As we survey America’s bleak moral and political landscapes, complaints are the one thing of which we will find no shortage. Such is our discontent that I suspect even most unbelievers would find themselves nodding at Christ’s description of love growing cold in these latter days (Matthew 24:12). Whether it’s a matter of political or personal morality, we all agree that our neighbors’ love leaves something to be desired. And yet, this common ground provides no unity, for far fewer would agree on what it actually means for love to grow cold.
In keeping with the Spirit of the Age, many Americans characterize this chill as a failure of equality among us. If only we made no distinction between family and stranger, between Christian and pagan, or between countryman and foreigner, then there would finally be enough love to go around equitably, and no one would be left behind. So long as we each love the entire world, they think, love could never grow cold.
This attitude provokes some rather peculiar moral dilemmas among us. Is it more loving for a young woman to be fruitful and multiply or to adopt barrenness to put less strain on the world’s resources? Is it more loving for nations to let good fences make good neighbors or to welcome countless immigrants without a second thought? Is it more loving to honor our fathers and mothers or to disown our ancestors over the offense they gave other tribes? The question of whether we first love those who are close or those who are far off has become one of the most contentious of the modern age.
Christians must be on their guard against worldliness, lest they get caught up in this same attitude. Christ has instructed us to love one another, so we must avoid receiving our view of love from the gaggle of cultural taste-makers surrounding us. The same conflicts over love which afflict our nation threaten our churches as well. If we want to know what love truly entails, we should first look to Holy Scripture.
God’s Word is quite clear that truly loving actions are the ones required by God’s Law. As Paul explains in Romans 13:9-10, “The commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,’ and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.” John says the same in his first epistle (1 John 5:2-3): “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments.”
But then, the Apostles only echo what they heard from our Lord (John 14:15 and Matthew 22:37-40), “If you love me, keep my commandments” and “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” For that matter, Jesus attributes the love of many growing cold to increased “lawlessness” in the first place (Matthew 24:12). The sad state of our love results from neglecting the commands God has given us.
When we study those commands, however, we do not find the modern sense of equality within them. That is to say, God does not command us to love everyone exactly the same way and with the same priority. On the contrary, the duties He gives often depend on the relationships He imposes.
Perhaps the most obvious example of this is the 6th Commandment. If I am to lead a chaste and decent life in word and deed and honor my wife, I cannot treat her the same as my neighbor’s wife. Indeed, I am explicitly forbidden from treating any other woman the same as her. And this does not stop at the mere letter of the Law with adultery. After all, if I even merely did more to care for strange women than for my wife, I would prove a terrible husband indeed.
The 4th Commandment is another obvious example, for it requires me to honor my mother and father. To treat my parents no differently than I would two strangers would be an egregious violation. Likewise, honoring my parents requires me to honor their parents whom they, too, were obligated to honor, carrying that honor back through generations of family.
In contrast, when the Pharisees prioritized their donations over support for their parents, Jesus sharply rebuked them for it (Matt. 15:4–9). Paul likewise explained this priority in stark terms: “But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (1 Tim. 5:8). There are many people near and far whose needs we fail to provide, but here Paul only marks neglect of family and household as being incompatible with faith in Christ.
These commands are crystallized in Biblical example as well. For instance, when the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah lost their battle against Chedorlaomer’s alliance, Lot was taken captive1. After hearing the news, Abraham took it upon himself to raise a small army out of his household to reclaim his family. In doing so, he prioritized his nephew and kin over both Chedorlaomer’s people and over his household servants, whom he risked to accomplish the rescue. Rather than being condemned for treating his neighbors unequally, Abraham was blessed by Melchizedek, priest of God Most High.
What’s more, these kinds of godly priority wrought through familial connections go further than many modern Americans suspect. Though the 20th Century gave us a fixation on the nuclear family which tempts us to end familial priorities with parents, wife, and children, Scripture has no such restriction. Solomon tells us2 that a righteous man leaves an inheritance not only to his children, but to his children’s children. Clearly, the righteous man must not have assigned the lion’s share of his estate to various NGO’s, but provided for his own family first.
Furthermore, the Bible does not make inheritance merely a matter of household wealth, for God repeatedly describes the Promised Land as an inheritance given collectively to the Israelites as a nation3. This inheritance was also meant to be passed on to their own posterity because God warned them that wickedness would lead to their land being given to foreigners4 rather than to their children—a true curse indeed.
Jesus likewise affirmed that such priorities extend as far as our nation. When a Canaanite woman appealed to Him as the Son of David (i.e. as King of Israel), He said He must prioritize the children of Israel—going so far as to tell her that “it is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”5 It is only when she demonstrates her faith in Him as something greater than an earthly king—as the One whose mere crumbs are sufficient for miracles—that He grants her what she seeks. Jesus is not being coy or out-of-character here as many modern interpreters suggest. He is simply doing what any good king would do by prioritizing His own people. It is because He is not only King of Israel but also King of Kings that we may all benefit from His grace, just as the Canaanite woman did.
Though Scripture should be sufficient for us, it’s worth consulting our ancestors in the faith as well. That loving action is characterized more by priority than by equality has not gone unrecognized throughout Church history. St. Augustine, for example, famously coined the phrase ordo amoris or “order of affections” in The City of God.6 Therein he explains the disordered love of the antediluvians as elevating God’s lower gifts above higher gifts—and indeed above God Himself. For St. Augustine, love was characterized neither by chaos nor by uniformity, but by an ordered hierarchy in which some objects of love are greater than others—some greater by nature and some by circumstance. This idea was recently brought to the public conversation by Vice President J.D. Vance, but it has been taken up by many others throughout our history, from medieval Christians like St. Thomas Aquinas to modern Christians like C.S. Lewis.
St. Augustine explores the idea further in his Christian Doctrine with respect to loving our neighbor7. While he does assert that “all men are to be loved equally,” he means this in the abstract sense that all men occupy the same cosmic level in his hierarchy of loves by their shared nature. Nevertheless, he explicitly refrains from extending that equality of nature into the loving actions of individuals. He immediately goes on to write, “But since you cannot do good to all, you are to pay special regard to those who, by the accidents of time, or place, or circumstance, are brought into closer connection with you.” Among these connections beyond our control, he lists not only matters of need but also matters of relationship, just as we find in Scripture.
That St. John Chrysostom recognized the same kind of priority is clear from his homily on 1 Timothy 5:8:8
“If any provide not for his own, and especially for those of his own house,” that is, those who are nearly related to him, he is worse than an infidel. And so says Isaiah, the chief of the Prophets, “You shall not overlook your kinsmen of your own seed.” (Isaiah 58:7, Septuagint) For if a man deserts those who are united by ties of kindred and affinity, how shall he be affectionate towards others? Will it not have the appearance of vainglory, when benefiting others he slights his own relations, and does not provide for them? And what will be said, if instructing others, he neglects his own, though he has greater facilities; and a higher obligation to benefit them? Will it not be said, These Christians are affectionate indeed, who neglect their own relatives? He is worse than an infidel. Wherefore? Because the latter, if he benefits not aliens, does not neglect his near kindred.
It is no novel teaching that we have greater obligation to our kin than to others. On the contrary, our closest relations are where we are first trained to love others. The man who loves all people equally—who treats his family as strangers—can have no understanding of love in the first place.
One could also cite Luther on the matter. When he explains in his Small Catechism how we are to examine ourselves for confession, he writes, “Here consider your station according to the Ten Commandments, whether you are a father, mother, son, daughter, master, mistress, servant; whether you have been disobedient, unfaithful, slothful; whether you have grieved any person by word or deed; whether you have stolen, neglected or wasted aught, or done other injury.” We do not analyze our actions as though they were done with respect to anonymous “image-bearers” on the other side of the globe. Considering the relationships God gave us is step one when reflecting on our failure to love our neighbors.
To be sure, the Bible doesn’t restrict love to our families or nations. On the contrary, there are many places in which we are explicitly instructed to extend love beyond our friends and family to strangers and even enemies. As we shall see, however, these instructions do not impose equality the way some modern Christians contend. Some of the passages most often used against prioritizing close relations actually affirm that these priorities remain part of God’s commands and therefore part of proper love towards our neighbors.
For example, in the Sermon on the Mount9, Jesus teaches us:
You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,… For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
As Jesus says, Christians ought to love anyone—even our enemies. Let us not forget, however, that love is the fulfilling of the Law. Loving our enemies means we must not murder them, rob them, covet their wives, and so forth. Rather, we ought to help them keep their lives, property, and families intact. That very same Law we extend to our enemies therefore still requires us to maintain all the priorities we’ve already established. I still must not treat my enemy like my wife or like my parents. I still must prioritize my own household over my enemy’s..
Loving our neighbors also requires us to keep the vocations God has given us. A policeman who arrests a murderer still loves his neighbor according to his office by restraining the wicked among them as God commands10. Likewise, a father to whom God entrusted a family still loves his neighbor according to his office by shooting a home invader. He may be an enemy, but refusing to provide such protection for his household still constitutes a denial of the faith as Paul wrote.
And careful readers will realize that Jesus is saying exactly the same thing as Paul does. “Do not even the tax collectors do the same?” “Do not even the Gentiles do the same?” Jesus doesn’t say that loving your enemies is the same priority as loving your family or friends. On the contrary, He establishes loving your own as such a fundamental baseline of human decency that even raw pagans routinely figure it out. Christians must go further than that baseline, but it is only modern devotees of equality who think it’s virtuous to love your enemies by sacrificing your friends because you “piously” make no distinctions between the two.
The parable of the Good Samaritan provides a similar lesson11. The self-justifying lawyer asked who counts as his neighbor, so Jesus told a story in which a foreigner rescues a man set upon by robbers even as the most pious of his countrymen simply passed by. Readers correctly note that the love Jesus teaches extends beyond nationality. But once again, extension is not the same as priority. Contrary to what many modern commentators tell us, the parable doesn’t tell us to love everyone equally. After all, who, upon finding his daughter beaten half-to-death on the side of the road, would simply drop her off at an inn and continue on his journey? That great love shown by the Samaritan is something to which we should all aspire, but those closer to us than needy strangers require a still greater love.
Others will base their case for equality of love on God’s proscriptions against partiality. After all, wouldn’t favoring your own over outsiders show partiality towards them? Scripturally, this is clearly not the case. Devotees of equality are fond of quoting Deuteronomy12 where God says “For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is not partial and takes no bribe. He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.” However, they tend to pass over the previous verse where He says “Yet the LORD set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day.” Clearly sinful partiality does not include favoring one tribe or nation over another since God does exactly that.
Like Christians today, the Israelites were to extend their love to sojourners (foreigners who visit and then return home.) In other words, they were to treat them justly according to God’s Law. But even the civil laws God lovingly gave to Israel made distinctions between Israelites and foreigners. There were different regulations regarding, for example, usury13, slavery14, and kingship15 which favored the Israelites over foreigners within their own land.
The modern mistake is confusing partiality for preference. Biblical partiality is specifically a subversion of justice for the sake of personal gain: altering one’s good judgment over bribes, threats, and so forth16. We should surely reject favoritism of that kind. But where justice requires you to favor the people God has entrusted to you over others whom He did not, there is no partiality in acting accordingly.
It should be clear that the equal and uniform love demanded by the world is not the same thing as the ordered and hierarchical love our Lord requires of us. When we try to strip away the relationships and priorities which God has given and update His Law for modern audiences, we make His Word void with our traditions, just as the Pharisees did. Fulfilling the law by prioritizing your own is not hating your brother, as many suppose. On the contrary, by adulterating God’s Law, it is modern equality which makes the love of many grow cold around us.
Endnotes
1. Genesis 14
2. Proverbs 13:22
3. e.g. Leviticus 20:24, Deuteronomy 26:1, etc.
4. Deuteronomy 28:32-44
5. Matthew 15:21-28 and Mark 7:24-30
6. Augustine, The City of God, trans. Marcus Dods (New York: Random House, 1993), 15.22
7. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine in Four Books, http://www.ntslibrary.com/PDF Books/Augustine doctrine.pdf 1.27-1.28
8. John Chrysostom, Homilies on First Timothy, Homily 14, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/230614.htm
9. Matthew 5:43-48
10. Romans 13:4
11. Luke 10:25-37
12. Deuteronomy 10:15-19
13. Deuteronomy 23:20
14. Exodus 21:2
15. Deuteronomy 17:15
16. Matthew E. Cochran, “The Sin of Partiality Explained,” https://matthewcochran.net/blog/the-sin-of-partiality-explained/
