And [Jesus] said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:37–40)

Now, notice that “all the Law and the Prophets” hang on both of these commandments. These two commandments are not contradictory. Another way to think about it is this: To love your neighbor is to love God. He who loves, loves God. He who does not love, does not love God.

There is, of course, an “order” in these commandments. Our first priority above all is to love God. If we are in a situation where we must choose between God’s ways and another human, God must take priority. There is no question that Scripture commands this priority. Many people see an similar sort of order in Jesus’ second commandment (love your neighbor as yourself). It is often contended that we must love ourselves first before we can love our neighbor. (As a side note, we humans are already experts at loving ourselves. Self-love is called sin.) And, the term “neighbor” (at least as used by the Vice President) often refers to our physical “neighbor”, those who live closest to us.

This extremely structured interpretation, however, is at odds with the whole of Scripture. I am commanded to love those closest to me, but I am also commanded to love those who are not close to me. Jesus did not teach, “Once you love yourself, then love the guy across the street, then the other citizens of your country, then everyone else.” This kind of thinking is the very same thinking that led the lawyer, in Luke 10, asking, “Who is my neighbor?” (v. 29). The question was really, “Who do I have to love? Who can I not love?”

This kind of thinking is not fueled by love. It is, in fact, fueled by love of self—which is the root of sin. We are not told to love ourselves. The phrase “love your neighbor as yourself” is a statement of comparison. Paul makes a similar argument in Ephesians 5 when he tells husbands to love their wives “as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it” (vv. 28-29).

The biblical view is that we are to love everyone we come in contact with and we are to not just love in word, but in deed and truth (1 John 3:18). We are to show love. In fact, the obligation of love is the debt is never paid in full. Paul wrote, “Let no debt remain outstanding except the continuing debt to love one another” (Romans 13:8, NIV).

This does not mean, however, that the idea of “priorities” or “obligations” is without merit or unbiblical. Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for trying to get around the clear teaching of Scripture:

You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition! For Moses said, “Honor your father and your mother”; and, “Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.” But you say, “If a man tells his father or his mother, ‘Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban’” (that is, given to God)— then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. (Mark 7:9–13)

Here, Jesus says that we are not to neglect the obligation we have to our parents for the sake of “the ministry”. This does not mean parents (or anyone else) is placed above God. Rather, it is one way we show love for God. Likewise, Paul says, “But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (1 Tim. 5:8). There are first obligations. However, Scripture does not teach that we love others only after loving those closest to us. We love our families and those around us.

Let us therefore have no distinctions in who we love, and give attention to the obligations that Scripture requires of us, not the ideas of men. We are to love everyone.