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Luke 6:31 ESV

Think of Others

In the modern world we often tend to think about what we need to accomplish today or this week.

Americans especially are a doing centered people.

Countries in the Orient (the East) focus more on being. They value group harmony and interdependence.  Western cultures tend to focus on individualism and self-expression.

In Luke 6:31 we are told, “As you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.”

In my estimation those in the west reading this would immediately think of ‘you’ as literally being singular you.

Someone reading Luke 6:31 from a collective culture would think of ‘you’ as a group.

That sheds a great deal of light on seeing/reading scripture from a different cultural lens.

Israel (where this was originally written) is made up of a mixture of west and east. Indeed they are in the Middle East. So the perspective of collective or individual would have been mixed at the time it was written. Think of it from Jesus’ perspective…you would have thought about individual you and group you.

YOU do to others the same as you would want, and YOU the crowd listening need to do to others the same as you would want. Personally I think Jesus intended it to mean both You and You all. Treat others the same way you would like to be treated.

Deborah/acrazyjourney.com