Love Your Neighbour

Last week I started from a verse in Galatians 4 reflecting on our relationship with God.

On Sunday I made a link with what Paul wrote later in Galatians 5 about our relationships with each other.

There, Paul quotes from the Old Testament: “For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’”

So, here’s a question: How many times is this Old Testament verse quoted in the New Testament?

Perhaps most memorably, it prompts the question which leads to one of Jesus’ most famous parables. In Luke 10, Jesus approves a lawyer’s summary of God’s law which includes loving your neighbour. The lawyer, ‘wanting to justify himself’, asks, “And who is my neighbour?” In response Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaritan, challenging his hearers (and readers) to broaden their understanding of who are our neighbours.

Jesus speaks of loving your neighbour when discussing the law with the rich young man in Matthew 19 and when tested by the Pharisees in Matthew 22. In the parallel passage in Mark 12 it is also repeated with approval by one of the scribes.

As well as the reference in Galatians 5, Paul writes in Romans 13.9 that the law is summed up as ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’. And James calls it scripture’s royal law which we would ‘do well to fulfil’.

That’s eight times Leviticus 19.18 is quoted, approved, and used as a summary of how God calls his people to treat each other, others in their community, and people outside of their community – so I think that’s everyone! It’s clearly an important principle to Jesus and the New Testament writers.

There will be a lot of talk about royalty as we come to the Queen’s Jubilee. How can you… how can we fulfil the royal law to love our neighbours, practically, emotionally, and spiritually?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What is creativity anyway?

Image
Two childhood memories: One: "Our family is not creative!" I remember being told this in response to my frustration with my ineptitude with paints and pencils.*  I'm sure the intention was to encourage and let me know that I was not alone - that it was not important.  But the effect was that I grew up believing that I could produce nothing of any worth, even to myself, in the creative line.  To this day, I have a visceral pit-of-the-stomach reaction to any suggestion that I should express myself through any artistic medium. Two: "Write a story - it can be about anything at all, let your imagination run wild!" said my English teacher.  Imagination was something else I knew I didn't have, and any attempt to write a story led me into an inescapable paradox: For every idea in my head of a storyline or character, I knew its source in something else I'd seen or read.  This meant it had to be rejected as not a product of my imagination and thus unsuitable for i
Read more

Where, Who, Why, What, When, How…?

Image
Returning to preach at CCC after my sabbatical (study leave) I pulled my thoughts together around six questions, under the title “You’re Only Human”, borrowed from Kelly Kapic's book . Where have I been? I’ve been reading, thinking and writing about the very human relationship between Joseph and Jesus, and questions like: Who was Joseph, the man? What did it mean for the human boy Jesus to experience having two fathers? How does this relate to the experience of contemporary foster fathers and children in their care? The set word count for my MA dissertation is 18,000 words and I've written about that number, although I've not been working at the strict 200 words per day suggested by someone in my card as I started the sabbatical ("not too hard" they said!) I’ve got more to write, and it needs putting together as a whole, but I’ve done the main work, which was my main aim, and I’m confident that I will finish it in the time allowed. …but what about CCC?! Who are yo
Read more

Silent in the Background

Why a blog, and why the name? In November 2020 I was given an award for being 'silent in the background'. Strictly speaking, my wife and I were given an award at our local Social Services awards day.  Part of the citation referred to my working silently in the background in support of the joint project with Home for Good to recruit more foster carers from local churches. Apart from sounding a little sinister, the phrase caused me to reflect that, on many occasions, working in the background in support of others is where I feel most at home, where I function best. That might sound strange, given that I am currently leading a church, but I learned years ago that much of leadership is 'dogsbody' work in the background that no one will see, and humility is needed in church leadership , as much as, if not more than, anywhere else. Silent?  Sometimes I wish I was more silent, when I speak up in meetings and other places and wish afterwards that I'd said less or expressed
Read more