Confucius Was Confused
Tuesday, March 19, 2024
“When a man carries fireworks in his hand, he should be careful that he does not go near a candle.” – C.H. Spurgeon
Today’s quote sounds like something you’d expect Confucius, the Chinese philosopher who lived around 500 B.C., to say. Among Confucius’s teachings were for children to respect their parents and for wives to respect their husbands. He also taught that the family unit was the cornerstone of a stable society and an ideal government.
Confucius championed the “Silver Rule,” which was the negative version of the Golden Rule. Whereas the Golden Rule states, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” the Silver Rule says, "Do not do unto others what you do not want done to yourself." Personally, I much prefer the positive message share by Jesus in Matthew 7:12.
As laudatory as some of Confucius’s teachings were, they completely missed the mark in one critical area. Confucius focused on proper and ethical moral behavior as a method of reaching tian or heaven. However, the Bible makes it painfully clear that “there are none righteous, no not one” (Romans 3:10); and that our most righteous deeds are still “filthy rags” in God’s sight (Isaiah 64:6) because they are never 100% pure. Instead, as Paul points out in Ephesians 2:8-9, salvation is a gift of God that is offered by grace and accepted by faith alone.
Sorry, Confucius, but your good works just won’t cut it.
Now back to Spurgeon’s fireworks analogy for a minute. Every man, woman, and child has inherited a sin nature from Adam and as such, we are easily tempted to sin ourselves. For that reason, we should stay as far away from sin as possible, lest we “catch fire” and get burned. Fireworks are pretty to watch in the night sky, but just ask someone who has had a firecracker go off in their hand what it’s like to lose a finger, an eye, or an ear. Now magnify that loss an infinite number of times and you will realize the danger of losing one’s life… or soul.
“By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.” Hebrews 11:24-25 (NIV)
- Rev. Dale M. Glading, President
