Bible Love Notes: The "Twist-a-Scripture" App

Why we don't need to love ourselves in order to love others.

Using Google Translate is sometimes hilarious. The meaning in the original language can be completely lost in translation. Accurate translation requires actual knowledge of the languages involved.

I’m beginning to wonder if there’s a similar app called “Twist-a-Scripture” that explains Scripture without an actual knowledge of the Bible. I offer a list of popular "twisted Scriptures" below this devotion, but let's look at one example:

Lots of folks seem to be putting “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39) into the “Twist-a-Scripture” app and getting “You can't love others until you first love yourself.”

However, “love” in Matthew 22:39 doesn't mean thinking highly of our neighbor. It means treating him humanely.

We “love” our neighbor by caring what happens to him. If he's hungry and has no food, we “love” him by giving him food (Matthew 25:35-40).

Unless we hope to die of starvation or freeze to death on a cold day, we don’t need to learn to love ourselves in order to love others.

So next time you hear someone say we must love ourselves before we can love others, tell them Matthew 22:39 has nothing to do with self-esteem, self-confidence, or even approval — and that’s why we can even “love” our enemies (Luke 6:35).

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Notes:

If lack of self-love were a genuine human problem, Scripture would mention it. And it doesn’t. Not even once. See the Bible Love Notes collection of devotions about Biblical Self-Esteem.

Scripture doesn't mention lack of self-love, but it does mention self-love. It says those who love themselves are the worst kind of sinners: 2 Timothy 3:1-5. That's why it's sinful to praise ourselves (Proverbs 27:2) or compare ourselves with others (2 Corinthians 10:12).

Our self-worth comes from one place: 2 Corinthians 10:18.

To look at some other examples of the "Twist-a-Scripture" app see:

Leviticus 11:9-12: Does God hate shrimp?

Ezekiel 16:48-50: Claiming Sodom and Gomorrah's sins weren't homosexuality

Psalm 37:4: Whose heart desires?

Psalm 139: It's about me

Proverbs 18:21: Power of the tongue

Proverbs 23:7: As a man thinketh

Matthew 5:22: Hell is just a garbage dump

Matthew 7:1: Judge not

Matthew 7:15-18: Bearing good fruit

Matthew 15:21-28: Jesus didn't understand?!