More on loving ourselves
Keith Plummer has a different view from the one I endorsed in a recent post and link on the topic of self-love. Keith warns against interpreting the faith in terms of current world values:
Can you think of anywhere that the Bible attributes the mistreating of others to the lack of love for oneself? If not, what answers do the Scriptures offer to explain inhumanity, indifference, and cruelty? We need to frequently ask questions like these to insure that we are faithfully reflecting the themes, emphases, and categories of Scripture rather than those of the therapeutic spirit of the age.Good point.
posted by Milton Stanley at 3:45 PM
2 Comments:
Respectfully to Steph, her words are not Biblically-informed, and Keith Plummer's are just that. The Bible's consistent witness is that self-love is our problem. Unfortunately, the "learn to love yourself" mantra has been repeated so often, so regularly, and by such "reliable" people, that we have come to accept it in evangelical Christianity as gospel truth. The Bible says, though, that no man hates himself, and this is easily proveable, once we get past the initial shock of hearing something so countercultural.
When Steph speaks of "hating who I am", she (respectfully) does not---nor does anyone. The person who says, "I hate myself" really means, "I love myself, but there are things about myself (fill in the blank as to what those things are) that keep me from being what I wish to be---and I wish to be those things, because I LOVE myself."
If a person truly hated himself, he would be utterly unconcerned about anything related to himself. Nothing that happened to him one way or the other would matter. Pain would be as welcome to the true self-hater as love. The self-hater would neither wish good nor ill upon himself---because this would gratify him, and prove his self-love.
I'm getting a little funky there, but think it through...it'll make sense. And it's surely Biblically correct.
Thanks for adding to the discussion, Byron. Peace.
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