The first thing we do is discover something that applies to me. It is not difficult, for “Yourself” gives us the perfect jumping point. “Yourself”. “Love…….yourself.” The classic theologian missed it. The astute post modern prophet finally figures it out. Jesus is telling us to love our self. AS a matter of fact modern theology united to self actualizaion theory would have us understand that we can never learn to love others until we first learn to love ourselves.  So, there you have it. If I am to love God, I must first learn to love myself, since this is the key to loving others. Now, how do I Love myself? Well, I’m still working that out, but I’m pretty sure that it involves the preacher and my church and the youth director and the Bulletin maker and the person beside me all working together to give me a bit of what I need and want, boosting my self esteem to such a place that love for self becomes a distinct possibility. So love me, people, for in so doing you are making it possible for me to learn to love you. How can I possibly hope to love myself fully if other people are not steadily working to make me the center of their attention as they aide me in my self love journey, affirming my ideas, agreeing with my agendas, and fully participating in what Whitney calls - "the greatest love of all"? And how can you possibly claim to love me, enhancing my ability to love me, if you are not involved in some fashion toward the meeting of my needs?  If you want me to love you, then help me to love me. So, give me what I need on my journey to self love so that I in turn find myself empowered to truly love you. Praise be to God for Jesus’ timeless words!! IF the Bible had not taught me the need of loving myself, what would I have ever done with myself? To Hate me is to  hate you. To Love me is to  Love you. I get it now - Love me so I can love you and some day hope to love God (Never mind that i just completely reversed the words of Jesus. This is fully expected in this day of relative truth interpreted by me.) I am left asking myself a profound theological question - "How ever did we get to the place where Self Love becomes the core of true religious compassion in this wonderful post modern world we have created"? 

In this serendipitous world of Biblical truth made possible by our unconscious absorption of the post modern world view, we are left with a clearly self centered theology that supposedly Jesus himself allows us to embrace with the words he left us, "Love your neighbor as you love yourself." Jesus may not have intended us to interpret his words in this manner, but that matters little to us, for truth is a personal expression of cultural truth and is reapplied in ways that best suit the spirit of our time. We live in a day where the goal of personal growth and self discovery gives us the right to interpret anything and everything in ways that help us to achieve this goal. Therefore, If I need to focus on the non-imperative verbs in Jesus’ words to make my case, I have every right to do so, and no one has the right to question my interpretation as long as I claim to have garnered this from reading the Biblical Text within the context of my "me and Jesus" time.

If we are searching for Truth (with a capital T), Truth in terms of Jesus’ understanding of the creation He claims ownership of and the world He claims Lordship over, then we are left to first ask ourselves – "What did Jesus mean"? This is a very different question than the one we most commonly ask in our post modern world – What is Jesus saying to ME? For what he is saying to me is determined by me, and what He is saying to us, focusing our attention on what he actually means with his words, is determined by someone other than me. IN this case, Truth is determined by Jesus himself, and at the very least determined by the author of the gospel as he writes it for us and the Spirit of God as He guides and inspires the author to write. When applied to interpretation, the Truth question is a matter of who do we trust, who do we believe is giving us a more accurate understanding of what the words actually mean. In a post modern world this question is quite irrelevant, for what a passage means to “me” takes precedence over what the author intends to say. What does it say about our understanding of truth when we are forced to confess that for most of us the significant theological question, “what is the Spirit trying to say to the Church through the text?”, is replaced with the question, “What is God saying to me?” Meaning is determined by the reader, not the writer. The application of the text is a matter of personal, and sometimes private, interpretation, not the call of God upon all people in every culture at all times. Words take precedence over the meaning of words, personal interpretation and application takes precedence over engaging Jesus as the Source of all Truth, and emotional response takes precedence over obedient choices. We can describe our discernment of God’s will using all the pious language we can muster ("I feel led, I prayed about it, My God would have me, I feel at peace with my decision"), but pious words do not take the place of faithful responses to Truth.