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Everyday Saints Devotional 44

by David Joynt on February 14, 2022

Everyday Saints Devotional 44

LUKE 6:31 | 31 Do to others as you would have them do to you.

LEVITICUS 19:18b | 18b but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.

The logic of the positive form of the Golden Rule moves us toward love for neighbors. Since we want to be loved we must extend love if we are to follow the command.

Now I can show love to someone in two basic ways: as a person and as an individual. As another person made in God’s image, I owe her or him respect, honesty, and a measure of honor and care. These general obligations are owed to everyone because they are human. But in addition love is creative and specific. Each human being is a particular person and to love them effectively, one must know them intimately, including their particular challenges and
obstacles and their hopes and dreams. Individual flourishing is
connected to individual people and their stories.

Are you better at knowing people in general or individually?

Tags: general, people, individually

About the Author
David Joynt

Dave Joynt began his service as a pastor at Valley Presbyterian Church in Paradise Valley, Arizona in September 2014. This meant a move away from the Northeast, where he has a long history, growing up in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and then serving congregations in Delaware and New Jersey for a total of 23 years.

Dave was nurtured in a great church in Bethlehem where his parents, Anne and Carey, served as elders. He graduated in classics from Lehigh University where his Father taught, and then from Oxford, where he met his wife Julia. Ordained in 1988, he completed a Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1993.

He and Julia have a son, Tristan, and a daughter, Madeleine.

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