The Bible Does Not Tell Us to Love Our Parents, But We Should Love Our Neighbors
“Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,” we are told in Leviticus 19:18. Why doesn’t the Bible draw a wider circle, why only one’s neighbor, why not all humankind? Eric Hoffer, American longshoreman and philosopher, explained: Because it is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love one’s neighbor. If you can love your neighbor, you will love all humankind.
The Bible commands us to love our neighbor (Leviticus 19:18), to love the stranger (Leviticus 19:34) and to love God (Deuteronomy 6:5). But not our parents. We are told only to honor (or revere) our parents, but not to love them (Exodus 20:12; Deuteronomy 5:16). Why not love? Perhaps because in so intimate a relationship love cannot be commanded; love is too volatile an emotion in this setting to be commanded. All that can be commanded here is to honor and respect. These are possible even without constant love.
In 1209, the Crusaders defeated the French defenders of the city of Beziers. The city population reportedly included 220 Christian heretics, but no one knew who they were. The Crusaders asked the papal commander what to do. He replied, “Kill them all. God will recognize his own.” From “love of God,” the Crusaders murdered 15,000 people in a single day.
When did God instruct someone to lie? After God rejected King Saul, God commanded the prophet, priest and judge Samuel to go Bethlehem to anoint David. Samuel feared that if Saul learned that he, Samuel, was going to Bethlehem for this purpose, Saul would kill him. Samuel said to the Lord, “How can I go. If Saul hears of it, he will kill me” (1 Samuel 16:2). The Lord then told Samuel to take a heifer with him to Bethlehem and to say that he was going there to offer a sacrifice to the Lord. So that is what Samuel did. When he got to Bethlehem, he anointed David. Apparently, lying is permissible in order to deceive a would-be murderer.
All of these Illuminations were suggested by a fascinating book of aphorisms entitled Uncommon Sense: The World’s Fullest Compendium of Wisdom by Joseph Telushkin (New York: Shapolsky Publishers, 1987).
Telushkin may be wrong in the last example cited above. Samuel may have sacrificed the heifer in Bethlehem (we are not told whether he did or not), in 043which case he wasn’t lying when he told Saul he was going to Bethlehem to offer a sacrifice to the Lord; at least technically he wasn’t lying. Some, however, may consider this lying even if Samuel did sacrifice. That was not his motive for going, and he knew that Saul would be misled by the “sacrifice” story as to Samuel’s real purpose in going to Bethlehem.
Loving And Lying
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