{"id":389,"date":"2019-03-04T06:30:58","date_gmt":"2019-03-04T11:30:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/?p=389"},"modified":"2019-04-13T12:53:46","modified_gmt":"2019-04-13T16:53:46","slug":"irresistible-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/2019\/03\/04\/irresistible-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Jesus Invented Love Your Neighbor? Part Two of a Review of Andy Stanley\u2019s \u201cIrresistible\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In Pastor Andy Stanley\u2019s attempt to prove that the Christian can ignore the Old Testament in his book Irresistible<\/em>, he claims that \u201cLove your neighbor\u201d is a new command by Jesus that sets New Testament ethics apart from Old Testament ethics.\u00a0 He then qualifies this, but the qualifications still don\u2019t fully acknowledge the Old Testament basis for the teaching.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Here is Jesus\u2019 well-known statement on the two greatest commandments in Matthew 22:<\/p>\n

35<\/sup><\/strong>\u00a0<\/sup>And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him.\u00a0 36<\/sup><\/strong>\u00a0<\/sup>\u201cTeacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?\u201d 37<\/sup><\/strong>\u00a0<\/sup>And he said to him, \u201cYou shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38<\/sup><\/strong>\u00a0<\/sup>This is the great and first commandment. 39<\/sup><\/strong>\u00a0<\/sup>And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40<\/sup><\/strong>\u00a0<\/sup>On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Pastor Stanley comments about the two Greatest Commandments:\u00a0 \u201cThe first statement makes its debut in Deuteronomy. The other appears first in Leviticus.\u00a0 But this unique formula is original with Jesus.\u201d (182)\u00a0 I don\u2019t know if there was anyone who labeled those commands the \u201cGreatest Commandment\u201d and the \u201cSecond Greatest Commandment\u201d before Jesus did, but that the lawyer asked the question at least shows that the issue of the greatest commandment was being discussed before Jesus made this statement.\u00a0 And we have evidence that Jews prior to Jesus got the gist of it \u2013 they realized that loving your neighbor summarizes the whole Law of God.\u00a0 A generation before Christ, the famous rabbi Hillel expressed Leviticus 19:18 as the Golden Rule which summarizes the whole Law of God:\u00a0 \u201cWhat is hateful to you, do not to your neighbor: \u00a0that is the whole Torah, while the rest is the commentary thereof; go and learn it.\u201d[1]<\/a><\/p>\n

But after admitting that \u201cLove your neighbor as yourself\u201d is from Leviticus, Pastor Stanley says:\u00a0 \u201cIf you had asked first-century Jews what it looked like to love God, they would say, \u2018Obey his commands.\u2019 \u00a0Jesus suggested a new answer.\u00a0 \u2018Love your neighbor.\u2019\u201d (183)\u00a0 Pastor Stanley wants<\/em> this to be a new answer, even though he knows that Jesus was repeating an Old Testament command from Leviticus 19:18.\u00a0 He also wants to create a false distinction between obeying a command of God and loving your neighbor, even though loving your neighbor is a command in the Bible.<\/p>\n

This confused idea that in the Old Testament God\u2019s people were supposed to obey commands but in the New Testament we follow the example of Jesus rather than obey commands runs throughout Pastor Stanley\u2019s book.\u00a0 He\u2019s saying that all the commands in the Old Testament are thrown out and replaced by following the historical example of Jesus\u2019 love for others:<\/p>\n

New covenant people don\u2019t begin or end with the question: What does the Bible say about . . .?<\/em> That\u2019s so old covenant. New covenant people begin with a better question: What does God\u2019s love for me require of me?<\/em> Remember, for the first two hundred-plus years, the church had no The Bible. \u00a0Sacred documents? \u00a0Yes. \u00a0Officially sanctioned Christian Scripture? \u00a0Not yet. \u00a0In the beginning, new covenant folks took their cues from Jesus\u2019 new command. (233-34)<\/p>\n

The behavioral standard for new covenanters is straightforward: If it\u2019s not good for them, it\u2019s sin. We don\u2019t need chapter and verse. We have something better. Namely, Jesus\u2019 new, all-encompassing, inescapably simple command. We are to do unto others as our heavenly Father through Christ has done unto us. (242)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Basically, Pastor Stanley is pushing a Utilitarian view of ethics to replace the Divine Command type of ethics of the Bible.\u00a0 The problem, beyond ignoring God\u2019s word, is that \u201clove\u201d can mean a lot of different things, not all of which are logically compatible.\u00a0 In 2019 America, \u201clove\u201d means homosexual marriage.\u00a0 That is rebellion against the God who created Adam and Eve as the paradigm of marriage.\u00a0 Pastor Stanley\u2019s church does not allow homosexual weddings, but it\u2019s hard to see how that church will be able to hold that standard in, say, twenty years.\u00a0 The more the memory of biblical law and the ethical standards entailed by the creation and fall of Adam and Eve, so often cited in the New Testament, fades in the memory of Christians because they more consistently embrace Pastor Stanley\u2019s vision of a \u201ctextless\u201d Christianity that makes the issue of creation irrelevant, the more elastic the definition of \u201clove\u201d will become so as to accommodate the views of secular culture \u2013 and exclude God\u2019s word (as \u201cinclusion\u201d in our day always does).<\/p>\n

Good consequences are a part of biblical ethics, and showing someone without faith or with weak faith the empirical evidence that violating God\u2019s commands is harmful can help persuade that person to honor God\u2019s commands.\u00a0 But neither is there a logical or moral necessity to provide an empirical demonstration of how violating God\u2019s commands will have bad consequences.\u00a0 \u00a0Since God rules history, obeying God\u2019s commands will always have the best consequences, at least in the long run if not more immediately.\u00a0 The mere fact that God commands something should be enough to convince a Christian that he shouldn\u2019t violate God\u2019s command.\u00a0 In some cases, there may not be an empirical way to show how violating God\u2019s commands will lead to bad consequences.\u00a0 \u00a0The bad consequence could simply arise from the fact that God will burn with anger and will eventually burn your tail if you disobey Him.\u00a0 However, Pastor Stanley says that he doesn\u2019t like the idea that the New Testament God brings judgment on people prior to the Last Judgment.\u00a0 I\u2019ll address that issue in a subsequent post.<\/p>\n

After making the other distinctions between the Old Testament and loving your neighbor, Pastor Stanley claims this distinction: \u00a0The Old Testament command to love your neighbor only applied to other Jews<\/em>:\u00a0 \u201cLoving neighbors was code for loving other Jews . . . .\u00a0\u00a0 The era of defining neighbor ethnically was coming to an end. \u00a0To prepare his followers for what was coming, Jesus once again veered outside the boundaries of the Levitical law and redefined neighbor. \u201d (185)\u00a0 Where did Pastor Stanley get this idea?\u00a0 Maybe he thought of it on his own, but he is taking the position of militant atheist Richard Dawkins in his book, The God Delusion<\/em>.\u00a0 Dawkins (following some other liberal scholars) claims that the Old Testament command of loving your neighbor was an expression of ethnic superiority.[2]<\/a>\u00a0 Pastor Stanley doesn\u2019t cite Dawkins\u2019 book, but he seems to be familiar with it, given his frequent references in his book to arguments of the New Atheists against Christianity.<\/p>\n

But are Pastor Stanley and the New Atheists correct that \u201cneighbor\u201d is defined in exclusively ethnic terms in the Old Testament?\u00a0 No.\u00a0 Leviticus 19:18 does reference \u201cthe sons of your own people\u201d in the previous part of this verse, but just a few verses later is a command to love the stranger as yourself:\u00a0 \u201cYou shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God\u201d (Leviticus 19:34).\u00a0 Old Testament scholar Richard E. Friedman has compiled a list of 52 references<\/em> in the Torah about treating aliens with justice and compassion just as a native Israelite should be treated:[3]<\/a>\u00a0 Exodus 12:19, 47, 49; 20:10; 22:20; 23:9, 12; Leviticus 16:29; 17:8, 10, 12, 13, 15; 18:26; 19:10, 33, 34; 20:2; 22:18; 23:22; 24:15, 22; 25:35; Numbers 9:14; 15:14, 15, 16, 26, 29, 30; 19:10; 35:15; Deuteronomy 1:16; 5:14; 10:18, 19; 14:29; 16:11, 14; 24:14, 17, 19, 20, 21; 26:11, 12, 13; 27:19; 29:10; 31:12.\u00a0 In the Old Testament, \u201cneighbor\u201d (re\u2019a<\/em> in Hebrew) refers to everyone in the world (Gen. 11:3), a Canaanite (Gen. 38:12, 20), and Egyptians (Exo. 11:2), as well as fellow Israelites (Exo. 2:13).\u00a0 Pastor Stanley is way off<\/em> on this attack on the Old Testament.<\/p>\n

Another division that Pastor Stanley then tries is this (quoting John 13:34): \u00a0\u201cAs I have loved you, so you must love one another.\u00a0 That was new.\u201d (194)\u00a0 He is right that Jesus provided a new example<\/em> of sacrificial love, the best example ever given.\u00a0 The commandment also could have been new in the sense of what was being practiced in Israel at the time Jesus said this.\u00a0 Jesus wanted his disciples to act differently from the example set by hypocritical Pharisees for sure.\u00a0 But this newness doesn\u2019t have the significance that Pastor Stanley gives it because the example that Jesus provides is in obedience to Old Testament law.\u00a0 Of course, no human in the Old Testament provided an example of substitutionary sacrifice to pay for someone else\u2019s sins, but neither can anyone under the New Testament.\u00a0 That aspect of Jesus\u2019 death was unique to Him.\u00a0 So the extent that Jesus\u2019 sacrifice is an example for Christians to follow, it is an example of following the Old Testament law of loving your neighbor as yourself.<\/p>\n

Beyond the numerous commands in the five books of Moses to love others as yourself, including strangers, there are numerous examples of the principle being taught in other sections of the Old Testament.\u00a0 Proverbs 17:17 says, \u201cA friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.\u201d\u00a0 There is an example of this in Jonathan\u2019s love for David:\u00a0 \u201cAnd Jonathan made David swear again by his love for him, for he loved him as he loved his own soul\u201d (1 Sam. 20:17).\u00a0 Jonathan risked his life at the hands of his father, King Saul, to protect David\u2019s life. \u00a0\u00a0All of the Old Testament passages that command compassion for the poor, oppressed, widows, orphans, and foreigners are too many to mention.\u00a0 Here are a couple examples:\u00a0 \u201cWhoever oppresses a poor man insults his Maker, but he who is generous to the needy honors him\u201d (Prov. 14:31); \u201cRender true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another, do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor, and let none of you devise evil against another in your heart\u201d (Zech. 7:9-10).<\/p>\n

D.A. Carson issued this condemnation of creating false divisions in the Scriptures:<\/p>\n

Damn all false antitheses to hell, for they generate false gods, they perpetuate idols, they twist and distort our souls, they launch the church into violent pendulum swings whose oscillations succeed only in dividing brothers and sisters in Christ.[4]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The claim that Jesus overthrew the Old Testament law by originating the idea of loving your neighbor is one of those false antitheses.<\/p>\n

____________________________________________________________<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]<\/a>\u00a0 Babylonian Talmud<\/em>, Shabbat 31a<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a>\u00a0 Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion<\/em> (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 2006), p. 253:\u00a0 \u201c\u2018Love thy neighbor\u2019 didn\u2019t mean what we now think it means. It meant only \u2018Love another Jew.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a>\u00a0 Richard Elliott Friedman, The Exodus<\/em> (Harper Collins, 2017), p. 82.\u00a0 There are 50 verses, with two of the verses containing double references.\u00a0 Also see Friedman\u2019s essay, \u201cLove Your Neighbor: Only Israelites or Everyone?,\u201d https:\/\/www.biblicalarchaeology.org\/daily\/biblical-topics\/bible-interpretation\/love-your-neighbor-only-israelites-or-everyone\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a>\u00a0 D.A. Carson, Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church: Understanding a Movement and Its Implications<\/em> (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005), p. 234.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Pastor Andy Stanley\u2019s attempt to prove that the Christian can ignore the Old Testament in his book Irresistible, he claims that \u201cLove your neighbor\u201d is a new command by Jesus that sets New Testament ethics apart from Old Testament … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=389"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":403,"href":"https:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389\/revisions\/403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}