WHEN Jesus told us to love our neighbors as ourselves, what did he mean? The modern interpretation is that we should love others more than ourselves. At The Orthosphere, Kristor writes:

[W]e are to love the good and hate the bad in other people just as we love the good and hate the bad in ourselves. In order to do that—in order to move closer to goodness and further from wickedness in ourselves, and in our society, and in the creation at large—we must discriminate between good and bad, and choose goodness. That we forgive the wickedness of our enemies does not automatically make them friends; and if they cannot let go of their deadly hatred of us, then in order to control the risk to us of their hatred, we must perforce destroy them with it. In that case, we cannot survive to forgive them except by defending ourselves, and working their destruction, however that may grieve us.

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Jeff W. writes:

I believe that to love our neighbors as ourselves means that we must love in a way that does not impose a debt. People most often interact with each other by trading.  But when we perform acts of love and charity, we must do so without counting the cost and without demanding repayment.  That is the kind of love that is acceptable to God.

Whenever one does something for oneself, such as washing oneself or feeding oneself, no debt is imposed.  It would be absurd for a person to say to himself, “I gave you a really good shower this morning, so you owe me big-time for that.”   Similarly when we do acts of love and kindness for our neighbors, they should not be accompanied by demands for repayment. “But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing” (Matt. 6:3).  The idea is not to impose a debt and to put any thought of repayment furthest from one’s mind.  God’s agape love has that same generous quality.  It pours forth abundantly out of God’s limitless resources, and it asks nothing in return.

Laura writes:

Well said.

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