Reasonable Latino Addresses the SECOND Best Social Justice Argument

Loving Your Neighbor as Yourself in Biblical Context

All right, so yesterday I put out a video, if you haven't seen it, check it out. It's called A Reasonable Latino Responds to the Single Best Social Justice Argument for Christians. And I got a comment that pushed back on me and said that what I addressed was actually not the single best argument for social justice.

In his opinion, the best argument for social justice was the love your neighbor as yourself argument. Basically, his point was that it's very effective for social justice advocates to say you should love your neighbor, you know?

And then they use that parable, well, who is my neighbor? And then, you know, the Good Samaritan and stuff like that, they use that parable, and he said that that's more effective. And of course, these are matters of opinion, obviously.

I considered that one when I decided to do this video, but I chose against it because I feel like a lot of, especially conservatives, people that are traditionally conservative theologically and politically, they know how to respond to that very easily.

Because this whole idea of what is love, you know what I mean? People have thought about this and talked about it a lot, especially when it comes to the LGBT stuff, we have to think about that. What is love defined biblically?

Because we all kind of have the, we all kind of know that love isn't these ishy squishy, you know, butterflies in our tummy tum kind of thing, that love actually has content behind it, that love acts and that God says, Jesus says, that the entirety of the law, the Old Testament law is what he was referring to in context, the entirety of the law can be summed up in loving your God and loving your neighbor, and those two commandments.

And so we have to look at the Old Testament code to say, okay, so if Christ said, this is how to love my neighbor, then I need to look at this and figure out how to apply it in order to love my neighbor.

Applying the Law of God to Social Justice Claims

So when people say, well, you know, you got to join the Black Lives Matter mob because love your neighbor as yourself, you're just saying, who is my neighbor? You see that kind of thing a lot. But the thing is though, that, you know, when you say love your neighbor as yourself, it's never just one neighbor, it's not just love this neighbor as yourself and forget about all the other neighbors.

No, you see the law of God is awesome because it shows you how to love all your neighbors and it doesn't make you rely on emotions and ishy squishy feelings in order to figure out how to do it. In fact, it gives you commands to do it.

And this is the area that I've been focused on when it comes to the George Floyd situation because everyone is talking about the George Floyd situation where Derek Chauvin, the police officer, was kneeling on his neck, he ends up dead, and that's an issue of racism.

Even though there is no evidence that it's race related in any way, people are still saying that's a watershed moment for race relations in our country. And what I'm saying is, and my whole focus on that whole situation has been, no, we can't go with the mob there, we have to love our neighbor as ourself.

That means we have to love George Floyd like we would love ourselves, but also we would have to love Derek Chauvin as well. And the God of scripture gives us commands to love your neighbor as yourself, both Derek Chauvin and George Floyd.

And in order to love George Floyd, there are requirements that you have. In order to love Derek Chauvin, there are requirements that you have. He needs to have his day in court. We need to see what the situation is before we jump and join the lynch mob, before we insist that he's incarcerated or executed or whatever it is.

We have certain requirements on us, given to us by God that we have to obey because we fear the Lord, not the lynch mob. And so if you're gonna love the black community in the George Floyd situation, then you need to make sure that you're following everything that God commands, not only for George Floyd and for the black community, but also for Derek Chauvin and the white community, because there is no, we don't get to pick, you know, we don't get to pick sides, who we're gonna love, which community we're gonna love, which community are we focusing on?

The Law of God and Partiality

You hear that a lot, you know, when people say black lives matter, and then someone responds, all lives matter. And then the stupid response, the idiotic response, and this is stupid, this is idiotic, this is not something that a Christian should engage in when they say, no, no, no, we're focusing on the black community now, like a kindergarten teacher would deal with kids fighting over a toy or something like that.

That's kindergarten stuff, you know what I mean? That's a kindergarten response, that's an immature response. And as a matter of fact, you can't do that in the law of God. We can't just be, we're focused on these people right now.

No, it's like the law of God applies at all times to all people, regardless of skin color, regardless of history, regardless of ethnicity. And God, again and again and again in his word, says the requirements to love your God and to love your neighbor apply regardless of the history.

This is something that he directly addresses. He says, you shall not hate an Egyptian. He's talking to his people, Israel, who were enslaved without doubt by the Egyptians, who were oppressed by the Egyptians.

And in the law, he says, because he knows that the tendency is, if somebody has a historical oppression that they're dealing with, the Israelites had been oppressed historically by the Egyptians, he knows the tendency is for people that are consumed in the flesh to say, I hate those people.

I heard what they did to my grandma. I heard what they did to my great-great-grandma and all that kind of stuff. I hate them and treat them unfairly. And God specifically tells Israel, no, you shall not hate an Egyptian in your heart because you are a sojourner in their land.

So it doesn't matter what they did to you or your grandparents or the history or any of that. Your requirements to love your neighbor as yourself is still the same. The law doesn't change. And the reason why we have to love our neighbor as yourself, so often in the Old Testament, God will give a law to Israel and he'll follow it up with this.

He'll say, do such and such, or don't do such and such. And he'll follow it up like this. He'll say, I am the Lord. So love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord. Do not hate an Egyptian. I am the Lord.

And the idea is that because God is there and we fear God and his law never changes and we need to love God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our might. My kids are memorizing that verse.

Thanks to Randall Goodgame. By the way, Randall Goodgame, good stuff. Helps kids remember scripture. Anyway, because God is the Lord and he doesn't change, I have to love Derek Chauvin. I know it doesn't make me look good and it won't make you look good to do it either, but you have to, you have to.

You don't get to slander Derek Chauvin because you saw a video that looked gross. I agree, it looked gross. It looked disgusting. It looked evil, but I still have to love Derek Chauvin. You know what I mean?

I don't get to pick and choose which laws to obey based on how my feelings are towards Derek Chauvin. When I saw that and I saw that, man, I was disgusted at him and everything in me wants me to be like, yeah, yeah, just fry the guy.

Fry the guy. I don't care what happened. You see, I'm not allowed to do that. God requires me to figure out what the situation is first, not join the lynch mob and figure out how did this man die? Look at the autopsy, figure out what the situation was, what happened before, what happened during, what happened after, how did this happen?

Was this an accident or was this murder? Like I have to figure that stuff out. I don't just get to join the lynch mob and the reason why, God tells me why I have to love Derek Chauvin because he is the Lord, not the mob.

Anyway, I hope you found this video helpful. Thanks for the comment, YouTube commenter. God bless.