Wait, Are Joyce Meyer And Mike Todd Actually RIGHT?!

Fight For Truth

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Hey guys, Colin here, and welcome back to the channel where the Bible and critical thinking meet to give you real

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Christian commentary about the things that matter. Thanks so much for watching, let's get into the video. So I wanted to make a follow -up video regarding the last one

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I made about Joyce Meyer. In that video, link in description, I talked about teachers like Mike Todd and Joyce Meyer who promote the concept of self -love.

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My position is that self -love is a worldly concept that has no precedent in the Scriptures and should not, under any circumstances, be actively taught or encouraged in the

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Church. Now with that said, there were a lot of comments attempting to refute my position biblically, and I wanted to deal with their best arguments here.

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Specifically, there are a few passages that people will use time and time again to defend the concept of self -love.

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Today, I want to show you how to refute the supposedly biblical arguments in favor of self -love.

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These are the passages that people are using to bring this doctrine into the Christian Church, or at least what calls itself the

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Christian Church, and teach it to Christians as part of their daily lives. This kind of thing, I believe, is very dangerous.

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The first passage people will use to defend this is one that Mike Todd, pastor of Transformation Church, himself uses, and it is from the second greatest commandment given by Jesus.

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In Matthew 22, 37 -40, Jesus says this, quote, You shall love the Lord your

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God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.

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And the second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets, end quote.

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Many people have used this to defend the idea of self -love, including Mike Todd. They will highlight the fact that the passage says to love your neighbor as yourself, and therefore, according to them,

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Jesus must want you to love your neighbor and love yourself, because his answer implies that you love yourself.

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But this is simply reading into the passage rather than reading the meaning out of it. I can find no explicit, positive teaching in Scripture about self -love, and to use this one obscure reference to defend the entire idea being smuggled into the church,

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I think that's both dishonest and dangerous. There are two ideas here, love of neighbor and love of self.

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Which of these is the Lord Jesus commanding in this passage? Well the command is whatever he puts the word shall before.

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You shall do this. That's the command, right? And Jesus clearly says you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

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The command is obviously to love your neighbor. The as yourself part is merely a description or a helpful measurement of to what extent you are fulfilling that command.

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In fact, the word as in Greek here is hos, which means like or even as.

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It doesn't mean to love your neighbor while you love yourself or at the same time you love yourself.

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Rather, it means to focus on loving your neighbor in the same way you have usually focused on loving yourself.

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Let me present this using a parallel passage. In Matthew 7 -12, Jesus says, So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them.

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For this is the law and the prophets. Notice the parallel here. Jesus says that this summarizes the law and the prophets in Matthew 7 -12.

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But the previous passage in Matthew 22, he says the same thing. He says, On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.

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So both of these summarize the law and the prophets. And there's clearly a connection happening here.

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And Jesus says to do unto others as you would have done unto you. Is this a command then to do good things unto yourself?

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After all, he does say that you should do to others as you would have done unto you. Should we then emphasize the importance of doing good to yourself then?

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No. Because that's clearly not what Jesus himself is emphasizing here. Rather, he is saying that you ought to do good to others.

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That is the command. And the measurement of whether or not you've fulfilled that command is whether or not you treat others the way you yourself would wish to be treated.

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This isn't rocket science. All we have to do is read the text and listen very closely. So that is my response to the first passage on self -love.

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It's being taken out of context, and it doesn't mean what you think it means. The second passage is very similar.

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And people use it to defend the idea of self -love. It's Ephesians 5 .33, which says, quote, Each one of you must love his wife as he loves himself, end quote.

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So some have taken this as further proof that self -love is biblical because it echoes what Jesus said in the previous verses.

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Some would say that this actually constitutes a theme in Scripture, a theme of self -love. But again, this is founded on the very same misunderstanding.

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Paul is telling you how to love your wife when he says, as you love yourself. He's not telling you to love yourself.

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Rather, he assumes that you already love and prioritize yourself, and therefore he commands you to focus on others instead, in this case, specifically your wife.

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Another helpful way to understand this is from a different passage in Ephesians. Ephesians 5 .29 also talks about loving one's wife when it says, quote,

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For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it. Just as Christ does the church, end quote.

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So when you see this language of loving others as yourself, the as yourself part is an assumption, not a command.

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Remember that. It's an assumption, not a command. It's a fact, not a promotion of that fact.

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It is understood already, preemptively, that everyone nourishes themselves and loves their own flesh.

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We are born self -serving. We want to serve ourselves naturally. Everyone who's ever interacted with a toddler for more than five seconds knows this to be true about human nature.

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It is assumed all over scripture that we love ourselves. But I have never seen it directly encouraged or promoted.

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Rather, every single passage we've read that talks about loving yourself is a direct endorsement of loving others, and the as yourself part is consistently a mere description of how one ought to love others.

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That's what the clear meaning is when we don't attempt to artificially shove our foreign concepts into the

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Bible and just let the word speak for itself. The people who are desperately trying to hold on to self -love are doing so because they're attached to this worldly concept.

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That's why virtually every argument of theirs is based in scriptures taken out of context, because truly the argument doesn't come from the scriptures.

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It comes from the world. There's no way to get around this. There is one passage I know of that does indeed explicitly talk about self -love, though.

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2 Timothy 3, 1 -5. It says this, So the passage clearly says that there will be terrible times, and in these terrible times, people will give themselves to their sinful passions and to unbiblical wickedness.

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And one such wickedness is, quote, love of self. The one single reference that I could find about self -love in scripture, the only one that I could find that's explicit and clear is a scathing critique of it rather than an endorsement of it.

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And that should tell you everything you need to know. Being a lover of oneself is evil and wrong. In fact, when it's left unchecked, when it's allowed to roam free, it's a sign that the times in a society are terrible times.

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Here, loving oneself is on a list of sins that includes unholy, unforgiving, slanderous, treacherous, and boastful.

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This is most definitely not a good list to be on, and yet there is self -love as the very first term on that list.

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Now I will establish that the Greek words for love in the passages I've mentioned are different, but that is to be expected, because the passages are emphasizing two different things, which of course has been my point all along.

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I've looked at the Greek words here, I've analyzed these concepts as best I can, and it doesn't change my conclusion.

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Of course, I am not infallible, and the Word of God is, so feel free to use the Blue Letter Bible website or any other tool you want and see the original languages for yourself.

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Study this matter on your own and see what conclusion you come to. The fact still remains, though.

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The only clear and explicit reference that I could find to positive love of oneself is on a list of sinful activities.

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And I have demonstrated that virtually every other reference is taken out of context. But let me offer you one more verse.

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Philippians 2 .3. It says, Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others as more significant than yourselves.

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This is a demonstration, ladies and gentlemen, of how to love others in the Church, and it says to count others as more significant than you.

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In other words, loving others comes many times at the cost of loving yourself. Serving others very often comes at the cost of serving yourself.

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The Christian life is characterized by a focus on loving others. The fact is, there is no way to consistently and honestly read

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Scripture and come to the conclusion that we ought to teach or promote self -love in the Church. You can try, but I just don't think there's any way you can do it.

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So let's pray that God would protect His people from this unbiblical doctrine of self -love, and pray that teachers like Joyce Meyer and Mike Todd would repent of this and turn to the truth of God's Word.

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Thank you so much for watching. If you liked that video, please like, comment, share, subscribe, and hit the notification bell so that you never miss another one.

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If you didn't like that video for any reason, then I invite you to watch my Frequently Asked Questions video, link in description, where I deal with common objections and define the purpose and goal of my channel using

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Scripture. This channel is funded by generous donations from my amazing patrons. If you'd like to help us put out more videos just like this one, hit the link in the description or go to patreon .com

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slash colinamiller. You can donate to my ministry there and earn tons of rewards just like these.

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And until next time, fight for truth, never surrender, and keep your eyes open. Thank you and God bless.