Luke 6:31 meaning

The parallel Gospel account for Luke 6:31 is Matthew 7:12.

Treat others the same way you want them to treat you (v 31).

Jesus summarizes the main social ethic of His kingdom platform. This command is often called “the golden rule.”

The golden rule is the principle behind the particular commands Jesus previously cited, such as: love your enemies and do good to those who hate you (Luke 6:27); bless those who curse you and pray for those who mistreat you (Luke 6:28); turn the other cheek, give abundantly, and do not turn away someone who asks of you (Luke 6:29-30).

Jesus teaches His disciples to treat people the same way you want them to treat you. Christ assumes a built-in mechanism of acting according to one’s self-interest within every human being. Christ assumes everyone wants to be treated with fairness, kindness, and mercy. And a big part of why this principle is so powerful is because His assumption is true. Everyone always seeks what they perceive to be in their self-interest.

Christ’s command is a call to action. Instead of saying “Don’t treat people in any way you would not want them to treat you,” Jesus frames His command positively. He declares the way we should act and treat people. This positive, active framework goes beyond a bare command to avoid something negative. If Christ’s command was negative, it could be obeyed by doing nothing. But the Messiah is not calling people to merely avoid messing up. He is calling them to act in love. And love often requires action rather than inaction. By framing His words positively, Jesus’s command applies both ways. In treating people the same way we want them to treat us, we are both actively doing for them the kind of things we would like them to do for us, and we are avoiding doing the kind of things to them that we would dislike if done to us.

It is interesting to note that in Matthew’s parallel Gospel account, the phrase “for this is the Law and the Prophets” is included at the end of Jesus’s teaching (Matthew 7:12). Luke likely omitted this phrase because it would not have had the same impact on his Greek Gentile audience as it would Matthew’s Jewish audience. Matthew’s audience would probably have appreciated the connection between Jesus’s teaching and the chief social rule taught by Moses, “you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord” (Leviticus 19:18). This would have been Jesus’s connection to “the Law and the Prophets.”

Luke’s audience likely appreciated the moral principle stated in its purest form, stripped of its Old Testament reference.