Love That Transcends the Law
BMCC Sunday Sermon · 2 Nov 2026 · Speaker: Dr. Sonia Wong
“Perhaps love is like a resting place, a shelter from the storm. Perhaps love is like the ocean, vast and wide… I don’t really know what love is.” Country musician John Denver wrote Perhaps Love for his wife Annie, admitting with humility and honesty how hard love is to grasp. Dr. Sonia Wong opened her message with this song, turning a love song into a doorway into theology: Does love truly mean something different to each person? Can we find a love that breaks through personal preference, crosses cultural difference, and genuinely builds one another up?
That day, the question from Matthew 22 echoed in our ears. A lawyer came to test Jesus, asking which commandment in the law is the greatest. Jesus’ answer was simple and clear: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Love God, love others — this is the heart of the Law. But how, exactly, should this love be practised?
Dr. Wong first led the congregation back through the Old Testament with a light-hearted interactive quiz: How many wives and concubines did Solomon have? Who sold Joseph? Could Israelites legally own slaves in Old Testament times? According to the Old Testament, what was the penalty for cursing one’s parents? These questions were not meant to stump anyone, but to help the congregation see that Old Testament law took shape within a particular patriarchal society and culture. The commandment in Exodus not to covet “your neighbour’s wife, male or female slave, ox, or donkey” was clearly addressed to men; within this legal framework, women were often treated as property. Polygamy and slavery were cultural presuppositions implicit in Old Testament law — presuppositions starkly different from the ethical values we understand today.
“I’m not saying we should throw the Old Testament in the bin,” Dr. Wong said with a touch of humour, “otherwise I’d be out of a job.” She quoted Paul in 2 Corinthians 3:6: “The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” We seek to understand the historical context of the Law so that we can live out the spirit of love more truly — not so that the letter itself becomes a stumbling block.
Dr. Wong then introduced the nuanced Greek vocabulary for love. Eros is passionate, romantic and sexual love, involving a deep physical and emotional connection. Philia is the cherishing between siblings and friends, built on equality and companionship. Agape is the selfless love emphasised by the early church — an active choice that goes beyond feeling and reaches out to all people, including strangers. Agape lies at the heart of Christian ethics; it is the embodiment of God’s love for humanity.
Yet she pointed out that when love is expressed through commandments, it is often reduced to a set of prohibitions: do not kill, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not covet. Paul sums this up in Romans 13:8–14 — loving your neighbour as yourself fulfils the Law. This kind of love, centred on prohibitions, can be called the Silver Rule: do not do to others what you would not want done to yourself. Stopping at “do no harm” is the minimum threshold of love.
Above the Silver Rule stands the Golden Rule — “Do to others as you would have them do to you” (Matthew 7:12). This is a positive, proactive ethical practice. But its blind spot is that it assumes everyone shares your own preferences, needs, and values. Loving someone according to your own preferences can sometimes become the very root of “good intentions gone wrong.”
Higher still is the Platinum Rule — treat others in the way they want and need to be treated. This requires us to truly enter another person’s world: to take the trouble to observe, listen, and understand their preferences and needs, and to respond in the way they genuinely long for. This is no longer a formula — it is a highly contextual, relational practice.
Dr. Wong brought these principles down from the abstract and into real life through several stories from everyday life.
She has a friend who loves giving stones as gifts — whatever the occasion, a stone is the present of choice. Once, at her father’s birthday banquet, this friend brought a stone so heavy it could barely be lifted, symbolising being “as steady as Mount Tai.” The intention was good, but this is the limit of the Golden Rule: he projected what he himself treasured onto someone else. Later, she told him plainly that she would like a bouquet of flowers — and the bouquet that arrived left her not knowing whether to laugh or cry: it looked like the kind of flowers people bring when visiting a grave.
Using the “gold-digger” stereotype portrayed on television dating shows as an example, she explained that the Platinum Rule does not mean unconditionally satisfying everything someone asks for. It means discerning the difference between a person’s real needs and their desires — which calls for observation and listening, and above all a deep understanding of the relationship.
Another story led her to deeper self-reflection. While out shopping, she accidentally broke a perfume sample in her bag, scattering broken glass all over the ground. Without a second thought, she crouched down and picked up the pieces one by one and put them in a bin, worried that someone in thin-soled shoes might step on them and get hurt. Only afterwards did she realise: even “not harming others” — something that seems such a low threshold — requires real, tangible effort.
What moved her most was a giant ant colony in a corridor at the seminary. Her first reaction was to call the property management office to deal with it. A colleague who heard this immediately stopped her: “This colony has been here for many years and has never bothered anyone. Every day when I walk past, I say hello to them and check whether anything has changed. They are part of our whole seminary community.” Dr. Wong said that in that moment she felt both ashamed and deeply shaken: “So loving one another can cross the boundaries of species.” Her colleague’s love did not start from “I will not harm you” — it started from respect, appreciation, and care.
Loving others is not a fixed formula. In The Five Love Languages, Gary Chapman points out that each person experiences love differently — through words of affirmation, quality time, receiving or giving gifts, acts of service, and physical touch. To truly love someone is to be willing to learn their unique language, rather than expressing love only in the way that is familiar to you.
She also drew on the scholarly work of biblical scholar Walter Harrelson, noting that the Law can be reinterpreted in different eras and its humane essence distilled. With good humour, she then wrote her own version of the “Ten Commandments” for today’s working professionals — a light-hearted way of reflecting contemporary society’s distorted relationship with success, money, and human relationships.
The spirit of the commandments is love. Not harming others is the starting point of love, but never its end. Building a true community of love requires us to understand each unique person by putting ourselves in their shoes, to examine with awareness the impact our own actions have, and to practise a love that transcends the law — in the way others truly need.
Blessed Ministry Community Church is a home that welcomes everyone — whatever hurt you have suffered, whatever story you bring with you, there is a place kept here for you. As that song sings: “The house of love is like a resting place, a shelter from the storm.” In this community, we are learning together a richer love: not only refraining from harm, but truly seeing one another, and loving you in the way you need.
