He may be a first rate scholar, but he still presented a terribly straw man caricature of what people believe that hold the plenary verbal view, essentially equating their view with one of mechanical dictation. At the very least, it is ungracious. And his approving quote of Boettner‘s careful and nuanced understanding of inspiration should have cautioned him that his caricature was terribly inaccurate, and would be most vehemently challenged by actual people (like Boettner) who hold the plenary verbal view.
Hello! First, sorry for the long delay of my response to you here; I only just saw your reply.
When I responded to you it was to your question about Genesis 1-11. Am I to take it from this argument that you believe God dictated those verses to Moses on the mountain and Moses wrote them in stone there? I have always read it as saying it was just the Ten Commandments that were written at that time with direct dictation from God, and that the rest of the first five books of the Bible fall under more or less the same rules as other prophets: God speaks in dreams and riddles, inspires but does not dictate.
That is not a healthy way to think about your neighbors. God alone judges sin.
This cannot be true, for does Jesus not say “Love your neighbor as yourself?” Therefore he commands us to love three things: First God, and then (equally) our neighbors and ourselves. Of course it is not meant to be easy, but it is very dangerous to say we are not allowed to love ourselves at all.
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Thanks for responding. Let me get back to you on some of it, probably tomorrow.
In reference to loving ourselves, you may want to read the things that Jesus and the apostles said along the line of, Denying ourselves and taking up our cross, Not loving this world, Not trying to save our life in this life, Laying our life down for others. Were not told to think highly of ourselves but to think more highly of others.The command to “Love our neighbor as our self” is based on the fact that we feed and cloth ourselves and provide for ourselves our needs, we should do that for the ones we come across that are in need as the Good Samaritan did, he provided the man he found on the road with the basic things he needed for life. This type of caring for your neighbor is the fulfillment of the second greatest commandment.When someone says we are supposed to love ourselves I am not sure what they mean by that statement. What do you mean by that?
This is the godly way to look at the world, for God has already judged all are sinful, non are righteous, and our only hope is to repent (turn from sin) and turn to Him in love, trust and obedience. That is the whole purpose that Jesus came to this sin infested world, to deliver sinners from their slavery to sin and the wrath to come.
The greatest command is to love God with all our heart, mind and strength.
Heb 11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please God,
1 John 5:18 We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin; the one who was born of God keeps him safe, and the evil one cannot harm him. 19 We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one.
Rom 8:6 The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; 7 the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. 8 Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.
Eph 2:1 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins , 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.
If you have bible software on your computer do a search on the word wicked, you will see what God thinks about them. All are wicked until they turn to God. I would have to cut and paste for days to show all the scriptures that show why our neighbor or anyone that doesn’t live for God is evil. Evil is the nature of mankind without God.
Want to hear some Good News?
John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes (trust, loves, obeys) in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. 19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed . 21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.”
Or both did.
Every day since you posted this, I have thought about it. I have wondered how I could possibly answer someone who believes that bare physical provision for needs is all that love consists of. I have thought about careful explanations: for example, it is not a very good representation of love to feed your child ice cream for every meal, but neither do you just feed them nutritionally adequate kibble. Love means choosing a moderate path somewhere between those extremes, in which you care about the child’s mental and emotional well-being as well as their physical health.
Someone who does not expend energy to care about their own mental and emotional well-being will not be able to serve God very well or very long. Physician, heal thyself. On an airplane, they always remind you to put on your own oxygen mask before assisting others. This is because…
Because…
And then I realize I could talk about this till I’m blue in the face and I don’t know what good it would do.
So let me just put it this way. I would rather be sent to Hell forever by a vengeful cosmic bully than live the rest of my life with hate in my heart for every human being on the planet, the way you say is the “godly” way.
At least I would still have my self-respect.
Maybe that’s as close as I can come to answering your question, what does it mean to love ourselves.
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I think somebody once said the the company in hell is better…
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Please don’t.
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Not sure if I already responded to this thread but it occurs to me that if the laws of nature are descriptive rather than prescriptive, it really doesn’t matter who the author was. I believe natural laws describe what we observe happens with regularity. I can’t even imagine what it would mean to impose a law on nature. That just seems pretty weird.
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Here is another scripture that explains what it is to love your neighbor as yourself.
Rom 13:8 Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, “Do not commit adultery, (or lust)” “Do not murder,”(or hate) “Do not steal,” “Do not covet,”(desire your neighbors stuff) and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
Love does not sin against your neighbor. In action or thought.
If you read the words of God and Jesus and understand how wicked mankind is by nature and that we all are deserving of His wrath as He has made clear but then see Jesus being executed for us in our place and under stood both those things, I don’t think you would have said the above statement. It can not be disputed that all have sinned. And Jesus said all are condemned. That is why the mercy that is found in Christ is so valuable but those who reject God’s love for them and reject loving God, justice, judgement and wrath is what they deserve and is what they will get. People reject God because they love the pleasures of this life, they love sin, they love self.
Jesus said, Mark 8:34"If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. 36 What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? 37 Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? 38 If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels."
Rom 12:19 Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. 20 On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”
21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Heb 10:29 How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? 30 For we know him who said, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” and again, “The Lord will judge his people.” 31 It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
I don’t see any contradiction at all between denying one’s self and loving that same self. Just like you can deny a child ice cream and still love the child.
Thank you for providing this quote. When I read it, I see how no amount of physical aid to your neighbor can excuse the obligation to keep feeling the emotion of love towards him, too. The obligation not to harm your neighbor is not a primary directive, but results naturally from the directive to feel love. This very much agrees with what I was saying, and if it represents your views too then I am glad to hear you correct what you said earlier.
It also brings to mind the question of what the Bible’s opinion on harming yourself is. I suspect that although there is virtue in accepting what life brings to you, the same does not hold true for deliberately harming your own self, because…? Are there any quotes about that?
At the start of Romans 12 Paul writes of our bodies as “living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God” and then goes on to speak of the individual worth of each member. While that doesn’t speak specifically of suicide, I think such action can be safely ruled out as an option for any temple of God.
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I think it is worth pointing out that nearly all ‘one another’ statements in the NT are talking about inter-christian relationships. That does not mean they can’t be more broadly applied to relationships outside the family of faith, but that this is not their primary context or application.
The same is true for Jesus (in)famous parable of the sheep and the goats (Mat 25), the ‘least of these brothers and sisters of mine’ are disciples of Jesus specifically not the poor and marginalised generally (Jesus has plenty to say about them elsewhere). This is consistent with how Jesus uses ‘brothers and sisters’ throughout Matthew’s gospel.
I say all that not to ‘take sides’ or anything, but as (hopefully) useful piece of textual background information.
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Thank you, @Mervin_Bitikofer. I am interested not just in that most extreme example of self-harm, but also in more ordinary, day to day examples. Tattoos and piercings, to the extent they have been traditionally looked down on in some parts, that’s because they’re considered a violation of the sanctity of the self, right?
I don’t understand how an acceptable sacrifice to God can be something you’re not supposed to love. Isn’t that the entire point of a meaningful sacrifice?
Yeah - it occurred to me after I typed that that you hadn’t mentioned suicide specifically. I suppose the same principle still applies to all the milder self harm actions, though.
Yeah - and this is exactly why we are supposed to love ourselves (contra to any simplistic conclusion one might draw by considering some isolated quotes from Christ.) Unlike the killed-animal sacrifices of old, we are to be living sacrifices. And we are to love others as we love ourselves. The presumption is that we already do the latter easily enough - and not that we should stop doing it at all.
So I think anything that can be chalked up as deliberately self-harming is then ruled to be a sin. This can be something as routine as eating junk food (or too much, even of good food) to more extreme stuff like doing drugs. Tatoos? Ear piercings? I’m probably the wrong person to ask about those things as they hold no fascination or temptation for me. So it’s easy for me to write them off personally. But the moment I wish to raise a self-righteous finger and launch a speech about that to my many friends (not to mention my wife); I recall the quality of at least some things I’ve eaten, even in the last 24 hours. Finger comes down, and I slink off to my corner of penitence.
Not that I’m really puritanical about such things as just mentioned there. We engage in risky behavior all the time and are sometimes rightly commended for doing so. I guess the question is why? And for what purpose do we “expend” our bodies or place ourselves at risk?
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Every time you talk you say good, thoughtful stuff. 
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@Lynn_Munter; @Mervin_Bitikofer
Another verse that could be illuminative in this discussion about loving oneself might be Ephesians 5:28-30 (NIV2011):
“In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body.”
I thought it interesting that Paul links Christ loving the Church (caring for his his body) → people loving their body (lit. Caring for its well being) → husbands loving wives (caring for her wellbeing).
If one says we must not love ourselves under any circumstances that seems to detail Paul’s chain of reasoning.
Just a thought I had whilst sat in the bath earlier 
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You may (probably do) have a point in general, but I am not sure that logic can be applied to this context of Romans 13:8.
The part about debt puts me in mind of “render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s” more than anything else (Caesar certainly not being any sort of follower of Christ at that time) and the commandments were for all the Jewish people. And the talk of neighbors - there’s a whole parable devoted to explaining that everyone, not just the people you think of as close to you, is your neighbor!
Am I wrong?
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Not at all! And if Jesus’ parable of the good Samaritan wasn’t clear enough … Paul hammers home on this stuff too. I especially appreciate this from Paul’s lengthy benediction in Galatians 6 (v.10):
So then, whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all, and especially for those of the family of faith.
Some may wish to use this to justify favoritism toward like-minded believers, but I actually like it for exactly the opposite reason: It removes all doubt that our debt of love is owed to everyone and not just believers.
[P.S. thank you so much for your kind words earlier! ]
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