Love your neighbor MORE than yourself???!! Is that possible?

by Fisherman 14 Replies latest jw friends

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  carla

  Aren't we to love our neighbor AS we love ourselves? and be ready to lay down our life for another? If you truly loved your neigbor as yourself you would not hestitate to do whatever is necessary to save them even if it meant certain death to yourself.. All non jw people I know understand that concept quite well especially in the case of our children, we would literally die to save our children. I will risk the ire of the board and say I do not think that is true in dubland either in thought or action. Yes, dubs love their family and other jw's but only as far as they are allowed to according to the dictates of the wt.

  The difficult part is when you must define 'neighbor'. Who is your neigbor? the guy next door? your immediate community? your country? or the world at large?
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  blondie

  Jesus did define who our neighbor is when he gave the parable about the Good Samaritan. Hard to imagine a jw being the Samaritan who was part of a group the Jews disdained. jws today play the part of the Jewish priest and Levite who refused to help a fellow Jew. It took the "worldly" Samaritan to show true caring.
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  R.Crusoe

  We hear of dysfunctional families, communities and societies to the extent that one wonders whether functional ones are the minority. Abuse and revenge is considered the destroyer of worlds at personal, local and national levels. Anyone seeking the pain of another has become part of the evil that was done to them. Because they gain great pleasure from it! Pleasure from the pain of another! 'This is why vengeance is mine!' as God is alleged to have said. In order to love your neighbor more than yourself one has to absorb their harm, forgive them and move on - you will feel like a loser! Jesus thought this the way forward for humanity. His philosophy suggested the alternatives were far worse! But others think the corrupt will take advantage of the weak - it is a catch 22 to trust your fellowman with your weakness - often he laughs in your face and does not see your compassion.
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  Chap

  the dreamer dreaming wrote:
  
  "Jesus said you must love your neighbor as yourself, but also said unless you hate yourself you cannot be his disciple-- so basically to love your neighbor means to hate him (^_^)
  
  Luk 14:26
  
  If any [man] come to me, and ***HATE*** not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple."
  
  
  
  
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  Fisherman

  "I am giving you a new commandment, that you love one another just as I have loved you"

  THis means MORE that oneself.

  I think that this commandment only applies to the Apostles and the annointed unless there is no sheep segregation, then it applies to all xtians.