This idea has been on my mind for a couple of weeks now since I’ve heard more than one person remark that the problems of the world are that Christian’s don’t follow Jesus….or something to that effect.
I think Greg’s answer is a very good short summary. Quite remarkable when looked at this way.
In my own mind, I was mulling over how those who have these questions or attitude focus on passages like the Sermon on the Mount, and the broad “love” concept of sinners like take collectors and prostitutes specifically, but tend to warp the meaning of love towards their own ideas, which Greg defines as Narcissism; or even worse totally neglect, ignore or reject the details sinfulness and of the First Commandment. The first Commandment comes sourced originally out of Deuteronomy. (Though the commands to follow God’s Commandment extend back t Abraham, Noah and all the way to the Garden.)
Deu 6:4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:
Deu 6:5 And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.
The NT records Jesus saying it this way, adding our mind, explicitly, which I understand in Hebrew is intricately linked with the heart:
Mat 22:37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
Mrk 12:30 And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.
Luk 10:27 And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself.
The words of God’s Word, the Bible, are taken into the mind through hearing and seeing and work their way into the heart, which speaks to the depth of our whole life.
Deu 6:6 And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:
Maybe the real answer to our problems is that man is sinful, and we don’t actually teach God’s commandments to our children anymore….nor make them so publicly common….
Deu 6:7 And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.
Deu 6:8 And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes.
Deu 6:9 And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.
These are benefits, God fulfilling his promises, and blessing his people….but there are warnings also.
Deu 6:10 And it shall be, when the LORD thy God shall have brought thee into the land which he sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give thee great and goodly cities, which thou buildedst not,
Deu 6:11 And houses full of all good things, which thou filledst not, and wells digged, which thou diggedst not, vineyards and olive trees, which thou plantedst not; when thou shalt have eaten and be full;
The Bible is full of warnings like this. We all forget the warnings.
Deu 6:12 Then beware lest thou forget the LORD, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.
Deu 6:13 Thou shalt fear the LORD thy God, and serve him, and shalt swear by his name.
It’s very easy to fall into false worship…even with good intent. A great example is the people worshiping the Golden Calf as the gods who brought them out of Egypt.
Deu 6:14 Ye shall not go after other gods, of the gods of the people which are round about you;
Deu 6:15 (For the LORD thy God is a jealous God among you) lest the anger of the LORD thy God be kindled against thee, and destroy thee from off the face of the earth.
Deu 6:16 Ye shall not tempt the LORD your God, as ye tempted him in Massah.
Deu 6:17 Ye shall diligently keep the commandments of the LORD your God, and his testimonies, and his statutes, which he hath commanded thee.
Deu 6:18 And thou shalt do that which is right and good in the sight of the LORD: that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest go in and possess the good land which the LORD sware unto thy fathers,
Probably the hardest of all passages to relate to. But there was a time and purpose for this and remember at another time God went so far as to destroy the whole world, except for eight souls. These words and the teaching of Jesus seen in Luke’s passage below need to be tempered with understanding his Love your Enemy passage…
Deu 6:19 To cast out all thine enemies from before thee, as the LORD hath spoken.
Luk 17:26 And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man.
Luk 17:27 They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.
Luk 17:28 Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded;
Luk 17:29 But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed themall.
Luk 17:30 Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.
Luk 17:31 In that day, he which shall be upon the housetop, and his stuff in the house, let him not come down to take it away: and he that is in the field, let him likewise not return back.
Again, this is a question that comes up in the Passover Seder every year…but who among us today is able to adequately answer these questions…
Deu 6:20 And when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, What mean the testimonies, and the statutes, and the judgments, which the LORD our God hath commanded you?
Perhaps it does all come down to our failure to properly train our sons and daughters….something to think about.
All Scripture Is Breathed Out by God
2Ti 3:10 But thou hast fully known my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, charity, patience,
2Ti 3:11 Persecutions, afflictions, which came unto me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra; what persecutions I endured: but out of them all the Lord delivered me.
2Ti 3:12 Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.
2Ti 3:13 But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.
2Ti 3:14 But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them;
I’m including the entire message of the article I read this morning. Hopefully the long preceding comments and scriptures help to understand this answer to these questions. I’ve left in his appeal for support, I do think their approach is a reasonable one of addressing these difficult issues. Greg has always be a great one of affirming using questions in one’s dialogue even just in our day to day lives. Answering questions like to son mentioned in Deuteronomy 6:20 or as probably Timothy raised in his home are so important. Having the right answers, Biblical and True, is so important…….
Hi Friend,
The college student’s challenge was formed as a question: “Doesn’t Jesus teach we should love and accept one another?” The query sounded innocent at first glance, and the answer seemed obvious, at least to most people. If you’re asked this question, though, beware of naively affirming it, for two reasons.
First, there’s likely a different issue lurking behind that question, as it was in this student’s case. If Jesus taught love and acceptance, then why don’t Christians—who allegedly follow Jesus—love, accept, and affirm those who are LGBTQ? If you quickly give the nod to the first question, you’ll be skewered by the second one.
REAL LOVE DOESN’T MEAN APPROVING EVERYTHING
The challenge falters in part because genuine love does not require approval and acceptance of every behavior of the one loved—a point obvious to thoughtful adults and foundational to wise parenting. Indeed, in the most famous biblical passage on love—one frequently quoted even by non-Christians at weddings—Paul himself declared that love “does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth” (1 Cor. 13:6).
Note that for the apostle, homosexual practice was unrighteous. It was “contrary to sound teaching” (1 Tim. 1:10) and was, along with other vices and sinful sexual activities, a practice that disqualified partakers from entrance into the kingdom (1 Cor. 6:9–10). Plus, transgenderism runs afoul of God’s “very good” creation order: humans created by God as sexually binary, male and female, thus capable of fulfilling God’s mandate to be fruitful and multiply (Gen. 1:27–28). This point was explicitly affirmed by Jesus himself (Matt. 19:4–5).
Consequently, no biblical understanding of love—and, therefore, no characterization of Jesus’ view of love—could endorse, affirm, or approve of either homosexual behavior or transgenderism.
JESUS DID NOT AFFIRM BLANKET “LOVE AND ACCEPTANCE”
There’s a second problem many miss, though. Contrary to popular opinion—and surprising even to me when I checked—Jesus actually said precious little in his public preaching about love in general, and he said absolutely nothing affirming the kind of “love and acceptance” being promoted in Jesus’ name through the student’s line of questioning.
Search your Bible concordance for all of Jesus’ public admonitions to love that are recorded in the Gospels. You’ll find only three directives: Love God, love your neighbor, and love your enemies. That’s it.
The “great and foremost” commandment is “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” It’s mentioned in some form in three exchanges—Matthew 22:37, Mark 12:30, and Luke 10:27.
Of course, loving God entails keeping his commandments. It doesn’t make sense to say to someone who has legitimate authority over us, “I love you, but I’m not going to do anything you tell me unless it suits my own desires.” That’s not love. That’s narcissism.
LOVE SEEKS WHAT IS TRULY GOOD
The second great commandment is similar to the first: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt. 19:19; Matt. 22:39; Mark 12:31; Luke 10:27). Loving ourselves, however, is not the same as blanket self-approval and self-affirmation. Clearly, not everything we do is ethical or good for us, so that couldn’t be what Jesus meant.
Rather, since we consistently look after our own well-being—sometimes to a fault—we ought to do the same for others. C.S. Lewis called it “a steady wish for the loved person’s ultimate good as far as it can be obtained.” It’s not an act of love, then—for others or for us—to accept, encourage, or celebrate morally self-destructive behavior.
In Jesus’ third love command, he included even our enemies as “neighbors” to be cared for and shown goodness and mercy (Matt. 5:44; Luke 6:27). Curiously, when a lawyer asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus responded with a parable describing a virtuous Samaritan man caring for a wounded Jew—a person who was culturally his foe.
Jesus gave one other command to love, but it was not a public one. It was private, made to his disciples on their final night together. After washing their feet as an example to them of servant leadership, he gave them a “new commandment.” He told them that—as a witness to others that they were his disciples—they were to love one another sacrificially just as he had loved them (John 13:34–35; 15:12–13). He also added, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” (John 14:15).
DON’T LET THE “LOVE” CHALLENGE THROW YOU OFF
So, don’t be distracted by any “love” challenge to your biblical morality. According to Scripture, love always has a moral dimension. Love does not rejoice in unrighteousness, and it does not counter the specific intentions of God in creation. Genuine love always entails obeying the Father and obeying the Son (1 John 5:2).
Jesus’ entire instruction on love was simple. Love God completely, love your neighbor as yourself, and show love and benevolence towards your enemies. Within the Christian community, demonstrate faithfulness as Jesus’ disciples by loving each other sacrificially. None of Jesus’ love commands is consistent with approving behavior that God clearly identifies as sinful and destructive.
BECAUSE OF YOU: TRAINING DISCERNING DISCIPLES
Let me quickly add one more thing. You and others who partner with STR are the driving force behind everything we do. Because of you, STR helps believers think more deeply and with greater clarity to avoid subtle traps like the “love” challenge. Your kind partnership is equipping thousands to be discerning disciples ready with compelling answers to tough questions.
And that’s critically important because people are now more open to the gospel than ever before. At a time when so many are seeking answers, STR—thanks to you—is training believers to engage with tact, wisdom, and grace through initiatives like Reality Apologetics Conferences, online STR U courses, Outpost groups in local churches, speaking engagements, articles, books, podcasts, videos, and more.
I’m convinced a significant harvest is right at our doorstep. Your gift today will equip more believers to step confidently into these conversations and send more well-trained workers into the field.
Rainbow Trout 