PASTOR DAVE’S MUSINGS FROM THE HEARTLAND

January 7, 2024

FOUR WAY TEST (Part I)

In 1904 Paul Harris and three other business men began gathering weekly to share fellowship, discuss matters of common concern, and encourage one another.  As their numbers grew, on February 23, 2005, they formally organized as the Rotary Club of Chicago.   The new organization was formed so professionals from diverse backgrounds could exchange ideas and form meaningful, lifelong friendships.  There name came from the fact that they rotated their meeting place.  This initial club grew to become Rotary International.

In 1932 Rotarian Herbert J. Taylor created a four-way test for doing business when he as asked to take charge of a company facing bankruptcy.  In 1943 the Four-Way Test was adopted by Rotary as a moral code for personal and business relationships for its members.  It was not intended as a way of looking at others, but at oneself in looking at the ramifications of a thought, statement, or action.

FOUR-WAY TEST

For all the things we think, say, and do:

Is it the truth?

Is it fair to all concerned?

Will it build goodwill and better friendship?

Will it be beneficial to all concerned?

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus says, “Do not judge, so that you will not be judged.  For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?  Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eyes.  You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbors, eye (Matthew 7:1-5).”

I have a theory, that is very untested, that when a politician criticizes an opponent it very often tells you more about the one who is doing the criticizing than about the one criticized.  What we see to criticize in others are the things with which we ourselves are most familiar.  The political tactics, strategies, and approaches that politicians negatively ascribes to their opponents are very likely the ones they employ.   The reason that one finds it so easy to find the possible speck in the neighbor’s eye is that it corresponds to the log in our own eye.  When we criticize some one else, very often it tells us more about us than the one being criticized.

The start of a new year is a good time to get our own house in order, to address the logs in our own eye.  Rotary’s Four-Way Test provides an excellent tool to help one do this.  Over the next four weeks I would like to look at each of the four elements of the test.  Hopefully, they will help all of us do a better job of getting the logs out of our own eyes so that we might see our neighbors more clearly.

(Comments may be sent to davidh15503@embarqmail.com.)