In /The Book of Matthew/, Jesus said, “Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also
to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets,” and this phrase is commonly known as /The
Golden Rule/, and it’s probably one you heard in school as a kid: treat others the
way you wanna be treated.
And if this rule is understood in all its depth, I think you’ll find that it’s legitimately
life-changing.
See, at the heart of /The Golden Rule/ is the principle of equality.
Whatever rule you think other people should live by, you should live by that rule too.
And whatever rules you currently live by, you should allow others to live by those rules
too.
And why is equality important?
When there’s equality, relationships are based on fair trade, and when relationships
are based on fair trade, all parties mutually thrive.
And tell me, isn’t that a good definition of heaven?
The place where all things mutually thrive?
So /The Golden Rule/ can be thought of as the road to heaven—which is the best of
all possible realities, the reality where everything thrives.
But clearly, we don’t live in the best of all possible realities.
So we must constantly be breaking /The Golden Rule/, but why?
Why don’t we naturally treat others they way we want to be treated?
What prevents us from living out this rule?
Well, we break /The Golden Rule/ when we stop treating each other as equals, and we stop
treating each other as equals when we make unfair trades.
And what’s an unfair trade?
“Thriving” at the expense of someone else, or allowing someone else to thrive at your
expense.
And what causes us to allow these unfair trades?
Hypocrisy.
There are two roads to hypocrisy.
The first road is where you think that what you want in a relationship is more important
than what the other person wants.
So in this scenario, you’ll tend to make exchanges unfair in a way that benefits you
at the expense of the other person.
The second road to hypocrisy is where you think that what you want in a relationship
is less important than what the other person wants.
So in this scenario, you tend to make exchanges unfair in a way that benefits the other person
at your expense.
And this type of hypocritical thinking is a direction violation of /The Golden Rule/
and equality.
In the first scenario, you think you’re superior to someone else, and in the second
scenario, you think you’re inferior.
And hypocritical thinking is the one mistake most people make in life, and it’s a mistake
that will ruin your life.
And where does this mistake lead?
Hypocrisy leads to unfair trade, and unfair trade leads to inequality.
And what does inequality lead to?
Think about it.
What happens if you take from the trees but you never give back to them?
Mutual destruction.
The trees will be the first ones to go, but we’ll go shortly after too.
And the same thing happens to us in an unequal relationship.
We’ll give so much of ourselves that we have nothing left to give, or we’ll take
so much from someone that there will be nothing left to take.
And so hypocrisy, which is a violation of /The Golden Rule/, leads to hell—the worst
of all possible realities, the reality where nothing thrives.
Let’s take a look at an example.
Jane is a very beautiful woman, but she also happens to be very entitled.
She believes that, because she’s beautiful, she deserves a man who will give her whatever
she wants.
She deserves a man who will take care of her and provide her with a nice lifestyle.
And what does she offer in exchange?
In what ways does she support the man who supports her?
Because Jane believes that men are meant to take care of women, she doesn’t believe
that she has to offer them anything.
She believes that what she wants is more important than what they want.
/These men are just lucky to have me in their life/, she thinks.
/And if they don’t like me, I’ll just find someone else who’ll treat me right./
And Jane demands a lot from the men she dates: they have to make a lot of money, be tall,
be handsome, be out-going, be well-read, and well travelled.
She wants a man who can satisfy her every physical, psychological, and financial need,
but she doesn’t believe that she needs to bring anything to the table.
She’s a hypocrite, and remember, hypocrisy is a violation of /The Golden Rule/.
And so far, Jane is still single, because most of the men she dates don’t feel she
loves them as much as they love her.
But one day, Jane met John.
When John was a child, John’s father abandoned him and his mother, and so his mother raised
him all alone.
And John’s mother always told him what a “good man” was.
A good man took care of his mother.
A good man never hurt a woman’s feelings.
A good man is strong.
A good man is a protector, a provider, and a generous giver.
And she would tell him that most men are pigs, and they only want one thing!
And as John internalized these teachings, he began to tie his self-worth to how much
he could give to others, especially women, without expecting anything in return, even
if that meant suppressing his own desires.
And that made John a hypocrite too, because he believed what others wanted was more important
than what he wanted.
And so by being a hypocrite, John too broke /The Golden Rule/.
And so what happened when Jane met John?
It was a match made in hell.
Jane fully took advantage of John’s generous nature, and because John believed in always
giving, he never questioned it.
The more she demanded of him, the more he gave.
He bought her nice things, took her to nice places, dressed the way she liked, always
talked about what she wanted to talk about, helped her with her career, and so on.
He even helped fund her business ideas.
He helped her create this false identity that she could present to the world.
Meanwhile, his own identity became more suppressed and repressed.
More and more, he just became a shell of himself.
And more and more, he just became an extension of her.
He became a puppet and tool to further her image.
And of course, Jane did not give John any credit for what he did.
She believed that it was due to her beauty that all off this happened.
She was owed all of this from John and the world, and she was simply getting what she
had always deserved.
But as John lost himself more and more, he became full of sorrow.
He stopped giving to her, because he had nothing left to give.
And she started to resent him for that.
Why should she stick around if he has nothing to give?
And so when he stopped doing things for her, she left him.
And neither of them really benefitted from this exchange.
John and Jane had both lost themselves in this relationship.
John became a shell of his former self and lost his identity, and Jane’s identity was
a false one that only held together because of John.
When John stopped providing for Jane’s lifestyle, Jane stopped having nice things, nice homes,
and the business that he helped her open went under.
Her entire image fell apart.
And this relationship was doomed to fail.
Why?
Because they were both hypocrites who broke /The Golden Rule/: treat others the way you
want to be treated, as equals.
Jane believed that what she wanted was more important than what John wanted, but John
also believed that what Jane wanted was also more important than what he wanted.
They were two sides of the same coin.
Their relationship was based on inequality, and as I said before, inequality is the road
to hell—the place where no one thrives.
And so, how do we overcome hypocrisy?
By believing that, in a healthy relationship, what we want is just as important as what
the other person wants.
And when there’s no hypocrisy, there’s fair trade, and when there’s fair trade,
there’s equality, and when there’s equality, /The Golden Rule/ is satisfied, and when /The
Golden Rule/ is satisfied, we move closer to heaven—the place where everyone thrives.
So that concludes my exploration of Jesus’ teaching in /The Book of Matthew/.
As always, this is just my opinion and understanding of Jesus’ teaching, not advice.
Feel free to use this information however you like, and if you have a different take
on the his words, I’d love to hear your perspective in the comments.
If you liked the video, please consider liking the video.
And if you’re looking for another video to watch after this one, I recommend watching
my video “Jesus - The Smartest Way to Build Your Life”.
I’ll put a link to it in the description below and in the top right of the screen right
now.