in a mirror, backwards

Richard Foster apparently thinks that seeing in a mirror dimly means everything is in reverse.

A horse and cart in Prejmer, Romania, with a pretty little pony walking alongside.

Richard Foster says that the Greatest Commandment shows that self-love is the prerequisite to loving others. What do you say? Does “you shall love your neighbor as yourself” mean you must first love yourself?

Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline, p 114:

Jesus made the ability to love ourselves the prerequisite for our reaching out to others (Matt. 22:39). Self-love and self-denial are not in conflict. More than once Jesus made it quite clear that self-denial is the only sure way to love ourselves. “He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matt. 10:39).

Again, we must underscore that self-denial means the freedom to give way to others. It means to hold others’ interests above our interests. In this way self-denial releases us from self-pity.

Yes, now we see in a mirror, dimly, but that is no excuse for Foster seeing everything backwards.

Truly, did it ever cross your mind, until you read Foster, that the Greatest Commandment is to love God first, yourself second, and your neighbor third? Jesus said there are two commandments; Foster says there are three. He claims, without embarrassment, that you cannot love your neighbor until you love yourself, and that loving yourself is the prerequisite for doing what God says. God allows you to put off his work until you’ve sorted things out! Good news, eh?

Having demolished the Great Commission, he sets his sight on Jesus’ teaching that “He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake will find it”. Foster’s conclusion: self-denial is the only sure way to love ourselves: apparently his translation of “he who loses his life for my sake will find it.” Astonishing. If “loses his life” is a synonym for self-denial and “find” is a synonym for self-love, then Jesus is actually saying that self-denial for his sake will result in you loving yourself? It seems a bit tortured. The verse actually says, “He who loves himself will lose it, and he who denies himself for my sake will love himself”? That doesn't seem to make much sense. What is “it”? If self-denial is the only sure way to love ourselves and loving ourselves is the prerequisite for helping others, then how do we do that? We cannot go until we self-love and we cannot self-love until we deny ourselves, so how does that happen? Is denying ourselves the first step or is there something before that? How long does this all take? How do we know we have denied ourselves long enough to start loving ourselves? How do we know we love ourselves enough to love our neighbor? After we have denied and loved ourselves enough to get into the starting blocks, do we just start running or do we hold our position waiting for robbers to beat someone up?

And finally (not for Foster, but for our purposes here) he says that self-denial is the freedom to give way to others. Jesus says “whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me,” and Foster says this is the only sure way to love ourselves. Wow. Jesus is the Way: to love ourselves!

This is truly painful.

It almost feels wrong to pick on Foster because it is so incredibly easy, but his book is ranked by Christianity Today as one of the most influential books of the twentieth century (below), so it is right to take a look. If people are reading it, they are to some extent integrating it into their beliefs and life choices.

We begin with Scripture text Foster is talking about. Matt 22.35-40:

A lawyer asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

Experts tell us there are four words for love in the New Testament Greek: agape, philo, storge, and eros. Eros is romantic love, as between a man and a woman. Storge is affection, such as the emotion a mother has for her baby, or God for his people. Philo is friendship: a love not from birth but from choice. Agape is steadfast, sacrificial love.

If we accept Foster’s premise that we must love ourselves in order to love others, which of these four is it? Go on: take a guess. I’ll wait.

While you’re thinking that over: if Foster is correct, then the law and prophets hang not on this commandment but on whether we love ourselves or not, right? If the second commandment is contingent upon us loving ourselves, does that mean we are free to walk by the man lying on the road? If we are not to do the second commandment until we love ourselves, and the second is like the first, then is it also true that we don’t have to love God unless we first love ourselves? If that is true, do we have to love ourselves with all our heart and soul and mind in order to love him with all our heart and soul and mind?

Back to the text. The Greek lets us off the hook: it’s agape.

So now the question is: how does a person love himself agapely? Do you love yourself sacrificially, unconditionally, for better and for worse, for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do me part?

The truth is that we love ourselves far too much. Jesus is saying that if you loved God as much as you love your money, you’d give it up for him, and if you loved God as much as your time, you’d give that up for him too. Our love for God is throttled by our love for ourselves and our things. Loving ourselves more means we love him less, not more. Jesus says you cannot serve God and mammon. The universe cannot expand wide enough to accommodate both. You have to decide. Which will it be? The rich young man understood that: it was a this-or-that decision, not a some-of-this and some-of-that decision. He could not grasp one without letting go of the other so he kept his wealth.

Jesus said to his disciples, “There is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not get back very much more in this age, and in the age to come eternal life.” He said that because there is no room in the same space for God and everything else, there is not enough time in your short life to do everything you want and everything God wants too, and you will never have enough money to top off your desires and give the rest to God.

Loving God means you give him your time and stuff and money. The more time and stuff and money you give him, the less you have for yourself. The more self-love you have, the less God-love you have.

Loving your neighbor means you give others your time and stuff and money. The more time and stuff and money you give to others, the less there will be for you. The more self-love you have, the less neighbor-love you have.

The point of the Good Samaritan is not that he helped because he loved himself, but that he spent his time and money to help a man in need. Seriously: does anyone truly think the others passed by because they lacked self-love?!

In John 14.15 Jesus tells his disciples, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Nowhere is there a hint that we must first love ourselves before he expects us to obey. In v 23 he says: “Those who love me will keep my word.” There it is: if we love him we will do what he says. Only Foster would sully the last words of Christ by changing them to “if you love yourselves you will keep my word.” And John 15.9: “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you.” The highest example is the Father’s love for the Son, which (trust me) is nothing like our love for ourselves!

Second, Jesus talks about their love for one another. John 15.12: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” And Foster adds: after you have learned to love yourself. The whole plan of God can wait in the car with the engine running while I make myself presentable. Nonsense.

Lastly Jesus talks about their love for the world. John 15.15-19:

I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.

If the world hates you, be aware that it hated me before it hated you. If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as its own. Because you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world—therefore the world hates you.

Did you see that? Not one word about loving ourselves! Or even loving the command! Jesus appointed us to go and bear fruit. If we say we love him, with all our heart and soul and mind, we will do that, even though the world hates us (because that’s irrelevant), and with no thought of whether we love ourselves or not (because that’s just stupid).

We finish with the gospel according to Foster, chapter 21:

When they had finished breakfast, Foster, the disciple who loved himself, said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love yourself more than these?” And Peter said, “huh?”

“The Top 50 Books That Have Shaped Evangelicals”

https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2006/october/23.51.html

October 6, 2006

We do not assume that Christianity Today condones all these works, but ranking them as the top books tells us what people are reading and therefore (probably) what they are believing.