I have heard it said that in order to obey the command to "love your neighbor as yourself", you must first love yourself. This has never set quite right with me, and this evening in my reading in The Cross of Christ, I came to a passage in which John Stott explains why this is not a good interpretation of the command. Here is an extended quote (emphasis added):

Many Christians seem to have allowed themselves to be sucked into this [self-esteem and self-absorption] movement under the false impression that the Mosaic command, endorsed by Jesus, that we love our neighbor as ourselves is a command to love ourselves as well as our neighbor. But really it is not. Three arguments may be adduced.

First, and grammatically, Jesus did not say, "the first commandment is to love the Lord your God, the second is to love your neighbor, and the third to love yourself." He spoke only of the first great commandment and the second which was like it. The addition of "as yourself" supplies a rough and ready, practical guide to neighbor-love, because "no one ever hated his own body" (Eph. 5:29). In this respect it is like the Golden Rule to "do to others what you would have them do to you" (Mt. 7:12). Most of us do love ourselves. So we know how we would like to be treated,and this will tell us how to treat others. Self-love is a fact to be recognized and a rule to be used, not a virtue to be commended.

Second, and linguistically, the verb is agapao, and agape love means self-sacrifice in the service of others. It cannot therefore be self-directed. The concept of sacrificing ourselves in order to serve ourselves is nonsense.

Third, and theologically, self-love is the biblical understanding of sin. Sin is being curved in on oneself (as Luther put it). One of the marks of "the last days" is that people will be "lovers of self" instead of "lovers of God" (2 Tim. 3:1-5). Their love will be misdirected from God and neighbor to self.

How then should we regard ourselves? How can we renounce the two extremes of self-hatred and self-love, and neither despise nor flatter ourselves? How can we avoid a self-evaluation that is neither too low or too high, and instead obey Paul's admonition to "think of yourself with sober judgment" (Rom. 12:3)? The cross of Christ supplies the answer, for it calls us both to self-denial and to self-affirmation. But before we are in a position to consider these complementary exhortations, it tells us that we are already new people because we have died and risen with Christ.

Instead of calling us to love ourselves, Jesus calls us to die to ourselves and rise in new life—new identity—with and in him. In our union with Christ we find the love we need to love God and love our neighbors as we ought.

Last night I preached from James 4:13-17 at the Regeneration Sunday night service. A rough outline of my message is posted over at the Regeneration blog. While I was at it, I also added the ability to subscribe to the Regen blog by email.

Today the California Supreme Court issued its decision to render unconstitutional the state's scheme which reserves "marriage" for one-man, one-woman unions and allows "domestic partnerships", which include nearly all the same privileges and responsibilities of marriage, for homosexual couples. As I read the Court's decision, these are the key elements to their argument that the state's scheme is unconstitutional:

1. The state's constitution guarantees marriage as a fundamental right.
2. The right to marry is defined as "the substantive right of two adults who share a loving relationship to join together to establish an officially recognized family of their own — and, if the couple chooses, to raise children within that family."
3. Differentiation of terms, even without any substantive difference between "marriage" and "domestic partnerships", "impinges upon a same-sex couple's fundamental interest in having their family relationship accorded the same respect and dignity enjoyed by an opposite-sex couple."
4. The protection of "marriage" as reserved for one-man and one-woman does not serve any compelling state interest and is not necessary to serve such an interest.

I'm not sure how #2 slipped by without reference to "between one man and one woman" since law was on the books in California to define marriage in that way, explicitly for the purpose of emphasizing the one-man, one-woman aspect. The long-standing and often unspoken definition of marriage as referring to a man and a woman is jettisoned because "Tradition alone ... generally has not been viewed as a sufficient justification for perpetuating, without examination, the restriction or denial of a fundamental constitutional right." Then the definition that stands on the books is discarded because it is "unconstitutional". So in the end what we are left with is a "constitutional right" that is grounded neither in the original intention of the writers of the constitution nor in the interpretation of it in legislation approved by voters nor in the teleology of marriage as a generally and fundamentally procreative relationship.

(Aside) I think there is an odd irony here that while homosexual couples care so much about the blessing of the state upon their relationship that they battle in court to win that blessing, many "ordinary" heterosexual couples care so little about anyone's blessing on their relationship that they are increasingly living and sleeping together apart from any formalized commitment or community recognition. (End aside)

What is significant, I think, is not this recent decision; it's not a surprise given the ethos of our age—and especially California. For Christians, the cultural pressure to accommodate the view of marriage of the world around us will be increasingly difficult to resist. How can we respond and engage? I think the "missional" answer is to work toward a redemptive counter-culture that honors and promotes marriage as it ought to be and to offer that as a positive vision to the unregenerate surrounding culture.

I've added the RSS feeds for my site and the photo galleries to Feedburner, so now you can get updates by email instead of using an RSS reader. Emails are sent once every evening for each subscription, so you won't get a separate email for every new photo or blog post when multiple new items are posted in a day, a feature especially good for the galleries. To subscribe to the emails, use the following links:
Subscribe to pdb.homelinux.net by Email
Subscribe to Paul's Gallery by Email
Subscribe to Sarah's Gallery by Email
Subscribe to MJBrown Gallery by Email

I think Feedburner is not evil, so you aren't setting yourself up for spam by using this service. I've been trying it out for a week or so, and so far it seems very nice.

There were some extra people around church this morning due to some threats made against Bear Valley and other churches in the area. (See the article about it in the Denver Post.) Fortunately, nothing came of it, and the morning went off without a hitch. Pastor Howard taught from Philippians 4:6-9

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.

While I don't think that anyone was much worried about being gunned down in the parking lot, it certainly is part of the fallen human nature to worry. We worry about the necessities of life such as food, a place to live, and a job. We worry about relationships and the well-being of people we care about. We worry about the future. We worry about ominous global threats like terrorism and global warming. Prayer is the answer to these worries not because of its inherent psychological benefit but because it is an expression of hope and trust in God, who is both good and sovereign. God's sovereignty assures us that he is able to intervene wherever and however he pleases. God's goodness assures us that he will do so to our ultimate good and to his glory. God himself is the ground of the peace that surpasses all understanding.

This morning we sang the song, "I am a Friend of God", which is good in that it echoes and affirms Jesus' words in John 15:15: I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. To be called God's friend is absolutely mind-blowing if you think about it, which is what I think the simple lyrics are intended to point toward. But this morning, I was reminded that this incredible privilege is not rooted whatsoever in anything in me; it depends wholly and entirely on Jesus and his cross-work. I was reconciled from enmity to friendship with God through the blood of Jesus, which he offered willingly on my behalf. Indeed this is how Jesus shows his love for his friends: Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. (John 15:13)

May God give me eyes to see and ears to hear the signs of God's love all around me pointing me to constantly renew my faith in the crucified and risen Lord.

70

I feel like I could have done better. I'm sure Holly will dominate this one, though. :)

This is a good reminder of just how many nations and peoples there are in the world—and all of them need Jesus!

HT: The Suburban Christian