Love your neighbor as yourself?

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nfinke

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Christ says the second greatest commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself.

How does this commandment jive with the churches teachings about original sin, pride, and humbleness? Namely, I don’t see any other point in scripture where God tells us to love ourselves, or describes the emotions we should feel towards ourselves. If anything the church seems to teach that we should think little of ourselves, or not think about ourselves often, and that loving ourselves in the form of pride is the “queen of all sin”. Not to mention it seems like by this rule an ascetic monk might not feed a person who was hungry, or a depressed person might actually hurt someone else.

It seems I need to know just how Jesus expects me to love myself, so I can then apply those rules to my neighbor.
 
To love yourself is to care for yourself. To keep healthy, to keep learning. Pride is thinking you are better than another. Thinking of yourself first can also be pride. Respect yourself and respect others. Care for your needs and care for others in need. There is no conflict. You can put other’s needs before yourself and be humble, and still care for yourself.
 
Original context for the second greatest commandment is in Leviticus 19:17-18.

“You shall not hate your fellow countryman in your heart; you may reprove your neighbor, but shall not incur sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the LORD.”

The original context for loving your neighbor is in doing him justice, and being sure not to pervert justice for or against your neighbor. This includes dealing justly with him in court dealings, but also in not taking vengeance against a neighbor with whom you may have a disagreement. However, the laws before this paragraph go even further, providing for allowing the poor to glean off your crops so that they may subsist, not robbing or oppressing your neighbor, etc. So just as you would want someone to deal justly in their relations with you, you should take care that you do the same for your neighbor. This isn’t a mystery. Use the common sense reading of this.
 
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You read my mind! Father was talking about this yesterday in his homily but he didn’t talk too much about loving yourself.
 
nfinke said:
How does this commandment jive with the churches teachings about original sin, pride, and humbleness?
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The Church teaches that all evil has its source in good ultimately, simply because everything God created is innately good. So evil is a detraction from good, a perversion or corruption or abuse of it made possible by the abuse of human or angelic free will. Self-love, as Aquinas taught, is a good and natural and healthy gift of God. Pride is “inordinate self-love”, to desire an excellence beyond one’s capability, to place oneself on the level of God for all practical purposes, as Adam’s sin consisted in denying His will. This is an anomaly, to be out of sync with nature: with our own natures and with the rest of creation as well as with God. Pride opposes God while God opposes the proud and exalts the humble.
 
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I knew it was somewhere in the Pentateuch but didn’t know where. Thank you for the enlightening post!
 
Good summation of the context of Jesus’ commandment. Note too that everything, including how to love others, is included in the Law.
 
You can also jump straight to John 13 and 15, where Christ commands that we “love one another as I have loved you “. How did He love us? Infinitely and with a willingness to die for our good. That is how we are to love our neighbor.
 
Or the sermon on the mount to make it simpler “Do unto others as you would them do unto you”
 
We discussed this a bit tonight at Bible Study. Every human is created in the image of God - He loves us equally and sent his Son to die for the sins of all. To look down at anyone because they are different or think I am better, in any way, is sin.
 
Ah, so youre saying this commandment and the rule to “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” are essentially the same. It does make more sense coming at it from that perspective.

Now that Ive seen it that way, Im not sure how i interpreted that verse in Leviticus another way. Thanks for the insight.
 
nfinke said:
Ah, so youre saying this commandment and the rule to “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” are essentially the same. It does make more sense coming at it from that perspective.

Now that Ive seen it that way, Im not sure how i interpreted that verse in Leviticus another way. Thanks for the insight.
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I think sometimes we try to approach the scriptures from too philosophical a perspective. It is the Latin Western Church heritage. The scriptures really aren’t trying to be evasive, particularly in the law. We need to just examine the context to see what is meant by the passage.
 
Actually the Bible is all about loving yourself… it is probably just how people view it. The love of another (even if that other is yourself) is wanting the best for them. The best for anyone is eternal life in heaven with God. The Bible is basically a how to manual on getting to heaven, in particular the New Testament. Jesus is literally teaching us how to get to heaven, by words and deeds. His life is pretty much a blueprint on how to get to heaven. So take the beatitudes, they are how to love yourself. Reminding you, that you may mourn, but you will be comforted and if you are finding the world harsh and unfair you will be filled one day - in other words, your quest for righteousness will be filled one day. This is much like a parent leaning down and ruffling their childs head and saying it’s ok. That is how we as children learn to love ourselves, by our parents love of us. Seeing that we are worth being loved. Nothing says love like someone dying for you. Jesus even tells us that (John 15:13). If we don’t think ourselves worthy of self love after that, it’s down to our woundedness and we should give that to God and ask for healing. He will do that too. Nothing is too small or to large an ask for our God.
 
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