Good Citizens and Good Neighbors

Matthew 22:15-22, 34-40

GOLDEN TEXT: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”—Matthew 22:39

TODAY’S lesson continues with consideration of the events of the last five days of our Lord’s public ministry. He rested at Bethany over the Sabbath and participated in a feast to His honor that Sabbath eve. The next day, the first day of the week—Sunday—He rode on the ass, making a triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the city of the great King. Mark informs us that He visited the Temple on that occasion, looking about on the condition of things, and that is was the next day, Monday, that He drove out the money-changers, etc.

Now we come to the day following, Tuesday, the last day of His public teaching. Note the record thus: John 12:1 informs that the feast at Bethany was “six days before the Passover”—Sabbath; Mark 11:1 records the events of the next day, Sunday; Mark 11:2-19 relates the events of Monday; Mark 14:1 shows that Wednesday and Thursday intervened before the Passover Feast began.

The leading men of all the various sects and parties were in perplexity how to deal with Jesus. They believed Him to be an impostor, because His claims seemed to them to be absurd, contrary to all worldly wisdom, the only kind which they possessed. True, they recognized that He was a brilliant man, that He had great force and power with the common people. We are informed that they sought to kill Him, and that privately they had determined this from the time of His calling Lazarus back from the tomb.

With a view to getting Jesus to commit Himself as an opponent of the Roman Empire two groups of Jews came to Jesus with a question. They addressed Him, saying, “Teacher, we know that Thou art true, and teachest the way of God in truth, neither carest Thou for any man: for thou regardest not the person of men. All this was so stated in order that the Master in the presence of the multitude might be compelled to give a straightforward answer to the question they were about to ask, and that answer they fully believed would be one that would convict Him of treason. Then came the question: “Is it lawful [according to the Law of Moses] to give tribute unto Caesar, or not?” Shall we give or shall we not give?

Our Lord understood the situation in an instant and said, “Why tempt ye me?”—why do you try to entrap me? “Whose is this image and superscription [on this coin, the tribute coin which Jesus had asked them to hand Him]?” They replied, “Caesar’s.” And then He answered their question, saying, “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.” Jesus did not attempt to declare that justice was connected with every feature of the tribute tax, but He did sum up the matter in those few words, “If Caesar has some just claims against you, render to him accordingly—this will not interfere with God’s just claims against you, which ‘you should be equally ready to meet.”

The second part of our lesson continues the record of questions addressed to our Lord and His replies. One of the Pharisees, a lawyer, probably thinking that Jesus’ teachings along the lines of love and mercy were contrary to the rigid lines of justice as laid down in the law, thought to entrap our Lord by a question. His query was, “Which is the great commandment in the law?” Jesus’ reply was, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”

In the account of this conversation given in Luke, chapter 10, the lawyer quickly passed over the first of these commandments and wished to discuss the second. But let us not do likewise but give both due consideration. Let us realize that to love the Lord with all our heart would mean that the sum of all our affections would center upon the Lord, so that our love for Him would far excel all of our love for the dear ones of the home and the family and of the whole world. To love the Lord with all our soul would signify with all our being—to manifest our love not only by our words and looks and praises, but by our services and all of our conduct in life—everything testifying that God is first in our affections and in all of life’s interests. To love our Lord with all our mind would seem to imply that we are to intellectually attempt to appreciate the Lord, to understand His divine laws and to enter into heart sympathy with them, so that our service and worship would be the more intelligent, after the kind described by our Lord when He said, “They that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.”—John 4:24

The second part of our Lord’s reply has been called the Golden Rule. Jesus gave it as a full statement of the divine will with respect to our relations with others: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” This does not mean that we are to love only those who have dealt kindly with us, for our Lord condemned that selfish kind of love when He said, “If ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?”—Matt. 6:46

As followers of the Redeemer we are to have the much higher standard. We are to recognize that every one who is in adversity and needing our help is our neighbor whom we should love sympathetically to the extent of being ready to do for him or her whatsoever service we might be able to render, to the extent that we should wish that person to do for us if we were in his difficulty. To the extent that this high standard rules in our hearts and controls our conduct, in that proportion we will be the more Godlike; for, as our dear Redeemer remarked, God is kind even to the unthankful.

QUESTIONS:

What was the general setting and time in our Lord’s ministry when our lesson occurred?

Did the increasing popularity of Jesus with the common people favorably influence the scribes and Pharisees toward Him?

What method did some use to entrap Him? Did they succeed?

What did Jesus give as the second greatest commandment?

Is it related to the greatest commandment?

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