Why should we concern ourselves with global missions when there is so much pressing ministry to do at home?
This question, recently thrust into the public eye, has drawn both criticism and praise. But it is not a new question.
The new vice president came under fire yesterday for claiming that Christian theology teaches a hierarchy of duties; that love for one’s own family or nation precedes love for faraway peoples or places.
What do we make of this claim? Does this simply represent a Roman Catholic ethical tradition about which Scripture is silent? Or worse yet, does it represent a sort of ethnonationalism that is counter to the missionary impulse?
Augustine and the Order of Loves
In City of God, Augustine sets forward the idea of the order of loves (ordo amoris):
“But if the Creator is truly loved—that is, if he himself is loved, and not something else in place of him—then he cannot be wrongly loved. We must, however, observe right order even in our love for the very love by which we love that which is worthy to be loved, so that there may be in us that virtue which enables us to live well. Hence, it seems to me that a brief and true definition of virtue is ‘rightly ordered love.’” (City of God, XV.22)
C.S. Lewis interacts with this idea in his writings as well. In one letter, he reflected upon what these rightly ordered loves look like in practice:
“To love you as I should, I must worship God as Creator. When I have learnt to love God better than my earthly dearest, I shall love my earthly dearest better than I do now. In so far as I learn to love my earthly dearest at the expense of God and instead of God, I shall be moving towards the state in which I shall not love my earthly dearest at all. When first things are put first, second things are not suppressed but increased.” (Letters of C.S. Lewis)
These quotes all illustrate the logical idea that the Christian duty of love necessarily expresses itself in a hierarchical fashion; for instance, the way I, as a Christian man, love my wife and my children necessarily looks different from the way I am obligated to show love to all women or all children in Jesus’ name. Moral proximity matters; we are not infinite but are creatures limited by time and space.
But this does not directly answer the question of whether this is biblical. Does Scripture lead us to think of love as ordered?
The Bible’s Assumptions
The Bible does in fact assume that the duties of love are heightened with respect to those in our immediate sphere, not lessened, and those who fail to love those closest to them according to their duty are judged more harshly. Consider just eight examples:
- The Ten Commandments are structured in a concentric order: first, our duty to God, then our duty to parents, then our duty to others (see Exodus 20). Honoring father and mother comes immediately after commands about worship. Rightly ordered human relationships flow from rightly ordered worship.
- Jesus taught that we must first love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and then love our neighbor as ourselves (Mark 12:30-31).
- Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for nullifying God’s command to honor father and mother by allowing people to dedicate their resources to the temple (the Corban rule) while neglecting their parents’ needs (Mark 7:9-13). This tradition was condemned because it undermined filial piety in service of false piety, breaking the natural order of love.
- The Pharisees were zealous in making converts, but their own conduct was corrupt, making their proselytes twice as much children of hell as themselves (Matthew 23:15). Right living thus precedes proselytization; one must first order his own life and household before seeking to teach others.
- While we should do good to all, Scripture commands us to first prioritize care for fellow believers, especially those in the household of faith (Galatians 6:10). The church is a family, and love within the family takes precedence.
- John teaches that anyone who claims to love God while neglecting his brother is a liar because love for God must be demonstrated first through care for those we can see (1 John 4:20).
- Paul warns that if anyone does not provide for his relatives, especially his immediate household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever (1 Timothy 5:8). Material provision is a fundamental aspect of ordered love.
- Widows in the church were not to be financially supported if they had children or grandchildren who could care for them. Instead, those family members were first responsible to repay their parents and show godliness at home (1 Timothy 5:4).
As we consider these directives to love those closest to us, we must take care not to myopically overlook additional commands in Scripture that orient us to not only love our own but to love those unlike us. We are to welcome the sojourner (Leviticus 19:33-34), love even those who are despised by others (Luke 10:25-37), and go to the ends of the earth, making disciples of all the nations (Matthew 28:19-20).
But even within these commands to love those far off, the least of these, and the easily forgotten, a natural order of loves is assumed. Consider that, in the Parable of the Good Samaritan, the audacity of Jesus’ implicit argument is that the Samaritan dared to show love to someone unlike him while the priest and the Levite failed even in what was arguably their greater duty to one of their own kin (Luke 10:25-37). Or note that the Apostle Paul, the consummate traveling missionary, nevertheless refused to boast of any impact he had beyond his limited sphere of influence (2 Corinthians 10:13-16).
The Challenge of Abstraction in Missions
In 2019, Nature Communications released a study titled “Ideological Differences in the Expanse of the Moral Circle.” Researchers mapped how people assign moral obligations. The study found that those on the political left reported feeling a stronger duty to faraway abstractions—such as all humanity, all animals, even inanimate objects—while those on the political right felt the strongest duty to family, friends, town, and nation.
In such an environment, when a missionary speaker proclaims that we must love all the peoples of the world, there is a real danger. It is arguably easy to love an abstract notion of an unreached person or an orphan on a brochure—i.e., someone you may never meet—while neglecting your local responsibilities. This is precisely the danger Jesus highlighted when he said to the Pharisees, “You cross land and sea to make a single convert, but then you make them twice as much a son of hell as you are” (Matthew 23:15).
Love That Overflows to the Nations
Within the context of this debate, it is easy for the believer today to feel lost—to wonder if he or she is faithfully loving one’s own—or the world—well enough. But if we love rightly—beginning with our Creator—our love for those nearest to us will not remain contained. Instead, it will overflow to embrace those beyond our immediate reach. We love our families, our churches, and our neighbors well so that we can be equipped to love those far off with the same faithfulness.
Each of us must consider our first obligation: to love our Lord. Has he not been good to you? Is he not glorious? Does his name not deserve to be made known in all the earth?
You may not love world travel. You may not love foreign cultures and languages. But can you be zealous for the name of the Lord Jesus Christ? Can you be passionate that he be made known among the scores of idol-worshipers in Asia, abortion doctors in America, or atheistic skeptics in Europe? Can you care about missions because of the God of the mission—because his name is sullied everywhere he is not known, treasured, adored, and obeyed?
Missions need not compete with local ministry. Rather, the healthiest global missions arise from the overflow of a life faithfully ordered in love. Let us love those near us in such a way that it spills over to reach those far off as well, until the knowledge of the Lord covers the earth as the waters cover the sea (Habakkuk 2:14).