--The American way of doing things is to pursue our own individual success and then flaunt it to other people when it happens.
--But this is so obviously a recipe for enticing other people to covet what we have and to resent us for having it.
--So how can we avoid this? How can the successful neighbors both avoid those around us from coveting what we have and for envying us when we do well? And ideally, is there any way we could actually get them to rejoice with us at our success?
--First of all, if we are really there for people who are suffering, this will connect us to them and them to us in such a way that our closeness and unity will prevent the kind of distance which covetousness requires.
--But this is so obviously a recipe for enticing other people to covet what we have and to resent us for having it.
--So how can we avoid this? How can the successful neighbors both avoid those around us from coveting what we have and for envying us when we do well? And ideally, is there any way we could actually get them to rejoice with us at our success?
--First of all, if we are really there for people who are suffering, this will connect us to them and them to us in such a way that our closeness and unity will prevent the kind of distance which covetousness requires.
--But there’s a much more obvious and Biblical solution.
--What if those who succeed devoted themselves to advising and helping others profit from their wisdom and lessons?
--The real solution to coveting is to actively seek to help others prosper. If people who are doing well actively befriend and advise people who aren’t (rather than shunning or judging them as we so commonly do), we might both benefit them with our wisdom and turn them from envious enemies into fellow celebrants of our prosperity.
--They would see their own gains as having been gifts from us and appreciate it.
--They would then have a real interest in celebrating our successes, too.
--The community created in this way would grow in prosperity together and also be fully united in that prosperity, completely unlike what we see today.
--Something about this seems to fit fairly well with the command to “Love your neighbor (!) as yourself.”
--This is the majestically beautiful background blueprint behind the positive obligations implied in the 10th Commandment and sketched out in the rest of the Old and New Testaments.
--The only REAL way to solve for covetousness is to be a loving interconnected and mutually benefitting society, serving each other so we all get ahead rather than using each other so we ourselves can get ahead!
--The real solution to coveting is to actively seek to help others prosper. If people who are doing well actively befriend and advise people who aren’t (rather than shunning or judging them as we so commonly do), we might both benefit them with our wisdom and turn them from envious enemies into fellow celebrants of our prosperity.
--They would see their own gains as having been gifts from us and appreciate it.
--They would then have a real interest in celebrating our successes, too.
--The community created in this way would grow in prosperity together and also be fully united in that prosperity, completely unlike what we see today.
--Something about this seems to fit fairly well with the command to “Love your neighbor (!) as yourself.”
--This is the majestically beautiful background blueprint behind the positive obligations implied in the 10th Commandment and sketched out in the rest of the Old and New Testaments.
--The only REAL way to solve for covetousness is to be a loving interconnected and mutually benefitting society, serving each other so we all get ahead rather than using each other so we ourselves can get ahead!
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