Saturday Special: Ordered Loves, When JD Vance Brought Up the Ordo Amoris

Welcome to a Saturday special edition of When We Understand the Text. Looking at current events and responding to them with a solid understanding of scripture. Visit our website at www .utt .com. Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

Jesus’ Summary of the Law and the Great Commandment

Ordered Loves. When J .D. Vance Brought Up the Ordo Amoris. Pastor Gabe's blog for February 14th, 2025. A lawyer asked Jesus a question to test him. Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?

Jesus said to him, 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. A second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets. Matthew 22, 34 -40. An interesting debate was stirred a couple of weeks ago when Vice President J .D. Vance said in an interview that the political left prioritized illegal immigrants over their fellow American citizens.

Vance said.

Your compassion belongs first to your fellow citizens. It doesn't mean you hate people from outside of your own borders. But there's this old school, and I think it's a very Christian concept, by the way, that you love your family, and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country.

And then after that, you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world. A lot of the far left has completely inverted that. They seem to hate the citizens of their own country and care more about people outside their own borders.

That is no way to run a society.

He went on from there to say that President Trump has prioritized America first, which doesn't mean you hate anyone else, he said. But it means you put the needs of your own citizens first. In his response, Vance appealed to natural affections first.

There's this old school idea. Then he also said it's a very Christian concept. The latter part of that statement got more people in a tizzy than the first, because now Vance hasn't just appealed to common sense.

He's appealed to the authority of Christ. I'll address the arguments being raised in a moment, but first, let's get a right understanding of what Vice President Vance was referring to. Is it a Christian concept that we love our family first, then our neighbor?

And if so, where do we find such a command in the Bible? Arguments for the Ordo Amoris. In theology, this is called the Ordo Amoris, Latin for order of affections or order of loves. This has been attributed to Augustine of Hippo, who presented this concept near the end of his famous work, City of God, written in the fifth century.

Said C .S. Lewis, quote, St. Augustine defines virtue as Ordo Amoris, the ordinate condition of the affections in which every object is accorded that kind of degree of love which is appropriate.

To it.

Unquote. Augustine said our highest love is to be our love of God. And then everything else we do and love should be in obedience to him and to the glory of his name. You've probably also seen other forms of an Ordo Amoris, like in the U .S. Marine motto for God, core country.

Perhaps you've heard someone say, or maybe you've said it yourself, God first, others second, yourself third. This is also seen in that kitschy joy acrostic, Jesus, others, you, a husband and a father understands that he should love his family first before he loves anyone else outside his household.

That is a naturally sensible ordered love. And as Vance said, this is also a Christian concept. While the Bible does not lay out an exact list of ordered loves, we can easily deduce priority from the instructions God has given.

Jesus said to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. This is the great and first commandment, he said. And a second is like it. To love your neighbor as yourself. Here Jesus gives an order of love.

We are to love God first and foremost, then love others. If you love God, you will love your neighbor with a love that flows out of the love of.

God.

It is possible to love your neighbor and not love God. But to think that you can love without God is self-righteous. Love becomes something subjective and humanist, turning his ordo amoris upside down.

We find many other places in Scripture where we can piece together an ordo amoris. Ephesians 5 -6 gives an order of love. First we honor Christ, Ephesians 5 .21. A wife is to submit to her husband as the church submits to Christ, and a husband is to love his wife as Christ loves the church, Ephesians 5 .22 and 25.

A father is to love his children by bringing them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord, Ephesians 6 .4. As I've shared with many couples in counseling, you are to love your spouse first before you love your kids.

It doesn't mean you don't love your children. It doesn't mean you hate them. It is rightly ordered love. You create the most stable home environment when you prioritize love for God first, then love for each other, then love for your children.

Your children will know you love them when they see you love God and each other first. When the Bible talks about the qualifications of a pastor, it mentions that he must love his family before he loves his church, or else he's not qualified to be a pastor.

Keith Foskey, pastor of Sovereign Grace Family Church in Jacksonville, Florida, put it like this, quote,. A man making the members of his home a priority is in the very qualifications for an elder. If he doesn't care for his home, how can he care for the members of his church, 1 Timothy 3 .5.

This proves there is a priority for a godly man that begins at home, unquote. The apostle Paul went on to tell Timothy, quote,. 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 Timothy 5 .8.

Even unbelievers know this basic concept of caring for your own. How much more incumbent is it upon the Christian? Furthermore, the Bible tells us that we prioritize our love for each other in the church before those who are outside the church, as Galatians 6 .10 says,.

So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith. So certainly love everyone, but make sure the needs of your church brethren are met.

First.

So again, the Bible doesn't lay all this out in a concise list, but based on what God has said, we rightly order our affections to loving God first, others second. That's the most simplified list found in the Bible.

In that list of others, if you're married, you show love to your spouse most, then your children, then people within your family, especially your parents, Exodus 20 .12, then your local church, then the greater body of faith, then your own neighbors, city, country, and the world.

After all, when Jesus sent out his disciples to share the gospel, he said, You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth, Acts 1 .8. It began in their own city, then country, then spread out from there.

The greatest way we show love to our neighbors is by giving them the gospel, for it is only by faith in Jesus Christ that they will be saved from judgment. Arguments against the Ordo Amoris. Like I said, the pushback against Vice President Vance calling this a Christian idea was immediate and fierce.

Dr. Laura Robinson of Duke University said, quote, This is not a Christian concept. Vance is just making stuff up, and he knows his audience is so ignorant about Christianity that they'll believe him.

You are among that number if you believe him, unquote. She went on to say, quote, I just can't get over how insanely angry it makes me watching people respond to this with, Yeah, that's what the Bible teaches.

It is translated at a fourth grade reading level, and it is free online. You are all idiots, unquote. My, she sounds completely hinged and loving of her neighbors, doesn't she? Rory Stewart, a professor at Yale, said Vance's comments were, quote, a bizarre take on John 15, 12 to 13, less Christian and more pagan tribal.

We should start worrying when politicians become theologians, assume to speak for Jesus and tell us in which order to love, unquote. Considering Stewart is a former minister of state in the UK, isn't that a little self.

Defeating?

Why does Stewart think Vance was referring to John 15, 12 to 13? It's there. Jesus says this is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone laid down his life for his friends.

Going on to verse 14, you are my friends. If you do what I command you. Is this not ordered love? Earlier in John 13, 34 to 35, Jesus said, a new commandment I give to you that you love one another just as I have loved you.

So you are also to love one another. By this, all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. So where should our affections begin? Then it begins with love for Christ and then to other followers of Christ.

A fellow who goes by the name of Randy Lazarus said, isn't this the exact opposite of what Jesus teaches about loving thy neighbor as thyself? If you love only those who love you, what reward will you get if you greet only your own people?

What more are you doing than others, unquote? He was taking from Matthew 5, 46 to 48. The response to this is quite simple. Notice that Jesus said, if you love only those who love you, what reward will you get?

The Ordo Amoris is not an argument for loving only those who love you. It's about rightly prioritizing your responsibilities according to what God says about love, not according to how you feel about it or what our society says about it.

A software engineer named Lucas Barker from New Zealand said, quote, the idea of loving in a hierarchy from a family outward isn't supported by biblical teachings. Instead, Christianity emphasizes universal love, unquote.

He then gave a list of love your neighbor, the Good Samaritan, loving your enemies and being one body in Christ. This indicates that in Christian doctrine, he said, love is meant to be expansive and inclusive, not hierarchical.

Lucas defeats his own argument in two ways. First, he argued against a list of ordered loves by giving a list of ordered loves. Second, he cannot nor has he ever loved everyone inclusively the same. If Lucas is married, does he love his neighbor's wife with the same kind of love as he loves his own wife?

If he says yes, I guarantee you his wife will have something to say about that. David Pierce from the UK said, quote, Jesus teaching on love is radically inclusive. There's that word again. Love your neighbor as yourself.

Indeed, the whole point of the parable of the Good Samaritan is to undermine the idea of prioritizing love based on closeness. Mass deportations are unchristian. J .D. Vance should reconsider, unquote.

No, the whole point of the parable of the Good Samaritan was to expose hypocrisy. Jesus was responding to a lawyer who was desiring to justify himself, Luke 10, 29. And Jesus showed the lawyer that he doesn't actually love his neighbor.

You fail to love your neighbor in even the most basic of ways. So how can you expect to inherit eternal life? The answer, of course, is by faith in Jesus. I would be willing to venture that Mr. Pierce, desiring to justify himself if he was really honest with himself, would find that he's nothing like the Good Samaritan either.

The BD annual wheelie of Anacostia River Church in Washington, D .C., said of Vance's comment, quote,. This may be an old school concept, but it's not a very Christian concept. He's describing natural affection, a fleshly notion of love.

He's describing self-love spread over a wider area. He's not describing Christian or supernatural love, the kind of love that is very Christian, loves the enemy, the widow and orphan, who is by definition not your family and the stranger, by definition, not your clan, ethnicity, race or nationality, unquote.

I don't know what the BD was going on about. It is, in fact, very Christian to love your wife and not commit adultery. That is exactly contrary to the inclinations of our flesh. Commands to love one's enemy, to love the orphan and widow and to love the stranger are in the Old Testament as well as in the new.

Surely the BD knows that your enemies may consist of members of your own family. I speak from experience, but I digress. The BD is being hypocritical here. He, a black man, has previously said he would choose the black community over the church.

I pointed this out to him. You have said that you are going to choose black solidarity over Christian solidarity. Was that fleshly or Christian? By the way, he made this comment on X on May 30th, 2020.

I've been trying to get him to respond to it for years. Well, he finally did. He replied, quote, You choose solidarity with the vulnerable and oppressed, whether black, white, Christian, Muslim or Jew.

It's the mistreatment that forms the basis of solidarity. You don't simply show solidarity with your group, for that would often lead to group prejudice and partiality, unquote. Once again, this is ordered loves.

The vulnerable and oppressed get priority. But the BD doesn't actually believe this. The most vulnerable and oppressed group of people in America are unborn children, over one million of whom were murdered by abortion last year.

But the BD has been a longtime fan of Kamala Harris, the most pro-abortion presidential candidate the United States has ever had. So he does not meet his own standard of the Ordo Amoris choosing solidarity with the vulnerable and oppressed.

You might notice that the basis of all these appeals is personal feelings, not what God's word says. Dr. Laura Robinson elicited a very emotional response when she said how insanely angry it makes her that this is even in the Bible.

It makes her insane, she said. Why? Because she hates God's word. Joe Ashby Thomas, a theologian in Canada who calls himself a human rights leader these days, that's code for being pro-abortion and pro-LGBTQ, said of the vice president's comments, quote, I am a theologian trained at one of America's top conservative evangelical theological seminaries.

This is not a Christian concept. It's a Western individualistic one, unquote. A fellow who goes by David Drift said scripture begs to differ. He referred to first Timothy five, eight, which again says that one who doesn't care for members of his own household is worse than an unbeliever.

Thomas replied, Jesus begs to differ. Did you catch that? Thomas, Mr. I was trained at a top conservative evangelical theological seminary, said Jesus begs to differ with Paul, his apostle who spoke the very word of Christ.

Again, the word of God is not the authority here. Joe Ashby Thomas's feelings about it are the authority to the point that he would fight God's word with God's word. It's Satan once again rearing his ugly head and hissing.

Did God really say this is dangerous ground and not a mere difference of opinion? Jesus said the one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge. The word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day.

John 12, 48. Arguments that are not the Ordo Amoris, there is another group who is twisting this discussion over the Ordo Amoris to claim that ethnic descent, even appearance and skin color is a basis for how you order your loves.

You should actually show greater love for people whose skin looks like yours. They will argue the group I'm thinking of is not the woke Black Lives Matter or the social justice warriors. The group I'm referring to has been called the dissident right.

They once repudiated the label white Christian nationalism, but it seems they've since taken a liking to it and they're actually growing in popularity among professing Christian young men. A young investor named Josh Haywood said, quote, You are much more related to your white cousins across the pond than foreigners in our own country.

Unquote. Haywood claims to be part of heritage America, which CJ Engel describes as, quote, centered around the experience and norms of Anglo Protestants. Unquote. Corey J. Mahler, who was excommunicated from his church over unrepentant racism, said, quote, If I as an American of Germanic extraction were to have a child with an African woman, I could fly to England, not even Germany, and any random white man I passed on the street would be more closely related to me than my own child.

Unquote. Joel Webben, pastor of Covenant Bible Church in Austin, Texas, said on his.

Talk show, every young man in the world can pick up their phone and in 15 seconds can see that the average IQ in Haiti is 67. But in any Christian minister who denies that will not have any credibility, they won't credibility.

But it is a sin to God is because you're a liar, manifested reality. You're a liar. It's not true. You cannot be a minister of the gospel and be a public liar. Right. That's you're disqualified from ministry, from lying.

You can't be a liar and be a minister of the gospel.

Well, I picked up my phone and in 15 seconds I discovered that the average IQ in Haiti is between 82 and 98. So has Joel disqualified himself according to his own standard? It's ungracious, not to mention prejudiced to think so little of an entire people group because you believe some mythical stat you found on Reddit or X.

It's then legalist and pharisaical to pin the qualifications of a pastor on the acceptance of that bogus statistic. Kyle Rodriguez said in response to this, quote,. What does the average IQ of any nation or people group have to do with the pastor's call to preach the gospel to them?

Why is this even being disputed or talked about from the office of a church pastor? An anonymous account that goes by Son of Japheth said, quote,. Yes, I am a racist. No, that isn't a sin, unquote. As of the publication of this article, that comment has 79 likes on X.

I'd sure like to see which, if any, pastors like that. Back in November, James White confronted this racism creeping into Christian circles, saying if you can't understand that the imputed righteousness of Christ and presence of the Holy Spirit makes someone more close to you than any amount of blood and soil, you're not a Christian, unquote.

Stephen Wolfe, who wrote the case for Christian nationalism, responded to White, quote,. This is how theology becomes an absurd ideology. Sharing the imputed righteousness of Christ provides no means of cooperation, covenant, consent, deliberation, et cetera, to achieve the most basic goods of civil society.

It doesn't provide a common language, let alone common laws, customs, culture, et cetera. This is really moronic. Please just think it through for a sec, unquote. What is the difference between Wolfe's comment and Thabiti's when Thabiti said black solidarity before Christian?

Ideologically speaking, Wolfe may be on the political right and Thabiti on the political left, but are they not both arguing for a kind of solidarity that is greater than the reconciling blood of Jesus Christ?

It was in April two years ago that Wolfe made the comment, quote,. White evangelicals are the lone bulwark against moral insanity in America, unquote. Not all Christians, just the white ones, are the moral bastion of hope.

Wolfe embraced leftist tactics to divide people into constituencies according to skin color. And he put white voters in a higher moral tier. In the words of my friend Samuel C., quote,. This is what happens when we attempt to create an identity or a tribe based on ethnicity instead of Christ, unquote.

There are those even among professing Christians who will try to find a reason to not have to love certain people or to find a reason to love them less. This is not ordered love, but disordered. Closing thoughts on the Ordo Amoris.

A woman named Dawn asked me, what did Jesus mean when he said to love your neighbor as yourself? I am not sure it has ever been defined to me over the years. I have my own thoughts, of course, but curious as to how you interpret to love your neighbor as yourself means you do not consider your neighbor as less than yourself, but you love him as yourself.

The same concept is given in the golden rule. Whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them. For this is the law and the prophets. Matthew 7, 12 included with loving your neighbor is to love your enemy.

Consider the way Jesus framed this command. 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. Matthew 4, 43 to 44.

The Jews wanted to separate out their enemies in a different category than their neighbors. Jesus showed them that loving your neighbor means also loving your enemy. I know this may astonish some people, but you can actually love your enemies and still prioritize love for your family.

You don't love your enemies at the expense of your family. You also don't just ignore the evil things that wicked men do and not punish them. The Bible is clear that a people who neglect to do justice, in fact, do not love their neighbors.

See Isaiah 1, 10 to 20. God's law also instructed his people to love the sojourner as their neighbor. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.

I am the Lord, your God. Leviticus 19, 34. But even the sojourner had to obey the law of God. If a sojourner sacrificed his children to Moloch, he was to be stoned to death. That's just a few verses later in Leviticus 20, verse 2.

This whole conversation about the Ordo Amoris came up in the context of Vice President J .D. Vance answering questions about immigration reform, especially regarding the deportation of immigrants who are in America illegally and do not obey America's laws.

None of the people who hate these reforms explain how deporting them is unchristian. All they do is deny that the Ordo Amoris is Christian. And beyond this, they are unwilling to lift a finger. Matthew 23, 4.

I like the way Abigail Dodds of St. Paul, Minnesota, summed up this discussion, quote, the Ordo Amoris in a nutshell, she said. Everyone wants to save the world, but no one wants to help mom with the dishes, unquote.

I couldn't have said it better myself. The order of love starts with loving God above all loving one another, begins at home, loving those in closest proximity to you. And there should be nothing remotely controversial about that.

Love God and love others. Love your family and love your neighbor. Love your church and love your enemies. That's the order of love.