Today’s Scripture Reading (July 24,
2016): Psalm 37
Master Kong
Qui was the most important Eastern philosophers in history. We know him better
as Confucius. One of Confucius’ basic beliefs was in the idea of peace. Jesus
Christ said, “So in everything, do to
others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the
Prophets” (Matthew 7:12). The idea is one of peace. If we treat others the way
that we want to be treated, there is no reason for conflict. Peace should
reign. What is significant about this idea that we call “The Golden Rule” is
that Jesus was not the only person to have formulated it. Master Kong Qui, 500
years before Jesus, wrote it this way. “What one does not wish for oneself, one
ought not to do to anyone else; what one recognizes as desirable for oneself,
one ought to be willing to grant to others” (Confucius). The first idea is the
Golden Rule in the negative, the second is the Golden Rule in the positive. While
many philosophers in antiquity had some form of the Golden Rule in the
negative, only Confucius and Jesus ever dared to frame the Golden Rule in the
positive. “Give to others what you would want them to give to you.”
The Psalmist
says that “future awaits those who seek peace.” It is something that the great
philosophers from the Psalmist to
Confucius, to Jesus have all understood. The future does not just wait for
those who seek peace, the future only exists because of them. The only path
that we have into the future is because of peace. Violence just won’t get us
there. It has to be peace.
It is
something that we still don’t seem to have understood. Those who live by
violence, the wicked, can only bring close the end of the world. It is those
who seek peace that gives to us a future,
and it is those who challenge us to not just don’t do to others what we would
not want others to do to us, but to do what we would have them do to us, that
make the future the absolute best that it can be.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: 2
Samuel 23
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