A Good Neighbor

Luke 10:25-37

GOLDEN TEXT: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself.”—Luke 10:27

OUR lesson discusses the reply a scribe made to our Lord in response to His query as to what the Law stated was necessary in order to obtain eternal life. In his reply the lawyer gave a summary of the Law which apparently was common among the Jews at that time, and which is recorded in verse 27, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself.”

The lawyer did not stop to discuss what would be included in loving God with his entire heart, soul, strength, and mind. He passed over that great question as though it were nothing, as though it were settled. Had he sought to critically examine what such a complete consecration to the Lord would signify, he would doubtless have found himself far short of its standards.

Let us not pass the question too quickly or too lightly. Let us know 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. It would mean to manifest our love not only by our words and looks, but by our praises, 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 Him with all our strength would signify that time and talents and influence would all be at the service of our God, that in everything we would be ready to be used, spent, in glorifying His name, and in serving His cause as we might understand it to be His will. 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”—intelligently.

The second portion of this summary of the Law we are accustomed to speak of as the Golden Rule. Some have been disposed to evade the force of the requirement of the Law and its illustration by the Lord’s parable by saying, Yes, the Samaritan who showed mercy to the wounded man was indeed his neighbor, while the priest and the Levite who did not show mercy to him, he should not consider to be his neighbors; hence the wounded man upon recovery, should he ever have any dealings with that Samaritan who had assisted him, should love him as himself, should be willing to lay down his life in his service; whereas the other two who did not do neighborly acts ought not to be considered as his neighbors, and he should not try to love them as himself.

We answer that this is a distortion of our Lord’s language. Indeed, He was seeking to counteract this very thought which was common to the Jews, for it was a proverb amongst them that they should be loyal to neighbors, but bitter to enemies. The word neighbors signifies those who are near, and the Scribes and Pharisees were in the habit of applying this to those who were near in sympathy, in sentiment, in faith, in sectarian relationship.

As Christians, we must take a much higher view of the matter than this. We remember our Lord’s words in opposition to this very thought. He said, “Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thy enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven.” (Matt. 5:43-45) Anyone who will not come to this standard of love, not only for friends but also for enemies, cannot long be recognized by God as His child.

As followers of the Redeemer, we are to have a much higher standard. We are to recognize everyone who is in adversity and needing our help as our neighbor, whom we should love sympathetically to the extent of being ready to do for him or her whatever service we might be able to render. To whatever extent we can get this high standard of love, sympathy, co-operation, generosity, kindly feeling in control of our hearts and as a rule of our conduct, in that proportion surely we will be the more God-like, the more Christ-like, for, as our dear Redeemer remarked, God is kind even to the unthankful.

The demands of the Law are still to do to our neighbor as we would have him do to us. We are to do nothing less than this to anybody; but as followers of the Lord, imbued with His spirit of sacrifice, we are joyfully to lay down our lives for the brethren—in harmony with the divine program which is now selecting the Little Flock, the household of faith, as sacrificers with Jesus, to be by and by joint-heirs with Him in His Kingdom and in His great work of blessing and rejuvenating the world. It is very necessary that we have clear views respecting this subject of the demands of the Law, the demands of Justice upon us toward any creature, and also as respects such as would properly come in as a part of our sacrifice.

The measure of the love which fills our hearts will find expression for our fellow-creatures who have need of our sympathy, and attention, and if we show ourselves deficient here it will imply a deficiency of our love for our Creator. If, on the contrary, we are merciful to others, generous, kind, taking pleasure in doing what we can for the relief of our fellow-creatures, especially to the household of faith, this will be an indication of the spirit which our Lord will appreciate and own if it be accompanied by faith, in the precious blood of Christ.

QUESTIONS:

Had any member of the Jewish nation been able to keep the Law perfectly? If not, why not?

Explain what it means to love the Lord with all one’s heart, soul, strength, and mind.

Who are Christians to look upon as being neighbors?

What should be a Christian’s attitude toward his enemies?

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