What We Learn From Jesus

About How to Treat Others

Why be kind?

Are you kind even when people are unkind to you? If we want to imitate Jesus, we must be kind even to those who hate us. Jesus said: “If you love those loving you, of what credit is it to you? For even the sinners love those loving them. . . . To the contrary, continue to love your enemies . . . , and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind toward the unthankful and wicked.”​—Luke 6:32-36; 10:25-37.

Why be forgiving?

When we make mistakes, we want God to forgive us. Jesus taught that it is proper for us to pray for God’s forgiveness. (Matthew 6:12) However, Jesus also said that God will forgive us only to the extent that we forgive others. He said: “If you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; whereas if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”​—Matthew 6:14, 15.

 How can families be happy?

Although Jesus never married, we can learn much from him about how to make family life happy. Both by his words and by his actions, he set a pattern for us to imitate. Consider the following three points:

1. A husband must love his wife as his own body. Jesus set the example for husbands. He said to his disciples: “I am giving you a new commandment, that you love one another.” To what extent? “Just as I have loved you,” he said. (John 13:34) Applying this principle to husbands, the Bible says: “Husbands, continue loving your wives, just as the Christ also loved the congregation and delivered up himself for it . . . In this way husbands ought to be loving their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself, for no man ever hated his own flesh; but he feeds and cherishes it, as the Christ also does the congregation.”​—Ephesians 5:25, 28, 29.

2. Marriage mates must be faithful to each other. To have sex relations outside of marriage is a sin against God and ruins families. Jesus said: “Did you not read . . . ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and his mother and will stick to his wife, and the two will be one flesh’? So that they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has yoked together let no man put apart. . . . I say to you that whoever divorces his wife, except on the ground of fornication, and marries another commits adultery.”​—Matthew 19:4-9.

3. Children must be in subjection to their parents. Although Jesus was perfect and his parents were imperfect, as a child he obeyed them. The Bible says of Jesus when he was 12 years old: “He went down with them [his parents] and came to Nazareth, and he continued subject to them.”​—Luke 2:51; Ephesians 6:1-3.

Why apply these principles?

Regarding the lessons he taught his disciples, Jesus said: “If you know these things, happy you are if you do them.” (John 13:17) To be true Christians, we must apply the advice Jesus gave us about how to treat others. He said: “By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love among yourselves.”​—John 13:35.

For more information, see chapter 14 of the book What Does the Bible Really Teach? *

[Footnote]

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Jesus’ parable of the wasteful son teaches us the importance of kindness and forgiveness.​—Luke 15:11-32

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Marriage mates should be faithful to each other