Ok, call me a glutton for punishment, but I am still interested in exploring the concept of appropriate self-love and I am hoping we can reason together using a foundational Scripture as a springboard to examine the veracity of this proposition.

I am absolutely aware that this is a controversial subject, prone to misunderstanding and preconceived bias, but I am convinced that Scripture can be plumbed and a reasonable conclusion derived of "good and necessary consequence".

Now, I am not a trained logician nor a student of the science of logic, but I
believe that reason is a gift from God and is a substantiating element (among
many, many others) for the proof of God's existence, so I think it is appropriate to employ this gift to seek His truth.

I am also not a trained exegete, but I approach Scripture with fear and trembling and a regenerate seeker's desire to understand the mind of Christ and the logic of God.

With that being said, let's look at Christ's response to the questioning of the Pharisees in Matthew 22:

Look at vs. 39 - YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF

There seems to be a hidden premise in this statement:

All people love themselves or all people have self-love

I would like to explore this hidden premise a bit.

If all people love themselves, does that mean the love that people feel for
themselves is always appropriate and appropriately expressed? Even a cursory
examination of Scripture will lead to the inevitable conclusion - "NO".

So, if there are inappropriate expressions of self-love, are there any examples
of appropriately expressed self-love?

Look at Luke 10:

If we take the hidden premise "All people have self-love" and apply it to this situation - which person expresses appropriate self-love?

Obviously, it is the Samaritan - but what makes this expression of self-love appropriate?

Do you agree that there is appropriate and inappropriate self-love or is self-love some neutral and given assumption with no additional derivable conclusions?

Thanks for your thoughtful and considerate responses.

__________________
-JD
1Thess5:21
Ordained Deacon, PCA
Serving in the SBC
MS

Team blog: ChristianSkepticism.org | Personal:...a Longmire rambles | facebook

I have never been able to "define" a Biblical love of self, the Bible says to love my neighbor as myself....so if I were some lunatic and starved myself and poked myself with glass, I am not sure how I could ever express true love in my community: That said, it is a good question, I would love to hear a PB wise-one expound on the issue.

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~etexas~

Maybe I can put this here now since it seems to have gotten lost in the previous thread.

Question: Are you saying in the original post that as we love God more we love ourselves in a more godly way and we should then seek to love others in that same godly way we have come to love ourselves?

Note: I always took this verse to mean that, we already love ourselves in that our main goal in life is self-preservation by way of food, clothes, shelter, water etc. and we should then seek to love others in this way. I guess one could say that we should seek to do these things for others, put their primary needs above our own and in this way we are loving God the way he has commanded since Jesus states, after listing some ways that one would show love to Christ,

Matthew 25:31-46
31“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. 32Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. 34Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ 37Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? 38And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? 39And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ 40And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers,£ you did it to me.’
41“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, 43I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ 44Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ 45Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ 46And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
(ESV)

Just thinking

__________________
Erick Bohndorf PCA, KS
http://qayaqtraveler.blogspot.com/
Jeremiah 23:16,17, "Thus says the Lord of hosts: “Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you, filling you with vain hopes. They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord. 17They say continually to those who despise the word of the Lord, ‘It shall be well with you’; and to everyone who stubbornly follows his own heart, they say, ‘No disaster shall come upon you."

I am not so sure that self love in these passages is lifted up as a good thing. It is set up to show that we need to care for others as much as we care selfishly for ourselves.

I think this passage is a reflection of what is being said in the passages you site.

It is a given that we love ourselves above all things. Even in suicide and self punishment we are trying to make up for our inadequacy's. Relieving the supposed pain by self affliction or escaping it all by death.

Self love is deceptive.

__________________
R. Martin Snyder (Moderator)

1689er
Harmony Baptist Church (Member)
PuritanCovenanter MSN Blog
PuritanCovenanter's MySpace Page

"Our object should not be to have scripture on our side but to be on the side of scripture; and however dear any sentiment may have become by being long entertained, so soon as it is seen to be contrary to the Bible, we must be prepared to abandon it without hesitation."
William Symington

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JD is it possible you are getting at the idea of dignity? If so I don't think that this passage is really applicable because as Randy states, that's not what's in view, IMO.

__________________
Chris Poe--Attending Grace Community Baptist Church, Mandeville, LA

"There never was a man in the world without a creed. What is a creed? A creed is what you believe. What is a confession? It is a declaration of what you believe. That declaration may be oral or it may be committed to writing, but the creed is there either expressed or implied."—B.H. Carroll

IMO this premise is not necessarily in the text but rather read into it.
Another possible premise for the statement is;
Love your neighbor and yourself because God commands it/finds it pleasing/recieves glory through this Love.
The Command is to love our neighbor the same way we love ourselves, but it does not say the same way we instinctly love ourselves.

Certaintly there is a self-love that is idolatry, and I assume this is the inappropriate self-love mentioned. An appropriate self-love would then have to be found only in the love of ourselves as God's creature created in His image, and as a member of His eternal Covenant. This would logically be the case because we are commanded to Love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength i.e. All of our love. All of Adam's offspring naturally create idols of themselves and the first great commandment totally destroys the idea that kind of self-love is good. The second is like it as it is about Love, but it is also like it because the love of self as well as thy neighbor should be because it is based in our Love for God.

I do not view this passage as much about the self preserverving love of self that is apparent in all beings, but the love of self that can only be understood by the regenerate heart of one in covenant with God. Our Love for ourselves that is based on who we are as God's creation, made in His image, and as His covenant people chosen out all those made in His image. This would also explain the bibles greater emphasis placed on our Love for fellow believers than those not under the covenant of Grace.

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Bryan Riddle
1689 London Baptist Confession
Bethel Baptist Church Owasso, Oklahoma

FWIW here's my attempt at a biblical definition of legitimate self love.

Doing unto ourselves as we would have others doing (and be biblically justified in so doing) unto us.

__________________
In Christ's love and service

Mr. Tim Cunningham, Dip. CS (Regent College)
Member, First Baptist Church
Vancouver, BC

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"The Reformation was a time when men went blind, staggering drunk because they had discovered, in the dusty basement of late medievalism, a whole cellar of 1500-year-old, 200 proof grace—a bottle after bottle of pure distillate of Scripture, one sip of which would convince anyone that God saves us single-handedly. The word of the gospel—after all these centuries of trying to lift yourself into heaven by worrying about the perfection of your own bootstraps—suddenly turned out to be a flat announcement that the saved were home-free before they started. Grace was to be drunk neat: no water, no ice, and certainly no ginger ale." – Robert Farrar Capon

There is never a positive command in scripture to love oneself. I will argue that Matthew 22 is not an endorsement of self-love. If anything it is an acknowledgment that self-love is a negative, indeed, sinful. In absence of any positive command to love self, what positive commands does scripture present regarding love? Here is one to consider:

We are commanded to, “love one another.” Why? “…for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.” Nowhere in this passage does John try to borrow, as an example, the positive aspects of loving self. He doesn’t say, “In the same way that you love yourself, love others, just as Christ loves you.”

In this passage John writes, “God is love.” This is one of God’s holy, eternal and immutable attributes. It is ascribed only to God. Scripture never says, “Man is love” or, “Christians are love.” We love because He first loved us. Consider:

We were dead in sin. According to Ephesians 2:2 we were under the dominion of the “prince of the power of the air.” We were children of wrath (2:3). We did not possess love, for love is from God. We were dead and devoid of any “divine spark.” For me (and for you too my friend), the two greatest words in the bible declared the payment of our ransom, “But God!” It was at this point our justification was accomplished, through Christ, and we embarked on our journey of sanctification. For the first time we knew love. It was the first time that we were able to love. Again, this is so because love is from God. What passed for love prior to our salvation was a disposition to care, nurture or appreciate. What passed for love was an emotional response, part of our God-given image but corrupted and flawed; warped by the fall.

Back to Matthew 22:39 for a moment. I think a case can be made that Jesus was saying something to the effect of, “To the same degree that you care about yourself, care for others.” I believe Paul was in agreement on this point when he wrote:

Verse 4 is where I want you to look. “do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.” Paul then introduces the kenosis, or self-emptying, of Jesus.

__________________
Bill Brown
Elder
Grace Baptist Church
Anne Arundel County, Maryland

Click to get: Board Rules -- Signature Requirements -- Suggestions?

Christ's command tells us to do something with respect to self-love, that is, to love our neighbour as ourselves. The very point of the command is to deflect thought from self onto others. As soon as self-love is considered as its own virtue it ipso facto breaks Christ's command.

__________________
Yours sincerely,


"Illum oportet crescere me autem minui."

nothing here...move along

__________________
Pergamum


"If a commission by an earthly king is considered a honor, how can a commission by a Heavenly King be considered a sacrifice?"
-- David Livingstone

I think with self-love being a phrase with a lot of connotative meaning but lacking a universal denotative meaning this poll is going to recieve many different votes from people believing the same thing.

My humble is that the very fact that this question is being asked is deeply shameful.

__________________
Mike
London City Presbyterian Church
London
England

"Surely, we wish to be orthodox, but we must first learn what real orthodoxy is. Surely, we wish to be progressive, but we must first have a basis to progress from."

Forgive me if this has come up in discussion already. In an article in the Reformed Journal 30 years ago, John Piper differentiated two forms of self love:

He also defined self-love in a second way as well:

Back in Christianity Today three decades ago ( August 12, 1977 to be exact), Piper wrote as a NT scholar, saying that Jesus referenced the first definition of love when he said:

__________________
Dennis E. McFadden, Ex Mainline Baptist (in Remission)
Atherton Baptist Homes, CEO
First Baptist Church of Alhambra, Member, Transformation Ministries (CA)

Click to get: Board Rules -- Signature Requirements -- Suggestions?

Hippo: This too is a legitimate topic of enquiry.

I'm not doubting that people love themselves, I disagree that is a positive attribute of a Christian. I am convinced that is a negative, fed by selfishness and narcissism.

Piper has left open the back door to self-esteem counselling by speaking of self-love as the foundation of counselling. But in saying this I understand I have a systemic difference with his view of the Christian life as one of glorifying God BY enjoying Him.

Piper went on to say:

In view of what I have said so far, what should be the goal of a Christian who is called on to counsel a troubled person? My thesis is that his goal is twofold: First, to be instrumental in transforming the person's values into the values of Christ, and second, to help him achieve those values. To use the biblical terms, the counselor aims to help a person love holiness and to be holy.

Matthew, I share some of your concerns about the way Piper conceives of "glorifying God BY enjoying HIM." My point was to cite his contention that the text so often cited in this thread does not mean what some of us seem to think it does. Piper's '77 CT article hit pretty hard on denying that Jesus EVER commands us to love ourselves, he leverages the reality of people's self interest to say that we ought to show that kind of passion for the love of our neighbor.

Chris - I don't believe that dignity is what is being expressed as the baseline. I think it is more than just dignity.

I hope I didn't come across as undermining that point. Piper's contention is appreciated. But whenever he gets on to this idea of joy, pleasure, and self-interest as a conscious goal of the Chirstian life I can only shake my head in astonishment.

It might also be worth pointing out in the context of this thread that the Bible never addresses us as if we needed psychological healing in order to be responsible agents before God. We are considered as already possessing the psychological constitution which makes us accountable for what we think and do.