The Parable of the Beaten Jew: Part 1 - Dangerous Love
As I already mentioned a few posts back, I had the opportunity to give a devotion at a Sunday morning breakfast at my church a few weeks ago. When I was asked to do this, I was at a loss for a topic, but was soon reminded of our God's faithfulness. One evening Michelle and I were flipping through the channels and came across a Christian broadcast network, where we saw a popular youth pastor on his own 30 minute show delivering a quick, "extreme" devotion/application. His whole thing was about how Christians (teenaged Christians in particular) are challenged with interaction and making friends with their peers. He brought the talk around to Matthew 22 and the great commandment, and from that he concluded that loving others all depends upon loving ourselves first. Brothers and sisters, I couldn't disagree more with this.
Now, I have heard this concept before, as I'm sure many of you have as well. In fact, I hear it every January during the "Equality Discussion Panels" my college holds on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Right off the bat, the very concept of "loving myself" period, never mind before I love, or in order to love, others just sits wrong with me. I recall scriptures that say that we are to regard others more highly than ourselves, and that the heart is deceitful and wicked and that no man can know it. How can we love ourselves in light of these words? As I looked more deeply into the concept, and to see how anyone can see it supported in the great commandment, I saw how dangerous it really is.
To be Continued....
posted by Ian @ 12:10 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
The idea may have originated by twisting the "Golden Rule" around - love others as you love yourself. Of course the Bible ASSUMES you already love yourself. Then in my college psychology classes days (late '60s-early 70's) it was THE "golden rule" to love yourself BEFORE you could love others. Of course all this self attention proved quite popular, but, as you know, it's not something you see in Scripture.
We talked a little bit about this in my Theology class yesterday. we were talking about being made in the image of God, and how people take this and run with the idea that we are great and amazing and 'little gods'. i saw some quotes from 'tv personalities' who would largely be considered charasmatic and they were all saying that we must love ourselves because we are made in the image of God.
These people also run with the verses in Psalm 139 where it says, "For you formed my inward parts; you kitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for i am fearfully and wonderfully made."
The problem with that is totally ignoring the point of the verses. the point of the verses isn't that we are fearfully and wonderfully made, but that God is the awesome Creator that is worthy of our praise.
Like my mom says, these verses already assume we love ourselves, which is pretty much proved on a daily basis. Christ just asked us to hold others as highly as we hold ourselves. There are plenty of other passages telling us we are actually sinful wretched humans on our own.
good to see some posts. i haven't read the others yet.
Rom.5:8 "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us." Yeah, it wasn't that we "deserved it" or that we were "special" - Romans 5:10 "we were enemies". It was the power and grace of God that should be glorified!
I was doing a word study last week on works vs. fruit. Kittels had some great things to say about works and made the point that all men are evil. We discussed it at Bible study and it was brought up that anything "good" anyone does without the Holy Spirit is due to common grace. It is interesting because I hadn't thought of being thankful for common grace before, but I think we should be.
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