Free Markets and Christ's Teachings

Mat 7:12 Therefore all things whatsoever that you want others to do for you, you should do for them: for this is the law and the prophets.

I have often commented on the economic meanings in many of Christ's teachings that are lost in our religious translation of his words. Here, we have the famouse Golden Rule, teaching that we should treat others how they would treat us. However, when we look at the Greek, the term translated as "do," poieo, has a primary meaning of "to make," or "to produce." It has a host of meanings related to the creative acts of production. It also means "to do" and can specifically mean doing things for or to others.

It is the primary meaning of poieo that interests me because its use in this verse defines a free economy. Using this primary meaning, this verse becomes: "Therefore for all things that you would want other to produce for you, you should produce [what they want] for them."

As always, I prefer the whole range of Christ's meaning. I think he was teaching the Golden Rule, but using words that described how economic relationships between people makig free choices should work. This is very consistent with his messages about human society: that it is in the actions of individuals acting freely with other individuals that society is defined, not in social constraints and systems.

However, this verse (like oh, so many), is not quite that simple. There are always interesting problems in translating because some ideas cannot quite be captured in moving from one language to the next. In this verse, the most interesting phrase is pas an hosos thelo, which is translated as "all things whatsoever that you want." Pas is translated as "all things," but it is an adjective that means "each," "every," or "some of a group." An is a particle with no exact translation in English meaning "something that can or could occur under certain conditions." Hosos is a pronoun that means "as great as," "as far as," "how much," "how many," "whoever." Thelo, translated as "want," means "to will," "to intend," "to desire," "to love," and "to take delight in." So a more complete translation of the first part of this verse might be something like "Each or every possible thing that you want so much for others to make or do for you..."