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| Photo by Jenny Dettrick / Getty Images |
It's February so that means that love is in the air, or at least tokens of love are being sold in the shops! Given that our western civilisation grew out of, and is therefore saturated with, the biblical world view it is unsurprising that we value love so highly. After all, the Bible tells us that God is love (1 John 4:8), and that he created the world, and made us in his image (Genesis 1 and 2).
When asked how God wants us to live, Jesus replied in terms of love: the first and greatest commandment is to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength; and the second is to love our neighbour as ourselves (Mark 12:28-34), meaning “do to others what you would have them do to you” (Matthew 7:12). The greatest commandment is usually overlooked in favour of the second, sometimes termed “the Golden Rule”. However, the second commandment is often misquoted as “Love your neighbour as you love yourself” and this radically changes the meaning.
The most obvious consequence of this misquote is to think that in order to love others you need to love yourself first, thus 'self-love' actually becomes the second commandment. We don't need much encouragement to be self-centred, but in misreading Jesus' words this way we manage to make selfishness a moral virtue and a divine command, because if we don't love ourselves we cannot then love others – we are being selfish for the good of others!!
We seem to live in a world where self-love is all around us. For example the popularity of 'selfies' and self-promotion through social media, and it could be argued that fashion, make-up, tattoos and vociferously identifying yourself with a particular group, are also forms of self-love. But as well as being consequences of narcissism they could also be symptoms of the opposite feeling of self-loathing. The desire to control the image that people see of you could be a result of a deep insecurity – we all like to portray the best side of ourselves, and to put on 'masks' perhaps for fear that people will not like the 'true' us.
Loving our neighbour does not require us to first love ourselves, nor does it require us to even like them. Instead it requires us to see them for who they are: people made in the image of God, and treat them as such, which is why Jesus wants us to include even our enemies in the category of 'neighbour' (Matthew 5:43-44). We love them 'as ourselves' because we are also made in the image of God. Self-loathing is a rejection of the God-image within us, but self-love is worshipping the image rather than the God in whose image we are made, so both go against the greatest commandment.
None of us is perfect, but one prayer praises God “who wonderfully created us in your own image and yet more wonderfully restored us through your Son Jesus Christ”. As we look at all the symbols of love around us, let's remember “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:10-11).
When asked how God wants us to live, Jesus replied in terms of love: the first and greatest commandment is to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength; and the second is to love our neighbour as ourselves (Mark 12:28-34), meaning “do to others what you would have them do to you” (Matthew 7:12). The greatest commandment is usually overlooked in favour of the second, sometimes termed “the Golden Rule”. However, the second commandment is often misquoted as “Love your neighbour as you love yourself” and this radically changes the meaning.
The most obvious consequence of this misquote is to think that in order to love others you need to love yourself first, thus 'self-love' actually becomes the second commandment. We don't need much encouragement to be self-centred, but in misreading Jesus' words this way we manage to make selfishness a moral virtue and a divine command, because if we don't love ourselves we cannot then love others – we are being selfish for the good of others!!
We seem to live in a world where self-love is all around us. For example the popularity of 'selfies' and self-promotion through social media, and it could be argued that fashion, make-up, tattoos and vociferously identifying yourself with a particular group, are also forms of self-love. But as well as being consequences of narcissism they could also be symptoms of the opposite feeling of self-loathing. The desire to control the image that people see of you could be a result of a deep insecurity – we all like to portray the best side of ourselves, and to put on 'masks' perhaps for fear that people will not like the 'true' us.
Loving our neighbour does not require us to first love ourselves, nor does it require us to even like them. Instead it requires us to see them for who they are: people made in the image of God, and treat them as such, which is why Jesus wants us to include even our enemies in the category of 'neighbour' (Matthew 5:43-44). We love them 'as ourselves' because we are also made in the image of God. Self-loathing is a rejection of the God-image within us, but self-love is worshipping the image rather than the God in whose image we are made, so both go against the greatest commandment.
None of us is perfect, but one prayer praises God “who wonderfully created us in your own image and yet more wonderfully restored us through your Son Jesus Christ”. As we look at all the symbols of love around us, let's remember “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:10-11).
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