The English expression “above all” is a superlative: there can normally only be one thing that is “above all” in any given category – such as the highest mountain or the largest ocean. In the New Testament, several Greek phrases function in the same way – they also connote something that is more important than any other among the things being discussed. For example, the apostle James tells us “Above all, my brothers and sisters, do not swear” (James 5:12) – meaning that is the most important thing his readers must keep in mind in the context he is speaking about.
The apostle Peter uses the expression in the same way in his epistles, but interestingly he uses it not once but three times – each time of a different thing:
“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8).
“Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things” (2 Peter 1:20).
“Above all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires” (2 Peter 3:3).
At first sight these statements seem to be unrelated. They certainly speak of different things that the apostle urges us to keep foremost in mind – though it may seem strange that he mentions two things to keep in mind “above all” in the same epistle. Yet there is perhaps a thread that connects them all.
In the first of these verses, Peter’s subject is obvious – it is love of one another that he emphasizes must be paramount in our concerns. We must not only love each other, he says, but we must love each other deeply.
In the second verse the subject may seem a somewhat narrow one to be regarded as something “above all else,” but the context of the statement helps us to understand what the verse is emphasizing. Peter is not simply talking about understanding Scripture, but about our perception of it in a context of faith. The epistle’s first verses tell us that Peter writes: “To those who through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ have received a faith as precious as ours” (2 Peter 1:1).
A few verses later Peter expands the theme of faith: “make every effort to add to your faith goodness” (2 Peter 1:5). Then in verse 16 Peter begins a defense of his readers’ faith: “For we did not follow cleverly devised stories” (2 Peter 1:16); in verse 19 he adds “We also have the prophetic message” (2 Peter 1:19) It is in continuation of this thought that he then writes “Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation” (2 Peter 1:20). Peter’s point is that our faith is well grounded – something he urges us to place at the forefront of our minds.
In the final verse in which he uses the expression “above all” the apostle tells us “Above all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come” (2 Peter 3:3) and once again we must look at its context. The third chapter of 2 Peter develops the idea that scoffers will come who, if they are able, will undermine the very hope of every believer in the return of our Lord: “They will say, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised?” (2 Peter 3:4), and Peter immediately follows this warning with a defense of the Christian hope regarding Christ’s return (verses 5–12) – concluding with the words “But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells. So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this” (verses 13–14 , emphases added). Twice Peter stresses that which the believer is looking forward to – hoping for. The context of 2 Peter 3:3 is clearly that it is paramount that we are not affected by scoffers and that we can continue to hope in the reality of the Lord’s return.
Whether consciously or not, Peter’s three references to things that we must keep in mind “above all” are related in that they have to do with the great triad of love, faith, and hope* (or “faith, hope, and love” as Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13:13), that make up the centrality of Christian life. There is no contradiction in what Peter writes – these three qualities are, indeed, things that we must strive toward “above all.”
* Download our free e-book These Three Remain:Why Faith, Hope and Love Are Even More Important Than You Realize here .
In summarizing the greatest commandments, Jesus quoted Leviticus 19:18 to affirm the commandment to “love your neighbor as yourself.” We all know this verse, but do we fully understand it? Given our own society’s frequent stress on the importance of “self-love,” we may read into Jesus’ words something that is not really there.
Sometimes it is said that Jesus’ words show the importance of self-love, and that loving ourselves is a prerequisite for loving other people. But what if we don’t love ourselves very much – or even hate ourselves – are we supposed to love other people to that same degree? This is an unavoidable conclusion if we insist on taking Jesus’ words to mean love of others is somehow based on the degree to which we love ourselves.
But if we go back to the section of Leviticus that Jesus was quoting and read the whole verse, we see something interesting: “Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself.” The point here is that we would not carry out revenge on ourselves or bear a grudge against ourselves, and we should love other people by treating them in the same way. Jesus simply quoted the second part of this principle – out of context – as a scriptural reference to the overall principle of loving others. We should remember that the Old Testament does not always contain verses that perfectly show every principle that is elaborated in the New Testament.
Once we realize that Jesus was simply quoting a verse that came closest to the overall principle of love for others, we can see that this verse does not really have anything to do with “self-love” or that “we can only love others as much as we love ourselves.” These sentiments are not present in what Jesus said and are actually not found anywhere else in the Bible.
Look at three examples of the many instances in which love of others is spoken about without ever referencing love of self:
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another” (John 13:34).
“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8).
“This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another” (1 John 3:11).
Love of others is simply not related to or bound up with love of self in the Bible. The very few seeming exceptions are easy to explain. In his letter to the church at Ephesus, for example, the apostle Paul wrote that each husband “must love his wife as he loves himself” (Ephesians 5:33), but Paul is likely talking here about the husband loving his wife with the biblical understanding that they are one body, one self. The Amplified Bible catches the sense of this in translating the verse: “However, let each man of you [without exception] love his wife as [being in a sense] his very own self.”
There is no proof that any of the few biblical verses that talk about loving others as ourselves are talking about self-love in the modern sense. In fact, Paul tells Timothy: “There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy” (2 Timothy 3:1-2, emphasis added).
This does not mean that we must have a negative self-image or that we should hate ourselves. What it does mean is that for the Christian, self-love as a way of accepting and valuing ourselves is replaced with the understanding of God’s love for us (John 3:16) – and that our self-image is based on that full and truly meaningful outside love, not on some inner love for ourselves that we drum up. The Christian understands that in reality there is much that is not really lovable about all of us (Romans 3:10-12), but God’s love and reconstruction of our lives (Ephesians 4:24) supersedes the undeniable failings of our own inner nature. The Christian comes to realize that “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19) – not because we learned self-love.
God calls us to a sacrificial love of others more than self. We see this in the words of Jesus (John 15:13; etc.) and in the words of Paul – not that we build ourselves up, but that we look on others as more important than ourselves (Philippians 2:3).
We all experience feelings of insecurity at times, but the answer is not to look inward and attempt to love ourselves more. The Scriptures show that the answer is to look upward at the value God places on each one of us individually, and to look outward and concentrate on the value of others. When we understand that right self-love is a recognition and appreciation for the love God has for us and for others, then we can begin to effectively love others as ourselves.
We all want happiness. We all want joy. Or, to be more precise, we all want lasting happiness and joy. As we go through life we realize that some things can bring us a seeming happiness, but when these sources of happiness are not based on the right foundation, they turn into shallow pleasures that do not last (Proverbs 20:17).
So what is the foundation of lasting joy in our lives? The Scriptures give us a strategy for finding that kind of happiness in an unexpected place. But first, understand a little background. In the ancient Near Eastern world where the events described in the Bible occurred, the most common symbol of happiness and joy was the grape vine. We see this fact in the psalmist’s comment regarding “wine that gladdens human hearts” (Psalm 104:15) and in many other scriptures such as this one: “The vine is dried up … Surely the people’s joy is withered away” (Joel 1:12).
Of course, this connection was based on the temporary physical feeling of pleasure obtained from drinking wine, so what does the symbolism of happiness connected with the vine have to do with true, deeper, and lasting happiness? We find the answer in the words of Jesus himself when he told his disciples “I am the true vine …” (John 15:1). Of course, these words were spoken in the direct context of our abiding in him like branches staying firmly attached to the vine (John 15:2-8), but we should not forget that the most common symbolic use of the vine in religious and philosophical teaching of that time was one of its connection with happiness and joy.
When we remember this background fact, the next words of Jesus suddenly become much more alive to us: “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete” (vs. 11, emphasis added). When we keep the basic symbolic meaning of the vine in mind it seems more than coincidence that Jesus points to himself as the true vine and then tells us he makes this connection so we may have true happiness or joy.
But Jesus did not just tell us these things as abstract principles – he explained his words in terms of a direct strategy for happiness that we can and should apply in our lives. Notice that the setting for his statement on our complete happiness gives us that strategy: “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you” (John 15:9-12).
Do you see it? The strategy we are given for happiness is as clear as any strategy given anywhere in the words of Christ – our happiness will be like his if our love is like his. The profound thing about this strategy is that it is not based on chasing happiness or on trying to achieve joy through things we get or receive – it is based on the degree to which we reverse that process and work in the other direction through outgoing love. Love, Christ tells us, is not just the fulfilling of the law (Matthew 22:36-40), it is also the cause of happiness – in our lives and in the lives of others.
In that sense, the “fruit of the vine” Christ commanded us to receive on the last evening of his life is not only symbolic of his shed blood (Matthew 26:28) – which is its primary symbolism in the context of the Lord’s Supper, of course – but also, in a smaller yet no less real way, the fruit of the vine is symbolically the “fruit” of living the way Christ lived. That “fruit” is happiness, and the strategy to produce it is love.
“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love…” (1 Corinthians 13:13).
Probably every Christian knows the apostle Paul’s summary of the greatest Christian virtues found in 1 Corinthians 13:13. As new believers, it is one of the first verses we learn and one we always remember.
The meaning of Paul’s statement is simple enough. Like towering mountain peaks that still stand after the surrounding landscape has been eroded down or like three “rock hard” pebbles that remain when a stream has washed away the softer sand and soil, these three qualities “remain.”
But our new e-book, These Three Remain, helps you see scriptures speaking of these qualities when you might otherwise read right over them. It looks closely at each of the three key Christian attributes and examines how they interact with each other in your life. In fact, as you read this book, you may find that faith, hope and love are even more important than you ever realized. You can download this new free e-book from our sister sitehere.
“… And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8).
Most of us are familiar with the concept of “Lady Justice” – we may have seen statues and paintings of her holding a sword in one hand and a balance scale in the other.
The sword, of course, represents punishment and justice itself, and the balance scale symbolizes the idea of fairness in the justice dispensed. And if we look closely at these representations of the figure of Justice, we see she is usually wearing a blindfold – symbolic of total impartiality in judgement.
The Bible stresses the same concepts of justice and fairness – or justice and mercy as it calls them – as we see in Micah’s words “to act justly and to love mercy” as well as the words of Zechariah “…Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another” (Zechariah 7:9), and the words of Christ himself “…you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness….” (Matthew 23:23).
But we must be careful when it comes to the blindfold. God’s word encourages us to be involved in the dispensation of justice and mercy – to interact with the individuals to whom these principles must be applied in our roles as parents, supervisors, or whatever. Biblically, we cannot be impartial. We cannot temper justice with mercy if we don’t look at the circumstances involved in the situation we are judging,andwe cannot temper mercy with judgment if we do not look at the attitudes involved.
From a biblical perspective, we do need to see clearly what is involved in each instance where we may be in a position to dispense justice or punishment, just as we must where we might need to grant mercy or forgiveness. Certainly, we must not judge by appearances, as Christ confirmed: “Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge the righteous judgment” (John 7:24).
But we must not judge blindly – we must learn to look below the surface and judge matters of justice and mercy without the blindfold of social pressure that sometimes may lean unduly toward mercy, or conversely the blindfold of our human nature that may lean unduly toward justice. Either of those blindfolds can obscure what we need to see.
The word of God encourages us to see situations needing justice or mercy clearly, but through the lens of its teachings rather than through those of social pressure or human nature. We may understand this and know the importance of applying both justice and mercy, but how well do we know the scriptures that apply to doing just that? It’s a simple enough study (search “justice” and “mercy” in a concordance or on a Bible website with search capabilities) and one we should all do at some point: preferably before situations arise needing the application of justice or mercy rather than after they do.
Ultimately, knowing the Scriptures and being guided by God’s Spirit through them is the only way we can properly hold the sword and the scale in our everyday lives as Christians. It’s the only way we can express the law of love through a right balance of justice and mercy, and the only way to do it without being blindfolded.
Scripture in Focus: “… I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had since the beginning. This old command is the message you have heard. Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in him and in you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining” (1 John 2:7-8).
In his first epistle, the apostle John tells his readers that he is writing an “old” command to them, and also a “new” command. But when we carefully read what he says, we realize that John does not actually specify what either the old or the new command is in these verses.
John does tell us that the old command is one “which you have had from the beginning” (vs. 7), but what is that command? The answer, in this case, is fairly easy to find. In the following chapter John specifically writes: “For this is the message you heard from the beginning: “We should love one another” (1 John 3:11, and see also 2 John 1:5 where the apostle says the command from the beginning is to love one another). This “old” command was, of course, found in the Old Testament (Leviticus 19:18) and expounded in the teachings of Jesus.
But what is John’s “new” command? Many readers of the epistle presume 1 John 2:8 gives the answer, but there is nothing in this verse, or the following ones, that can be read as a command – we are not told to do anything, simply that whatever the command is: “its truth is seen in him and in you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining.”
The clue to the nature of the new command is found in verse 8, however. In writing “its truth is seen in him and in you,” John indicates this new command is one which applied to Jesus and to his followers and should be evident in both. That leads us to John’s Gospel where he tells us that at the end of Jesus’ ministry, as he was about to be taken from his disciples, Jesus told them: “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another” (John 13:34).
Jesus had clearly taught that we must love our neighbor as ourselves during his ministry (Matthew 22:39), so his new command was not simply to love our neighbor as much as ourselves, but to take that love further, to love one another as he loved us. This is sacrificial love that puts the other person not equal with self, but before self.
Returning now to John’s epistle, we see that in the chapter after he mentions the “new” command, John wrote: “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters” (1 John 3:16). In other words, this is exactly the same sacrificial love Christ had taught as his “new” command. The “new” command of John and that of Jesus are the same – as John himself states: “And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us (1 John 3:23). When we strive to love others to the extent Christ showed love to us, then – as John says – that “new” commandment “is seen in him and in you” (1 John 2:8).
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