room by yourself having it, still having an argument. Yeah. So what he's doing is he's giving you kind of an opportunity here to defuse. And then the other one. If someone demands to co this is the language here in this translation. So someone demands your coat, this is more of a legal demand. It's it's your being sued, right, So not just hey can I have your coat? Although that's not bad because he does say to lend to people who want you know your enemies. So these are all enemy moments, your friend, somebody punches you or slaps you. Rather, you can take it. The Bible does not say we can't defend ourselves. And matter of fact, the Bible mentions multiple times it's responsibility the strong to protect the weak. Right so, and and the Bible does say that we can protect ourselves and our property. But in this instance, this is an enemy trying to make a point, kind of man up on you. Try to be a tough guy on you. Okay, go ahead, buddy, and you'll diffuse it. Sometimes if you turn the other cheek when they sue you to take away your coat, he said, sometimes the thing that winds up proving to everybody that you're better is here, take take my take my other coat too. Right, here you go, I'll give you more than you sued for kind of thing. And it's not emitting that you did the wrong thing. It's really kind of saying that they did the wrong thing. So here just right, and so going beyond on that, and what it does is it prooves I think the outcome of this Jesus isn't saying it this way. But the outcome is everybody who's watching sees your response versus their their willingness to take from you, versus your kindness and generosity say, oh, if you need it so bad, take this too. Yeah. Right, And they don't need it that bad and they know it. And Jesus in another passage, talks about heaping coals of fire on their heads. Right. That's It's all you're doing, is you're kind of putting it back at them, pointing out what you're doing is horrible. But I'm going to be good when you're being bad. That's the whole thing here is I'm choosing a good way when you're choosing the bad way. When God can turn the tables. I'll never forget the story of my sister. She worked in corporate America and had a boss that just was a pain in the neck. I mean, this lady would it was just a terrible boss. And eventually my sister, who worked under her, ended up that lady got demoted and my sister became her boss. Yeah, but my sister always respected her. She always did what the lady said to do and all of that things. And I believe that God blessed her as a result of that. I think God gives you his favor when you choose to go this way, and I think good people notice it when you choose the good way, and because what they're expecting is for you know, a person with a good heart, but is a in a cutthroat business, the cutthroat business environment, they're used to watching people cut each other's throats, and then they're used to watching the powerful rise. But if there's one that has a good heart that just happens to be in a cutthroat world, they don't want to be in a toxic environment. They want to be in a healthy environment. So when they see a toxic person that smacks you and you don't give it back, when they try to take from you and you give them extra, they begin to see that's a good guy in this bad environment. And they, if they have power, they tend to elevate the good ones and they try to marginalize the bad ones. And so you have to understand, I think all of these are about the fact that others are watching too, not just not just the fact that you too have an issue, but that others are watching and seeing and you wind up going the better way because Jesus is teaching this is how my followers will be. Ultimately, what it comes down to is Verse thirty one, due to others as you'd like them do to you. We call this the Golden rule. Do unto others as you'd have them do unto you. And I used to make jokes saying so when we would do those, we'd draw those circles and we'd box for fun. I would always throw the first punch. Yeah, it'd be like dingdam, I just throw the first punch just fast I could. Yeah, And I would always say, well, the Bible says due to others before they do to you. Yeah, And it doesn't say due to others before they do to you. Do on to others as you'd have them do under you. But that was kind of one of those things. So if you're having a hard time figuring it out, then let's say it's your worst day and I smack it's my worst day. I just lose my temper, my temper, and on my worst day, I smack you. I would hope that was your best day and you would choose to diffuse it. So in that case, then when it's my turn, if it's your worst day, and you smack me in a fight. Maybe today I need it to be my best day where I don't back right, if I would want you to forgive me when I make a mistake or help me diffuse a thing, you know, in my same one, Because if I'm going to haul off and smack you today, I'm not in the sane moment, right, I'm not in my best mind in that moment. So I would hope I want to treat people like they would want to to like I would want to be treated. Yeah. Yeah, And this is a great way to live your life when you're not exactly sure what to do. Treat people the way you'd want to be treated. And for me, I found myself as a boss giving more severance than really would be required in letting somebody go. I try to make sure that we celebrate. I try to minimize publicly, minimize mistakes as much as possible. I try to absorb people's complaints about my staff because I would want my staff to do those things for me, and I wanders to do that for me. And so I think that that's really what he's saying is when you don't when there's no fixed rule. Now, God gives you lots of fixed rules. There's thirty something thousand verses in the Bible. Yeah, there's lots of rules. Do those rules. Yeah, he's not saying, just wing it. But when there's not a fixed rule, then the best rule is the golden rule. Treat people the way you want to be treated. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, what else you see on your west any at a minute? For one more, one more thing I want to throw in, just because we're running long time. If we jump down to verse thirty five, I love your enemies, do good to them, lend to them without expecting to be repaid. But if we go down a little further, it says, for he is kind to those who are unthankful and wicked, which I think is very interesting that he is even kind to those types of people. So if Jesus is kind to those who are unthankful and wicked, certifiably, then we should do the same too. That's right, you know we aren't exempt from that. I'll share this very quick story with my mom. She used to. Be a cashier in a cafeteria and there was this one lady who was mean every single day, Like I'm not joking, like every single day. This lady was mean when she would it was a teacher, and the teachers would typically go to the cafeteria like before school. It's kind of how they were set up. They could get food or whatever, and then when schools started, it was normal kids would come down or whatever every single day. This lady was like that. At the end of the year, the lady came to my mom and thanked her and said, you don't know what I was struggling with and dealing with all year long, and every day you greeted me with a smile, And she just thanked my mother and appreciate And my mom was like, I would have never I thought this lady was crazier, so I didn't know what was wrong with her. Yeah, but my mom still would say God bless you and have a big smile, you know, even though the lady was acting the way she was. But you sometimes you don't know why the person is the adversary, yea. You know, we just assume they're the adversary because they're evil, But you don't know what's going on in that person's life to make them the way they are, which is why they're reacting the way they are with you. Yeah, Yeah, well, we learned so much by watching other people. Yeah, and even as adults, we still learn by mimicking and those things. And I can't tell you how many times I've had adults say, you know, the way he kept treating me in the office changed the way I treat up in the office. Right, it's adults, and so you just never know who's going to learn from you and the way that you do things, And so Jesus says, treat people the way that you want to be treated, and then it'll be amazing the kind of impact over time, the kind of change that begins to make in the society around. Another way is start living, Start living the lifestyle and the way that you wish society was. Start being that person. Now, how about that, I've heard it phramesed as you be the change. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly what it is. So what a great way to end our week. And we're so glad that you joined us and we look forward to seeing you again next weekend on our next week on the Bible, guys,