Taken from another thread.



I have heard this before. Where is it found?

I don't know which thread this came from or what the context is. I'm guessing Muslims right? How do you evangelize a few billion Muslims that only want to scream and murder people?

Depending on which source you find, the sentiment is attributed to St. Augustine, "With love for mankind and hatred of sins." The actual quote "hate the sin, love the sinner" is credited to Mahatma Gandhi, a Hindu.

"Be at war with your vices and at peace with your neighbors." Ben Franklin ;-{>8

It's a principle more than a commandment.

We know that we are to strive to be as Christ-like as we can. Jesus was known as a friend of sinners.

Matt 11:18-19 "18 For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, �He has a demon.� 19 The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, �Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.� But wisdom is proved right by her deeds.�

He lived it out too..

John 8:1-11 "1 8 But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2 Early in the morning He came again into the temple, and all the people were coming to Him; and He sat down and began to teach them. 3 The scribes and the Pharisees *brought a woman caught in adultery, and having set her in the center of the court, 4 they *said to Him, �Teacher, this woman has been caught in adultery, in the very act. 5 Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women; what then do You say?� 6 They were saying this, testing Him, so that they might have grounds for accusing Him. But Jesus stooped down and with His finger wrote on the ground. 7 But when they persisted in asking Him, He straightened up, and said to them, �He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.� 8 Again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. 9 When they heard it, they began to go out one by one, beginning with the older ones, and He was left alone, and the woman, where she was, in the center of the court. 10 Straightening up, Jesus said to her, �Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?� 11 She said, �No one, [a]Lord.� And Jesus said, �I do not condemn you, either. Go. From now on sin no more.�"

I hope that helps...

Well done.
Jesus lived it.

There are a lot of Christian missionaries working under cover in Muslim countries right now. It's a very dangerous job that can mean imprisonment or even death if they're caught. However, they're meeting with a very high level of success, particularly among the women. The non-radical Muslim people are hungry for the truth.

Hug a Jackass nailed it, IMO. For anyone to listen to you they have to know that you care about them. "I don't much care what you say until I know that you Care"

The principle is seen in the life of Jesus and the disciples, quite clearly.

'Tis a theologically and Biblically sound and correct way to live one's life.

Easy to say, and the correct way to look at it, but it is easy to slip into a judgemental, hateful mindset to the person. I find myself going that way continually, especially as of late with all the crap going on in the news. True Christians strive for this, but like many attributes of Christ, it is easier said than done.

God Bless,

MM

P.S. I'm finding it easy this morning since I'm in a good mood, just shot a gobbler about an hour ago!

Congrats on the gobbler! That'd put me in a good mood too.

Yeah HugAJackAss nailed the principle. Rock chuck made an important point as well.

I am with you on the difficulty of this love your neighbor as yourself stuff. We are programmed for Law and fall away from Gospel quickly.

Surely the grace sufficient to cover all my sins can cover other "unlovables" as well?

Bottom line, IMHO, is gratitude. If I am grateful to God for that grace I will happily seek to show love to others who are in need of it just like me.

It is, or, originally was, a Roman Catholic, principle, rooted in the teachings of a major saint, St.Augustine, ans in recent times, had become very popular, with the great Pope John Paul II, especially, as the expostulation of official RC dogma on homosexuality.

When,a Pope, expostulates on an issue in this manner, it is NOT an "infallible" statement, as was, for example, the "Doctrine of the Assumption" and he is not "speaking Ex Cathedra". So, while RC teaching follows Christ, in this as all issues, it does not mean that a Catholic must accept the continual practice of certain human sexual practices due to being enjoined to "love" the fellow humans who engage in them.

It is a simple comment on the surface, but, the various potential ramifications are both complex and "morally" challenging. For example, I have and have always had friends whom are "gay" and I was educated and raised in a strict 1950's RC private school. While I treat these folks kindly and am not "religious", I have to be honest and admit that I do not and will never feel quite comfortable about them and this is just my "gutlevel" on this issue.

what about shunning?

2 John 1:10
If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting,

1 Corinthians 5:11

But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler�not even to eat with such a one.

Romans 16:17

I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them.

The Beatitudes & Paul's letters for understanding.

The Sermon on the Mountain is a good start place.

This book(it's free w/no pressures for donations)changed the way I look at not only sinners but also my enemies. Also made me realize the direction our country is taking.

http://torturedforchrist.com/

The context of each of those passages concerns people professing to be within the Church but actively seek to destroy it from within. Of course the "hate the sin/love the sinner" becomes a tough love situation at some point, but even shunning (ie: Church discipline) ought not be a rejection of the individual but done in a gracious and loving way to bring the sinner to repentence. Tough tight rope to walk, but thats the Christian life...

Confession time...

There is a practice very rarely used in the Church in which the congregation "delivers him over to Satan" that is actually intended to help save that individual. It comes from 1st Corinthians 5, particularly verse 5.



I can testify that this is effective, as I had once been the one "turned over" by a heartbroken congregation as a result of my sin. It took incredible love, and a deep faith that God would honor His word for them to do this.

I believe that all of these verses that you have posted line up with that practice. It's further evidence of hating the sin, and loving the sinner.

The old covenant was based on the law.
The Big Ten.

Jesus said He fulfilled the law. He eliminated it and gave a new law. A new covenant.

In this covenant He says "Love thy neighbor as they self".

This is brought up numerous times in the new T.
If you're walking in love towards someone you will not steal from him or murder him or any of the other Big Ten.

And that's all there is to it.
You stand blameless. It says
"Against such there is no law."

That's walking in love.
Loving someone does NOT mean you gotta like that sumbitch

Now, love contains discipline and correction. If you love your children you discipline and correct them, don't you. Well, speaking words of correction to sinners is part of loving them.
Tough love? I dunno if that's in the bible, in so many words, but.... it is what it is.
Speaking truth is never wrong, no matter what the PC police say.

How we say and do things and where our heart is at the time of saying and/or doing, now that we may well have to answer for...

Another thing about loving self and others is protecting them. Protection is part of love, how could it not be?

Keeping muslim terrorist and perverts away from you children, and your children away from them and their influences, is love.

Sometimes you have to defend.
Sometimes enemies must be killed.
Doesn't mean your not walking in love. It's all in your heart and only you and the Lord know.

Yep, you can love that sumbitch while you're killing him.

Gotta do what ya gotta do. God's not stupid, He knows this.

You wouldn't let a bear destroy and consume your children, would ya? If all ya had was a brick you'd use it to kill that sumbitch.

Some sumbitches have only 2 legs.
It is what it is.

See my post in the British Cemetery thread for more that ties in with this.
Being Christian isn't as hard as some people like to think it is.
And much of what they believe hypocrisy isn't. They say that as a matter of convenience and to comfort and console themselves.

Thanks guys for the input.

Yesterday at church the pastor mentioned God's "unconditional" love. That makes no sense to me. God is going to send some folks to Hell. Maybe someone can discuss this as well as they did the previous question.

Really right on discussion. Thanks for the insights.
I struggle with the application of these teachings with true radicals however, since you have to reason them out, and they won't reason with us. And the handing them over to Satan verse, well, they're more than happy to be handed over to Satan, and chop your head off while you sit passively by. At what point do you 1) walk away or 2) fight back 3) slay that person? Is slaying an adversary ever acceptible in the new covenant? How can we love our enemies as ourselves and then slay them for any reason, even self defense or defense of our family?
When we view humans value through Gods eyes and recognize that each soul is eternal, I would think we would be hard pressed to explain killing someone to God. Wouldn't he say something like, "Who are you to know my eternal plan? Who made you judge of that mans life and salvation that you would end his life, and therefore his future chance and hope of salvation?"

Enabling people to do evil is not love. Protecting people from evil is love.

Romans tells us that NOTHING can separate us from God's love.

Just because we chose to spend our eternity in hell rather than with Him, doesn't mean He stops loving us. I'm sure it breaks His heart...

I wouldn't go that far.
You make yourself a enemy of God and all bets are off.
Esau?

Mark,

Hit a home run there! One of my Great Banquet talks was entitled "Changing Your Environment". One key point is to "seek first to understand before you seek to be understood". Even such a tremendous sinner as I can live that message!

"Love your enemy..."

It means even I get to go to heaven.

Ha-ha!


Travis

Exactly. If I protect my family and in doing so I have to kill a perp, I am doing good. God's Word says something about if you don't provide for your family you are worse than a heathen and have denied the faith. I think it is found in Timothy.

I find no problem with hating the sin, and feeling pretty damn harsh about the sinner. I'm not God, and am not bound by what he does.

That's man's choice; not God's. His desire is that none should perish.

I look at it this way:

God is God and has commanded me to love my neighbor. What He sees fit to do with or to my neighbor is His business as the Creator of my neighbor. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God; the fact that His Gospel goes forth to every tribe and tongue is more gracious than any of us can imagine. He would be just to damn us all.

I am not holy enough to pass judgment anyway. Reminds me of a song by Andrew Peterson that I love (note the Gospel message in bold):

Tonight in the line of the merchandise store
While they were packing up my bags
I saw the pictures of the prophets of the picket signs
Screaming, "God hates [bleep]"

And it feels like the church isn't anything more
Then the second coming of the Pharisees
Scrubbing each other 'til their tombs are white
They chisel epitaphs of piety

Oh, there's a burning down inside of me
'Cause the battle seems so lost
And it's raging on so silently
We forget it's being fought

So, Amen
Come, Lord Jesus
Amen
Oh, Amen
Come Lord Jesus
Amen

It's taken me years in the race just to get this far
Still there is no end in sight,
There's no end in sight
'Cause I've carried my cross into dens of the wicked
And you know I blended in just fine

Well, I'm weak and I'm weary of breaking His heart
With they cycle of my sin, of my sin
Still He turns His face to me and I kiss it
Just to betray Him once again

Well, I've got oceans down inside of me
I can feel the billows roll
With the mercy that comes thundering
O'er the waters of my soul

So, Amen
Come, Lord Jesus
Amen
Oh, Amen
Come, Lord Jesus
Amen

Tonight in the light of the gathering rain
I could hear creation groan
And a sigh rose up from the streets of the city
To the foot of Heaven's throne

Oh, and the people hear the sound of a sweet refrain
And absolution in the fray, in the fray
It tells of the death of the one for the lives of the many
More than any picket sign could say

So, Amen
Come, Lord Jesus
Amen
Oh, Amen
Come, Lord Jesus
Amen

so,to carry it to the extreme, we love everyone, no matter their sins, right?

just trying to understand, that's all.

We really need to get a grip on this BS, for one where the hell is it written that maybe 4 million sexual deviates can dictate to a Nation of 315 million? And I doubt that the 4 million number is even that high. Were is the sense of proportion in all of this? Oh I forgot they are very loud and very well funded. Never mind.

God gave the children of Esau and Lot land for a possession and went before them and destroyed the giants that were in their lands, before he gave the children of Israel their inheritance. I have to believe that is because the children of Esau and Lot believed God for the land as He promised when He promised and, as we know, the children of Israel did not.

I find such things interesting and curious and ponder if there are not important teachings to be found in those short and seldom mentioned passages. In fact, I've never heard them mentioned from any pulpit. Odd, that, or odd, me?

Odd? why aren;'t there a world wide effort to depose the world of all the kings and queens who propose to own this Earth.

they don't own this Earth. they are parasites, and both they and we know it.

btw, just how many Kings & Queeens are on this Earth, and how fast can they be disposed of? does anyone know for sure?

Amen, Brother. So much so, He would lay aside the Glory of Heaven only He was deserving of, to come down to live among the sin that repelled Him, and suffer unspeakable horror in death. No one asked or even had the audacity to suggest such a thing, and yet that is what He did.

Love without condition. Mercy and Grace without a price. Only the God of all eternity could conceive and do such an unbelievable thing. Maybe that's why some can't believe it.

Yup, my friend Kut nailed it.

My Catholic Confirmation Saint is Saint Augustine and I've made a bit of a study of him.

It�s from Saint Augustine. His Letter 211 (written about 424 AD) contains the phrase Cum dilectione hominum et odio vitiorum, which translates roughly to "With love for mankind and hatred of sins."

Mahatma Gandhi, of course, paraphrased the quote fifteen hundred years later. By the way, Gandhi worked on the railroad in South Afrika. I really like his sentiment in "An eye for an eye will only make the world blind."

The phrase, "Hate the sin and love the sinner" is not in the Bible. Saint Augustine is a little late for a Church-father (born in 354 and died in 430), but he could easily have picked it up from one of the early-Church father's writings. After all, less than 1% of the early-Church writings have survived to this time.

I cherish the writings of such men as Justin Martyr, Clement of Rome (the 4th pope and the student of Saint Peter, Saint Paul and Saint John) and Irenaeus of Lyons. And Augustine ROCKS!!!

God Bless,

Steve

Only extreme to those of us (and it IS us) who would prefer to compare our righteousness to that of other humans rather than to God in an effort to make ourselves feel better.

Christ said it best:

Mark 12:28 And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, �Which commandment is the most important of all?� 29 Jesus answered, �The most important is, �Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.� 31 The second is this: �You shall love your neighbor as yourself.� There is no other commandment greater than these.� 32 And the scribe said to him, �You are right, Teacher. You have truly said that he is one, and there is no other besides him. 33 And to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength, and to love one's neighbor as oneself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.� 34 And when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, �You are not far from the kingdom of God.� And after that no one dared to ask him any more questions. -ESV

Gratitude to God for His grace in sacrificing His Son for me is the only fuel that gets me over myself.

As mentioned earlier, the tricky part comes when we consider that sometimes loving someone doesn't translate into niceness and we have to help people see the problem of sin then things get touchy and the collective wisdom of Christ's Church is all the more necessary in discerning a constructive way forward.

That right there is good stuff. Jesus brought up equally "problematic" instances of God's favor in His first sermon and it got Him quite the response:

Luke 4:16 And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. 17 And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,

18 �The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.�


20 And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21 And he began to say to them, �Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.� 22 And all spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth. And they said, �Is not this Joseph's son?� 23 And he said to them, �Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, �Physician, heal yourself.� What we have heard you did at Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well.� 24 And he said, �Truly, I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown. 25 But in truth, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heavens were shut up three years and six months, and a great famine came over all the land, 26 and Elijah was sent to none of them but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. 27 And there were many lepers[a] in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.� 28 When they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath. 29 And they rose up and drove him out of the town and brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they could throw him down the cliff. 30 But passing through their midst, he went away. -ESV

To no one in particular, which is of more concern to God, an abundance of sin or lack of love?

Maybe I should ask, which should be of more concern to us.

The lack of love, for that is what God is, love.

Ed

Amen brother.

I think we prefer the former (in fact vs theory or orthopraxis vs orthodoxy if you get my drift) over the latter because it puts us in a position of being owed something.

Love, on the other hand (and I mean TRUE godly love here) requires that we be grateful to God for His gift. No earning involved, making me just another sinner in need of grace.

Good discussion here; RM thanks for starting it.

As per James
27 Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

It is interesting where Jesus stopped reading from Isaiah.
The rest of that passage will come to pass as surely as the part He read.

Good points, both of you guys.

Faith, hope and love. The greatest of these is love.

It seems that some like to revel in the sin of others, congratulating themselves they are not like those they disdain. In doing so, they are no better than the pharisee Jesus called out for criticizing the publican. Those with true love show it without fanfare and when it's not convenient to show and genuinely to the unlovely. To those, I believe, God has blessings we cannot conceive of.

If you've heard the song from Casting Crowns, Jesus Friend of Sinners, this chorus broke my heart and has become a frequent prayer, praise God. I like it when that happens!

Oh Jesus, friend of sinners
Open our eyes to the world at the end of our pointing fingers
Let our hearts be led by mercy
Help us reach with open hearts and open doors
Oh Jesus, friend of sinners, break our hearts for what breaks yours

Oh yeah man that song nails the collective ideal. I like these verses in the son I cited earlier for the way it personalizes the gap between that ideal and what actually takes place in my own heart (bold) then Christ's amazing response (underline):

It's taken me years in the race just to get this far
Still there is no end in sight,
There's no end in sight
'Cause I've carried my cross into dens of the wicked
And you know I blended in just fine

Well, I'm weak and I'm weary of breaking His heart
With they cycle of my sin, of my sin
Still He turns His face to me and I kiss it
Just to betray Him once again

What else can be an appropriate response to grace like this but love for the lost? Break our hearts for what breaks yours indeed!

Praise His life giving name!

18 �The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.�

Some people need to have unbelievably good news proclaimed to them.

Isaiah 61:2
and the day of vengeance of our God;
KJV

I think they'll understand that early on, proclamation or not.

Amen. It's a lot to ask of flesh and blood. Possibly even transforming.