This tweet, from an account that I’ve anonymized, represents one of the most dangerous (and prevalent) ideas in Christianity today.
In effect, it asks the question: can Christians become so obsessed with the Bible, that they end up becoming unloving?
(No. And what a silly thing to say.)
Let me make an analogy here, and illustrate the absurdity of this reasoning.
When did dieting become about COUNTING CALORIES rather than our capacity for ENJOYING FOOD?
Tasty food and a diet are, shockingly, not at odds with each other! Just because you want to lose weight doesn’t mean you need to eat bland food.
However, it DOES mean that if you only select food by how it tastes, and don’t look at the nutritional content, you will never lose weight.
Similarly, if we only “love people” in a way that “feels good” to us, but pay no attention to what the Bible says about love, we will never actually “radically love” anybody!
So, what does the Bible say about “radical love”? Allow me to hilight two passages from the Bible.
The first passage of scripture I’d like to study here is from Matthew 5, the Sermon on the Mount.
43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
In this passage, Jesus is explaining his idea of “radical love”. In it, He challenges the idea that we can simply “love our neighbor”.
Jesus brings up the “tax collector”, one of the most hated people in the time period that he lived in. Even a “tax collector” is going to love someone that loves them first. (In fact, if this is the only friend they have, they’ll probably REALLY love them back!)
As Christians, we are called to a radical standard of love. Loving your neighbor is an easy thing to do — easy enough that even pagans and tax collectors can figure out how to do it! So clearly, the love of a Christian must look different!
Whatever love Jesus is speaking about, there are two implications that we must understand:
This love does not come to us naturally, it is something we must learn.
It is more difficult than the love which comes to us naturally.
However, it must be stated here, Jesus does not tell us HOW we should love our neighbors, or our enemies! Only THAT we should love our neighbors and enemies.
The Difficulty Trap
This is where the world loves to trip up Christians. Hanging right off this ambiguity around what it means to love someone, they will helpfully come in and tell us.
Give all you have to the poor! Jesus told you to! Love must be difficult! If you really love someone, then prove it by paying off their student loans!
(And I thought the world hated it when pastors asked for tithing on Sunday!)
Now I’ve put this argument in rather uncharitable terms, as by and large I’ve encountered this argument from non-Christians quoting the Bible at me as if I’ve never opened one before.
The unstated heart of their argument is that love should be difficult. Giving all of my wealth to students to pay off their loans is difficult, therefore it must be loving!
This is a logical error known as “affirming the consequent”. Follow this example:
If A, then B.
B, therefore A.
If an animal is a dog, then it has four legs.
My cat has four legs.
Therefore, my cat is a dog.
If it is love, then it is difficult.
Giving away all your money is difficult.
Therefore, giving away all your money is love.
There are many things in this world which are difficult! But just because something is difficult does not mean it is love.
Look at the Book: What is Love?
Let’s look at the Bible to see what love is. This passage of scripture is from 1 Corinthians 13, and is quite famous. You likely have heard it read at weddings:
3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Verse three specifically counters the idea that simply giving away all your possesions is loving. Radical acts of charity are not radical acts of love! In fact, you can be sacrificially burned at the stake, and it’s still of no benefit!
Not without love!
What then, is love? Verse four starts to tell us a list of things love is, and isn’t. Patience and kindness, yes! Arrogant and rude, no! Well, these things are fairly uncontroversial, most people reading along will nod so far.
But then we come across a significant roadblock. A prickly cactus to our worldly sensibilities of what it means to be loving. Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing.
Yes, the Bible tells us to “Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.” (Romans 12:15). But what if the person rejoicing is celebrating something that is wrong, or untruthful? Note that we cannot make the logical error of “affirming the consequent” here! “If something is wrongdoing, then it is not loving to rejoice!”
It’s fairly easy for anyone to see that if someone has robbed a bank, and is rejoicing that they got away with stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars, we should not rejoice with them! Theft is wrongdoing, so it is unloving to rejoice when it happens!
Closing Argument
American culture is in a war for what is considered loving. There are far many more examples I’d like to give to illustrate this, but I think that discussing those things in this article is premature. So for now, I’d like to present my closing argument.
If we are to be “radically loving”, then we must understand what the Bible says is radical love!
The Bible says that in order to love, we must not rejoice with wrongdoing, but rejoice with the truth! Therefore, in order to be radically loving, we must understand what is wrongdoing, what is truth—and most importantly, we must rejoice with truth!
We cannot learn the difference between wrongdoing and truth without the Bible. Therefore, RIGHTNESS OF THEOLOGY is not opposed to RADICAL LOVE—it is a prerequisite!
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