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The second great commandment of Jesus is to love your neighbor as yourself. The Parable of the Good Samaritan at Luke 10:25-37 gives an answer as to who is your neighbor. Essentially, inasmuch as in the Parable the neighbor is the Samaritan who helped the victim of a robbery, is your neighbor in that context someone who helps you, or can it also mean someone who CAN help you?
Here is a more modern story, a true one in fact, that has the things the Parable mentions. As I was getting off a ferry, a woman ahead of me slipped and fell on the gangplank. I went over to her and helped her get up. In the context of the Parable, I was a “neighbor” to her. But suppose that incident didn’t take place. In terms of the Bible, could I still be a neighbor to her if I COULD help her up, say, if she falls?
If we interpret the Parable literally, then the only people who are our neighbors are people who have helped us in some way, so, until then, they are not our neighbors. But as 2 Timothy 3:16 says that ALL Scripture is breathed out by God for training, reproof, correction and teaching in righteousness, and as Jesus says in Matthew 5:17 that he comes to fulfill the Law and the prophets of the Old Testament, the possibility exists that a person could step into the shoes of being our neighbor even if they haven’t helped us yet.
Commentators have asserted that Jesus’ second great commandment draws from Leviticus 19:18 which says “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD,” and Leviticus 19:34 which says, “You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.” Taken literally, we are not limited to loving just our neighbor as ourselves, however you define what a neighbor is, we are also to love strangers as ourselves. So, does the Bible imply that while we wait until a person who has always lived among us helps us before we love them, we are to love strangers from other lands even if they don’t help us? And remember that in the literal context of Luke 10:25-37, once that stranger DOES help us, they become our neighbor, so we are to love them as we love ourselves.
Here is a question: I live in a house on a street having other houses. Many people, who, like myself, are native-born citizens, live in those houses. Most of them have never helped me, and I never asked for their help. There is no doubt, from Jesus’ Parable, that if any of those others help me, they are my neighbor. Aside from the others who have never helped me but are neighbors to me in a legal sense, are THOSE people neighbors to me as far as the Bible is concerned?
The Bible seems to lean to loving everyone. Jesus says, in Matthew 5:44 to even love your enemies. Notably, he doesn’t say to love your enemies as yourself. So it seems we are to love our neighbor as we love ourselves, and we are to love everyone else but we need not love them as we would ourselves. What about the “legal” neighbors who have never helped us? How are we to act toward them? Well, the Bible tells us in passages like Galatians 6:9, to do good. How can I do good to “legal” neighbors who have never helped me? I guess I could walk by and say “Hi” to them if they are outside. I guess that if I see them struggling on something, I can help them and, in the process, I become THEIR neighbor, so they would be obliged under God to love ME as themselves.
I tell you that your neighbor, whom you are to love as you love yourself, can include someone who COULD help you, not just someone who HAS helped you. The Bible doesn’t prevent us from loving someone who hasn’t helped us yet. If we do love them as we love ourselves, that would be part of the Biblical concept of “doing good,” and there is nothing wrong with that.
Here is a more modern story, a true one in fact, that has the things the Parable mentions. As I was getting off a ferry, a woman ahead of me slipped and fell on the gangplank. I went over to her and helped her get up. In the context of the Parable, I was a “neighbor” to her. But suppose that incident didn’t take place. In terms of the Bible, could I still be a neighbor to her if I COULD help her up, say, if she falls?
If we interpret the Parable literally, then the only people who are our neighbors are people who have helped us in some way, so, until then, they are not our neighbors. But as 2 Timothy 3:16 says that ALL Scripture is breathed out by God for training, reproof, correction and teaching in righteousness, and as Jesus says in Matthew 5:17 that he comes to fulfill the Law and the prophets of the Old Testament, the possibility exists that a person could step into the shoes of being our neighbor even if they haven’t helped us yet.
Commentators have asserted that Jesus’ second great commandment draws from Leviticus 19:18 which says “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD,” and Leviticus 19:34 which says, “You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.” Taken literally, we are not limited to loving just our neighbor as ourselves, however you define what a neighbor is, we are also to love strangers as ourselves. So, does the Bible imply that while we wait until a person who has always lived among us helps us before we love them, we are to love strangers from other lands even if they don’t help us? And remember that in the literal context of Luke 10:25-37, once that stranger DOES help us, they become our neighbor, so we are to love them as we love ourselves.
Here is a question: I live in a house on a street having other houses. Many people, who, like myself, are native-born citizens, live in those houses. Most of them have never helped me, and I never asked for their help. There is no doubt, from Jesus’ Parable, that if any of those others help me, they are my neighbor. Aside from the others who have never helped me but are neighbors to me in a legal sense, are THOSE people neighbors to me as far as the Bible is concerned?
The Bible seems to lean to loving everyone. Jesus says, in Matthew 5:44 to even love your enemies. Notably, he doesn’t say to love your enemies as yourself. So it seems we are to love our neighbor as we love ourselves, and we are to love everyone else but we need not love them as we would ourselves. What about the “legal” neighbors who have never helped us? How are we to act toward them? Well, the Bible tells us in passages like Galatians 6:9, to do good. How can I do good to “legal” neighbors who have never helped me? I guess I could walk by and say “Hi” to them if they are outside. I guess that if I see them struggling on something, I can help them and, in the process, I become THEIR neighbor, so they would be obliged under God to love ME as themselves.
I tell you that your neighbor, whom you are to love as you love yourself, can include someone who COULD help you, not just someone who HAS helped you. The Bible doesn’t prevent us from loving someone who hasn’t helped us yet. If we do love them as we love ourselves, that would be part of the Biblical concept of “doing good,” and there is nothing wrong with that.
