What is the context?
This saying draws together Jesus' teaching about life before God and treatment of other people. It follows the assurance that the Father gives good things, and it calls the hearer to act for another person's good. Its reach is broad: Jesus says to apply it in everything.
The direction is active. A person is to consider how he would wish to be treated and then offer that treatment to others. The attention moves beyond noticing another person's faults toward taking responsibility for one's own conduct.
Jesus connects this with the Law and the Prophets. The same expression appeared near the beginning of the Sermon in Matthew 5:17, where He spoke of fulfilling them. Here He describes considerate action toward others as expressing their purpose.
Later, in Matthew 22:34–40, Jesus again brings the Law and the Prophets together under love for God and love for one's neighbor. This saying belongs within that larger call to love.
How is this passage commonly understood?
Christians commonly understand this saying as a positive call to treat others with the care and consideration one would wish to receive. Wesley on Matthew 7:11–12 connects it with imitating God's love, and the Catholic Catechism, 1789, includes it among the principles that guide moral choices and respect for one's neighbor.
Where does this fit in God's plan?
The concern for another person's good takes its clearest shape in Christ's own service. Philippians 2:3–8 calls believers to look to others' interests, then points to Jesus taking a servant's place and becoming obedient to death. His saving work supplies the pattern for the life His people share.
Galatians 5:13–14 places loving service within the freedom Christ gives. That freedom is to be used to serve others, and Paul connects such love with the fulfillment of the Law. God's rescue forms a people who use their freedom for one another's good.
What is our position?
We don't have a position on this passage yet. When our study reaches a conclusion the text supports, it will appear here.