{"id":31043,"date":"2015-07-15T06:21:21","date_gmt":"2015-07-15T10:21:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/exploringourmatrix\/?p=31043"},"modified":"2015-07-15T06:21:21","modified_gmt":"2015-07-15T10:21:21","slug":"applying-the-greatest-commandments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2015\/07\/applying-the-greatest-commandments.html","title":{"rendered":"How to Apply the Greatest Commandments"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone  wp-image-31044\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/exploringourmatrix\/files\/2015\/07\/Applying-the-greatest-commandments-1024x576.png\" alt=\"Applying the greatest commandments\" width=\"504\" height=\"284\"><\/p>\n<p>If your appeal to prioritizing love for God over love for neighbor would have justified the priest in the parable of the Good Samaritan not stopping to help the robbery victim by the side of the road, then you are not applying what Jesus said were the greatest commandments in the way Jesus taught us to apply them.<\/p>\n<p>This seems to me the best way to respond to what <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2015\/07\/when-churches-make-people-need-therapy-or-why-anti-gay-christianity-is-an-abomination.html#comment-2136609605\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">a commenter wrote here recently<\/a>, claiming that love for God\u00a0trumps love for other human beings, and using it to justify his anti-gay stance.<\/p>\n<p>The priest in Jesus\u2019 story, following the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=Leviticus+21\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">clear command of Scripture<\/a> to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.religiousrules.com\/Judaismpurity03corpse.htm\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">avoid contracting corpse impurity<\/a>, could have justified giving the apparent corpse on the side of the Jericho road a wide berth, using the same argument that conservative anti-gay pseudochristians today do.<\/p>\n<p>If your approach to the Bible \u2013\u00a0and to other human beings \u2013 aligns you with those whom Jesus criticized, over against Jesus himself and his example and teaching, shouldn\u2019t that convince you that\u00a0your view is profoundly unchristian?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If your appeal to prioritizing love for God over love for neighbor would have justified the priest in the parable of the Good Samaritan not stopping to help the robbery victim by the side of the road, then you are not applying what Jesus said were the greatest commandments in the way Jesus taught us [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":31044,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,43,61],"tags":[4044,4063,5677,6513,9507,10721],"class_list":["post-31043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bible","category-inerrancy","category-morality","tag-golden-rule","tag-good-samaritan","tag-jesus","tag-levite","tag-priest","tag-samaritan"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>How to Apply the Greatest Commandments<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"If your appeal to prioritizing love for God over love for neighbor would have justified the priest in the parable of the Good Samaritan not stopping to\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2015\/07\/applying-the-greatest-commandments.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How to Apply the Greatest Commandments\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If your appeal to prioritizing love for God over love for neighbor would have justified the priest in the parable of the Good Samaritan not stopping to\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2015\/07\/applying-the-greatest-commandments.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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