What does it mean to love your neighbor as yourself?

This week, we are asking and answering the question “Why should I be a neighbor?” In other words why should followers of Jesus be a neighbor to the people around them?” To answer these questions, we are looking at a section of an account of Jesus life that is recorded for us in the Bible called the gospel of Matthew.

Yesterday, we looked on a s a group of self righteous religious leaders began to confront Jesus as they believed that their power and positions of authority were threatened by Jesus. As the crowds continued to gather and grow in the temple, an expert in the Law approached Jesus to test Him with the question “Which is the greatest commandment in the Law?

This expert in the Law, a scribe, was a professional student of the Law who often served as a judge and defender of the Law in the religious courts of the day basically asked Jesus “Of the 613 commands of God in the Old Testament of the Bible, What’s most important from God’s perspective?” Today, however, we see that Jesus response once again caught the religious leaders off guard and without a comeback. Let’s look at Jesus response together in Matthew 22:37-40:

And He said to him, "'YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.' ³⁸ "This is the great and foremost commandment. ³⁹ "The second is like it, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.' ⁴⁰ "On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets."

 Jesus responded to the Sadducees question by quoting from a section of a letter that is recorded for us in the Bible called the book of Deuteronomy. Jesus quoted Deuteronomy 6:5, which was part of the Hebrew Schema. Now the Schema was the Jewish people’s confession of faith. The schema would be recited by all Jewish people as part of their daily prayers and was committed to memory.

This answer would not have surprised those listening and would have seemed like the right response. However, Jesus did not stop there. Instead, Jesus continued His answer by departing from the Schema to quote a seemingly obscure verse of the Law that is found in a section of a letter in the Old Testament of the Bible called the book of Leviticus, Leviticus 19:18.

But why would Jesus make this connection? And what does it mean to love your neighbor as yourself? You see, to love your neighbor as yourself is a nice bumper sticker or is a nice slogan on a coffee mug, but what does it look like to love your neighbor as yourself?

Now to love someone as yourself is simply to ask “If I found myself in a similar situation or circumstance that my neighbor finds themselves in, what would make me feel loved by someone else?” And then that is what we do for that person. That is what it means to love your neighbor as yourself. 

What is significant here, however, is the fact that not only did Jesus seem to be changing the Schema by adding this verse. In addition, Jesus also added that this verse held equal weight and significance as the Schema. You see, the problem for these self righteous religious leaders, and for us today, is that Jesus did not say that these two commandments were an either/or proposition. Jesus did not give us the option to be on the fence, uncommitted, apathetic, or an agnostic toward God as long as we loved our neighbor.

The idea of loving God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind conveys a sense of total commitment. We might communicate this thought today by saying that we should love God with our total being. So, on the one hand, the most important thing is to love God with our total being. On the other hand, however, Jesus did not say that we could love God with our total being and be indifferent or hostile to our neighbor.

But why would Jesus add this seemingly obscure statement that was not even a part of the Ten Commandments, or the Schema?

Friday, we will look at a section of a letter that is recorded for us in the New Testament of the Bible that will help us understand the connection and discover the timeless answer to the question “Why should I be a neighbor?”