Peter Witkowski Church History

Recapturing Biblical “Self-Love” With Augustine’s Help

If Christians read the writings of the fourth century church father Augustine, they will discover a biblical definition of self-love that can help Christians to fulfill the Christians life.

When they come to the evangelical table to exchange ideas, many Christians place the term self-love in the psychological chair. For example, Christians discuss salvation, forgiveness, and spiritual growth as elements of self-forgiveness. In this model, liberation form sin comes when the soul absolves itself from all the pain that it caused its psyche while it got drunk, indulged in sexual immorality, and self-destructed on Instagram. After they look to God for redemption, many at the evangelical table attempt to grant themselves a secondary form of salvation, following the secular, therapeutic models of self-love.

Though the this concept of self-love now has a reserved spot at the evangelical table, the concept lacks biblical justification. Jesus did not tell his disciples to forgive themselves. He told them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it (Matt. 16:24b-25).” Moreover when Christ tells his followers to love their neighbors as themselves, he appeals not to humanity’s inherent goodness but to humanity’s inherent evilness (Mk. 12:31). Jesus declares that all of us come into the world corrupt and evil and with hearts wrapped around the pole of selfishness. As Paul notes in Ephesians 5:29, no one comes into the world hating their own body. In short, the command to love others as we love ourselves does not demands us to practice self-love. Rather, God encourages us to transfer our self-centered self-love to others. Such self-denial appears to leave little room for the evangelical notions of self-love.

Yet according to the fourth century church father Augustine, Christians do not have to abandon the concept of self-love. Rather, they should guide the term back to its vintage, theological seat. Augustine writes,

Ourselves we love the more, the more we love God .

The church father believes men and women should pursue self-love, for love descended from God’s righteous character. Though men and women could not fully discover God apart from the Scriptures, their love of love would direct them to their need to know God. As their knowledge of God grew, they would grow in their ability to love love which has originated in their minds through the handiwork of God. The love of love that originates in the human soul will lead Christians to love God and others more. To borrow from John Piper’s terminology, Augustine believes men and women will be most satisfied when God is most loved. Augustine writes, “The mind’s self-love is true…for its own good, only when grounded on the love of God.” The man or woman who pursues the love of God loves their own souls the best. In short. Augustine believes God-centered self-love spurs men and women to love God and neighbor with biblical truthfulness.

According to Augustine, such righteous charity needs be highlighted by the church for it benefited human society. The church father writes,

What is love perfection? To love our enemies, and to love them to the end that they may be our brothers.

Proper self-love leads the believer away from self-concern to a concern for God that then manifest itself in a concern for another’s well-being. The Christian who is motivated by love longs to see his cruelest enemies become his dearest spiritual confidants. Instead envying the wealth or fame of his antagonist, the man who knows biblical self-love will pray and work for his foe’s salvation. Augustine notes, “You love him, not what he is but what you would have him be; thus, when you love your enemy, you love your brother.” In short, Christian self-love does not lead to self-forgiveness but to the forgiveness of others.

For Augustine, this understanding of biblical self-love became the defining test of the Christian faith. Those who love love express their faith in Jesus through loving others. Augustine concludes,

If you love the Head, you love the members; if you do not love the members, neither do you love the Head.

Since Augustine thought all Christians should love non-Christians as if they were Christians, he believed all true Christians should love both the head, Christ, and the body, those who had believed and those whom Christians hoped would one day believe. In short, those who knew biblical self-love will love others well because God leads, “us to do things for the benefit of those we love.”

Though the physiological idea of self-love runs afoul of Scripture, Augustine employees the term theological to express the rich Biblical ideal of Christian love. Evangelical Christians should not dismiss self-love terminology from the evangelical table. Rather, they should help the term return to its vintage, Augustinian seat that champions love of God and the love of neighbor as the truest manifestations of self-love.

Peter Witkowski Discipleship

Coral Reefs, Rainless Clouds, Dead Trees, High Waves, and Wondering Stars: What Fake Christians Do

Do not judge me” has become the ill-conceived moto twenty-first century America. The enlighten soul believes all truth claims can be transcended by culture, necessity, and time. Those who judge others violate the very maxim of contemporary life. While such aversions to judgement protect weary souls from having to listen to Aunt Janice’s underhanded criticisms, the philosophy provides little guidance for those attempting to navigate the twists and turns of life.

The human experience exists because of judgment. One eats vanilla cupcakes instead of chocolate because he judged vanilla cupcake to be more enjoyable. Another chooses her political candidate because the politician affirms policies she deems best. And ultimately the decision to praise or to imprison the young men who pleads with ladies to avoid the abortion clinic resides upon one’s judgment. Humans judge everything and everyone all the time.

Men and women do not struggle with judging their world. They struggle with discerning how to judge their world.

The Christian has no such struggle because the Scriptures claim to be the ultimate authority. Christians separate from non-Christians over the fault line of values. Christians base their judgement upon the Word of God and unbelievers base their values on ideas that camp outside the bounds of Scriptural truth.

To protect the church from unbelievers intent upon its destruction, Christian must stand ready to judge the actions of those within their tribe. Not all who claim Christ have entered the local church by the narrow gate and climbed the hill of Calvary. According to the book of Jude, fake Christians reveal their lack of faith through their teaching, motives, and actions (Jude 11-16).

What do false teachers do? When should we label someone an impostor and call them to repentance? Jude tells his readers that they should contend with those who destroy community, offer false promises, lack spiritual fruit, love evil, and run towards. Judgment.

Coral Reefs

Those who have never known salvation destroy the community of the church. The early church prioritized community. Acts 2:42 reports “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” Today’s church should still be marked by community meals. The people of God should love living with each other in meaningful community built around kitchen tables and restaurant booths. Jude labeled these glorious meals of friendship “love feasts.”

But sadly, not all who come to the table come with pure intentions. False Christians come for complaints and boasting.

As men and women sail into the shallow harbors of community hoping to find rest from the waves of life, they crash into hidden corral of complaints. Like the spies in numbers 14, the false teachers transform the love feast into a complaint filled roast. They use the meal as a chance to glory in the short comings their family, their church, and their friends. After the fake Christians finish complaining, they turn to boasting. They share their latest spiritual nugget about money management although it has nothing to do with their fellow church member’s infertility issues. They turn the love feast into a battle for prestige, influence, and friends, praising and assaulting others in their attempt to gain more influence in their church.

And sadly, the fake Christians lack self-awareness. The text says, “They feast with you without fear, shepherds feeding themselves.” They do not know the evilness of their actions. They believe their selfishness, greed, and pride belong in the church because they have done nothing more than “share the truth,” “passed along information,” or “said it like it is.” Yet no one else benefits from their efforts at ‘truth-telling’ except them. The sheep are starved and wander into error, despair, and harm. The false Christians gain weight while the rest of the church burns calories seeking to mend the damage they the have wrought.  False teachers destroy without fear.

Rainless Clouds

They also have no power. Fake Christians promise that their complaints, their greed, their boasting, and their selfishness will lead others to the rains of peace, unity, and spiritual growth. But nothing comes. They encourage others to follow them but they do not know where they are going and they never arrive at success. I remember hearing a pastor who bragged about how he had created a peaceful church through ignoring God’s commands to purify the church. On the surface, the church appeared to be peaceful. The business meetings came and went without a waft of contention. But under the surface, the church was rocked by contention. Unaddressed sin broke down marriages, destroyed families, and forced more than one couple out of the church. The pastor promised that biblical negligence would lead to rains of biblical peace. But the rains never came. The clouds were swept along, leaving the once hopeful Christians hopeless, broken, and discouraged. Instead of finding a harvest of souls, the congregation slowly shrank.

Dead Trees

The false Christians’ advice lacks rain because their lives lack fruit. The false Christians may possess a powerful conversion story but they have nothing else. They cannot talk about how they were freed from racism, greed, or fear over the last year. They are the same racist, greedy, and fearful person today that they were at the moment of their conversion. Christians bear fruit keeping with repentance. They do not have to boast of their conversion or secular accomplishments because they can praise God for having liberated them from yesterday’s pride,  praylessness, and  grumbling. Those who lack fruit prove they lack faith.

Jude notes that fake Christians are twice dead and need to be uprooted. Instead of saving, the gospel hardens the false Christian’s heart, preparing them for destruction. Jesus said of the Pharisees in Matthew 23;15 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.”

High Waves

While false Christians lack good works, they excel at evil. Jude describes them as wild waves casting up the foam of their own shame. Instead of hiding their sin, they flaunt it. Husbands attend church with their girlfriends. They boast about mistreating minorities on Facebook. They call up others and regularly flaunt their ability to rip their friends a new one. And, they boast about showing favoritism, inviting Sally and not Johnny to sit next to them at the next church social. They cast their evil before church like a hurricane sending waves crashing onto the shore.

Wondering Stars

Fake Christians destroy love feasts, give empty advice, lack fruit and flaunt evil because they wonder about the heavens apart from God. They are reserved for judgement because they have rejected the gospel and the authority of Jesus. Unhinged from the Scriptures, they float about freely and aimless committing evil deeds.

To illustrate God’s determination to destroy these false Christians, Jude references a prophecy from Enoch which reveals that every ungodly action and word will be punished. Justice will arrive. The vengeance that the hurting and abused have longed for will come to pass. The angels from heaven will come with Jesus to annihilate the false Christians.

If God plans to cast the fake Christians into hell, the church must follow suit. In Matthew 18:18 Jesus tells us that the church should reflect the kingdom of heaven: “Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

Thankfully these warning have come to us to highlight salvation. Christians practice church discipline not to remove men and women who dislike their choices in carpet or sports teams but to gain back brothers and sisters who are walking to destruction. The church best helps the false Christian when she exposes his sin so that he  can see his errors, repent, and join the church as a true brother and sister.

The gospel breaks away from the world at this point. The world believes people live outside the kingdom of change. The drunk will always be a drunk. The greedy will always be greedy. The angry will also be violent. To quote from the Frozen Song “Fixer Upper,”  “We’re not saying you can change her, ’cause people don’t really change.” Yet the gospel presents a different message. People do change. Jesus died on the cross to liberate us from the power of sin and death. We do not have to walk sad fruitless lives. We can go from light to darkness. Jesus came and lived the life of perfection that we were supposed to live and then he died upon the cross to pay the penalty for our sins. And then he rose again showing that all who trust in him will gain access to God and righteousness. If you want to change embrace the saving power of God. Repent and believe.

Peter Witkowski Discipleship, Pain & Suffering

It is Ok to Mourn: Good Friday and COVID-19

covid 19 2

We should mourn this Good Friday. The coronavirus has enveloped the globe in a cloud of black death. It has also reached into the church and overturned her basket of well-planned Easter events, sending Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Sunday morning services wobbling across the floor to cancelation. When the glorious Easter sunrise fills the horizon this Sunday, there will be no loud congregational singing, giddy children, or sweet hugs of friendship circulating though our church. We will remain home, isolated from friends. Though the world has suffered under the curse of sin for thousands of years, the isolation of holy week brings the sorrow of sin into our souls anew. For the first time in years, many of our hearts feel the words of Psalm 22:1 that Jesus screamed on the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

During such times of profound brokenness, Christians should run to the Lord. Like the great King David who faced many piercing trials, Christians should confess their anguish to God. They should ask God,

How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all day (Ps 13:1-2a)?

The Coronavirus’s ability to disrupt the church calendar should serve as a powerful reminder of how broken our world is and of how much we need Jesus. We should allow the cancellation of our services to lead our hearts to humble and persistent cries for deliverance. “O you my help, come quickly to my aid! (Ps 22:19),” The Coronavirus is a problem of divine proportions than can only be solved by a divine antidote.

The antidote will come. The message of Good Friday is that Jesus conquers sin and death. For thousands of years, human culture has been trying to find antidotes to the brokenness of the world through education, feeding programs, and medicine. All of human efforts have failed. Men and women remain tied to pride, greed, lust, and selfishness. Sin is a problem of cosmic proportions that no person, nation, or culture can conquer. Yet, Jesus conquered it on the cross. He was forsaken by God so that we might be welcomed into heaven. Jesus died for our sins and then rose again on the third day to prove he had delivered his children from sin. Those who repent and believe can follow Jesus to love, generosity, and selflessness. But to get to salvation, men and women must wrestle with their brokenness. They must realize they are sinners before they can cry out for a savior and embrace his salvation. Only those who know they are drowning will let the lifeguard rescue them.

The pattern of Good Friday serves as a template for the Church as she encounters new symptoms of sin and death in the world. To find relief from this world, we must admit that we suffer and need God’s help. “Save me from the mouth of the lion (Ps. 22:21a).” When we take our grieving souls to God, we find deliverance. “You have rescued me from the horns of the wild oxen (Ps. 22:21b)!” Friends, the Coronavirus is a cosmic problem that God will recuse us from.

While we wait for the virus to end, many of us will become more aware of how much we miss the gathered body of Christ. We will be tempted to find unscriptural antidotes for our pain. Though we should embrace biblical forms of encouragement, we must resist the urge to drink the hyssop, an ancient pain reliever, that was offered to Jesus on the cross. (For more on my view of online church click here). If we turn to virtual Lord’s Supper, sermon binge watching, and zoom calls to treat our feelings of loneliness, we will not solve our sorrows for we still remain physically apart from our brothers and sisters We can touch the screen, but we cannot touch the face on the screen. If we try to fix our sorrows through human ingenuity, we will commit the mistake of the neglected spouse who copes with her distant marriage through romance novels. She may feel less pain while reading them. But when the chapters end, her marriage problems remain, and her heart has moved further away from her husband. The believer who feels neglected by God does not need a drive-in Easter service, he needs divine deliverance. He needs God to mercifully end the COVDI-19 crisis. If he fails to cry out to the Father as David and Jesus did because he is drinking grape juice and eating Ritz crackers in his home, he will neglect the biblical means of hope: prayer. He will find himself further from God. Just as those who fast allow hunger pains to drive them to pray, Christians should allow the pain of missed hugs, Lord’s Supper celebrations, congregational singing, public Scripture readings, and preached sermons to drive them to their knees in prayer. Instead trying to mitigate our sorrow through increased Wi-Fi bandwidth and FM transmitters, we need to join Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane and pour out our prayers of lament to the Father for he alone can help us.

If there ever was a religion that made sense of our lonely world and that gave us a space to mourn while we await salvation, it is Christianity. Christians have both the sorrow of the cross and the joy of the empty tomb. We can mourn our loneliness while we wait for our salvation from COVID-19.