"Whoever, then, thinks that he understands the Holy Scriptures, or any part of them, but puts such an interpretation upon them as does not tend to build up this twofold love of God and our neighbor, he does not yet understand them as he ought." (Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, 1.36.40)
Augustine said that 1600 years ago. If you interpret scripture in a way that does not result in the love of God and neighbor, then you have not yet understood scripture correctly!
In other words, if you just set about to understand the historical context of the scriptures, and you analyze and explain them in terms of what they originally meant – but you never get to: “how do I love God and neighbor from this passage?” then you are still not seeing the point.
What does it mean to love God and neighbor? Last time we saw that the moral law, as Paul saw it in Romans 1-2, is focused around two things: everyone knows who God is (and that they are supposed to worship him), everyone knows what God requires (and that death is the result for disobedience).
In other words, the moral law includes both our relationship with God and our relationship with others.
Nowadays there’s a tendency to argue that our relationships with others can be dealt with entirely apart from the question of our relationship with God. Secularism says that in the public sphere we should set aside the question of “what it means to love God” – and deal only with the question of “what it means to love neighbor.”
But as soon as you do that, you are saying that you will not love God with all your heart! If you are going to love the LORD with all your heart, then you need to love God in all that you do.
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