WHO IS MY NEIGHBOR
Sakkie Parsons
Translated from Afrikaans: "Wie is my Naaste?"
Translator: Lynda Botha
Someone wrote to me the following:
"I would like to find out who my neighbour is? Is everyone on Earth your neighbour or just the people you know and those you have something to do with? This topic makes me wonder, especially since the Bible says you should love your neighbour."
Here is how I understand this matter and, to the best of my ability, trying to live this out in my own life:
There are many kinds of love or ways to love between humans. I will give two examples before I share with you my understanding of love your neighbour:
There's the kind of love I have for my wife, which I only have and are allowed to have for her. Then there is the kind of love for my children, which I can only have for them. I can go on and on, but I share with you my views taken from the Word who my neighbour is, who to love the way you love yourself, what this love for my neighbour should look like and what this would entail.
Firstly, lets read one of the examples in the Word, where Jesus himself quotes what He wants us as His disciples to do. Just see how Jesus fully explains, what I would call His love commandments, in a short, simplified manner:
Matt 22:36: "Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?”
37: “Jesus replied, “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.”
38: “This is the first and greatest commandment.”
39: “A second is equally important: “Love your neighbour as yourself.”
40: “The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”
Let me show you what the Holy Spirit of God has shown you and me regarding this love commandments. My spirit gets so excited whenever I read and compare Jesus’s love commandments to the Mosaic Law (Commandments of Moses with many do’s and don’ts), as well as other religions with all their do’s and don’ts but Jesus’s love commandments only has two dos’.
The King James Version sets it out like this:
Matt 22:36: “Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
37: “Jesus said unto him, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul and with all thy mind.”
38: “This is the first and the great commandment.”
39: “And the second is like unto it, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”.
40: “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
Do you know what is also wonderful in the love commandments which Jesus gave to you and me?
There is not one “don’t or may not”. In fact, there is absolutely no negativity in His magnificent love commandments given to you and me. This is how I understand the Word and try my best to live by it, because there is nothing negative in being a Christian. Now we can, if we want, almost taste how our lives will be in the hereafter, when we live life according to his love commandments.
You see –
If I really live out these two dos’ in my life, I never have to, like other religions, wonder about the do’s and don’ts also the may and may not’s that occur because of sin.
Because of our love to our God and our fellow human beings we will do the right thing.
I believe and don’t need to wonder about the fact that there is in the love commandments of Jesus no don’ts or may not’s, or anything else negative.
Now I want to show you how I perceive the Word, who your neighbour is and how my and your love for our neighbour manifests in us as disciples of Jesus and how it transforms into action.
Who's my neighbour?
Someone asked Jesus the same question, someone that is like many people today, and also here in South Africa. (Thus, we boast, that 80% of the people in South Africa are Christians, although, despite the 80% so-called Christians, we are listed in the top highest criminal statistics per hundred thousand in the world.)
This expert in religious law was one of the people who decided who his neighbours were and who not according to his preferences. Just like some people today in South Africa that don’t want to sit next to certain people in Church, even if these certain people are also their Christian brothers and sisters, for whom Jesus also died on the cross. Yes, even if happens in front of our Lord and although our Christian brothers and sisters accepted our Lord Jesus as their Saviour. They will rather change from congregation or church or create their own church where people they don't want as they neighbour would not be welcomed.
Luke 10:25: “One day an expert in religious law stood up to test Jesus by asking Him this question: "Teacher, what should I do to inherit eternal life?"
26: “Jesus replied: "What does the law of Moses say? How do you read it?”
27: “The man answered: "You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind. And, “Love your neighbour as yourself.”
:28: "Right!" Jesus told him. "Do this and you will live!"
29: “The man wanted to justify his actions, so he asked Jesus: “And who is my neighbour?”
30: “Jesus replied with a story: “A Jewish man was traveling from Jerusalem down to Jericho, and he was attacked by bandits. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him up, and left him half dead beside the road.”
31: “By chance a priest came along. But when he saw the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by.”32: “A temple assistant walked over and looked at him lying there, but he also passed by on the other side.”
33: “Then a despised Samaritan came along, and when he saw the man, he felt compassion for him.”:
34: “Going over to him, the Samaritan soothed his wounds with olive oil and wine and bandaged them. Then he put the man on his own donkey and took him to an inn, where he took care of him.”
35: “The next day he handed the innkeeper two silver coins, telling him, “Take care of this man. If his bill runs higher than this, I’ll pay you the next time I’m here.”
36: “Now which of these three would you say was a neighbour to the man who was attacked by bandits?”
37: “The man replied, “The one who showed him mercy.” Then Jesus said, “Yes, now go and do the same.”
The first thing you need to keep in mind is, Jesus will never just say or do something for the sake of just saying or doing something. If Jesus used the Samaritan as an example to demonstrate neighbourly love, then you must know that this was the best example there was to demonstrate what neighbourly love should look like.
I would like to begin by showing you something very special in this particular story Jesus told, which affected me because I knew how Jews and Samaritans felt about each other. I absolutely believe that this is one of the reasons why Jesus chose a Samaritan as a neighbour for this injured person in the story. At the end of the story Jesus doesn’t answer the expert in religious law question regarding who our neighbours are but Jesus wants to teach us something and therefore Jesus askes the man:
Luke 10:36: “Now which of these three would you say was a neighbour to the man who was attacked by bandits?”
The man answered Jesus:
Luke 10:37: … “The one who showed him mercy.” Then Jesus said, “Yes, now go and do the same.”
You see, the Jews despised and hatted the Samaritans so much so, that the word “Samaritan” was a foul word and you would not have been able to find a good educated Jew to say the word "Samaritan".
So in other words, Jesus said, to this man -which includes you and me, that should someone as despised and hatted like a Samaritan, whose name could not even be mentioned, cross paths with us, then according to Jesus this is my neighbour and if I am truly a Christian/disciple of Jesus then I must love him.
Jesus teaches us here, that if someone crossed my path, then the Lord decided that this person is my neighbour. In other words, as a child of the Lord, I have no choice, just like the person who got injured didn’t have a choice in the matter. But how wonderful – if my relationship with my God and Saviour is true – I wouldn’t want a choice. The only thing I want to do then is to keep acting out the love commandments given by my Lord.
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I’ll say it again. Remember, I didn’t receive a choice by God, I received an order because our Lord has made the choice on my behalf. For those who want to choose who their neighbours are or not – then, of course, they choose only people who they can relate to – I just want to refer them to:
The injured man who was lying in the road, did not decide that this Samaritan is my neighbour. When he was lying there, and the Samaritan crossed his path, then according to Jesus, the Samaritan became the neighbour of this man lying in the road.
We have now seen that every man who crosses my path, is my neighbour and therein lies the opportunity, even if it is only through my way of life/actions to meet her/him to proclaim the love-gospel of Jesus.
Then I want to answer the next logical question on this topic.
What does this love for my neighbour look like and how must I feel or experience it?
I call this love compassionate love. Some synonyms for the word compassion in the dictionary which should absolutely be part of a true Christian’s lifestyle are:
Sympathy, empathy, concern, kindness, consideration, forgiveness, kind, kind-heartedness
The way I understand the Word of God-
If you and I look at human beings with compassion and where necessary act, like the good Samaritan, with compassionate love towards human beings who has become my neighbour by crossing paths, then my friend, says the Word, we have fulfilled the love commandment of Jesus.
Romans 13:8: “Owe nothing to anyone – except for your obligation to love one another. If you love your neighbour, you will fulfil the requirements of God’s law.”
Romans 13:9: "For the commandments say, “You must not commit adultery. You must not murder. You must not steal. You must not covet.” These – and other such commandments – are summed up in this one commandment: “Love your neighbour as yourself.
No, – I, Sakkie, – don't love the woman/man on the street who I cross paths with, like I would love for example, my wife or my child or family, but I, a Christian/disciple of Jesus, see her/him, irrespective of who and what they are, with neighbourly love. Yes, I see with compassion a human being, for who Jesus died on the cross.
To summarize then-
Who's my neighbour?
Every human being that crosses my path, if I can put it like that.
If I couldn’t find it in my heart, to feel compassionate love for my neighbour, I must speak to our Lord regarding it and work harder to better myself to become a Christian/disciple of Jesus.
The way I understand, this conversation between the expert in religious law and Jesus, one can be religious, but that doesn’t mean that you are a Christian/disciple of Jesus yet.
therefore, Jesus doesn’t just say or do something for the sake of just saying or doing something and uses examples of priests and Levites (temple priests) to show us how Christians/disciples of God should not act.
Luke 10:31: “By chance a priest came along. But when he saw the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by.”
Luke 10:32: “A temple assistant walked over and looked at him lying there, but he also passed by on the other side.”
There is also something very, very important in this conversation of Jesus with the expert in religious law that I just want to draw your attention back to:
Remember, that the expert in religious law asked Jesus, what he had to do to inherit eternal life? Jesus said to the expert in religious law, after he stated the love commandments correctly:
Luke 10:28: "Right!" Jesus told him. "Do this and you will live!"
While looking at my neighbours around me the question each person must ask themselves are:
Am I truly in my heart a Christian/disciple of Christ?
Or am I just a religious being, like the expert in religious law as well as the priests and the Levites who Jesus refer to in His Word?
Listen:
Colossians 3:13: "Make allowance for each other’s faults and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.”
Colossians 3:14: "Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony.”
Romans 13:8: …"If you love your neighbour, you will fulfil the requirements of God’s law.”
I would like to close of this discussion with the words Jesus spoke to the expert in religious law:
Luke 10:28: … "Do this and you will live!"
Greetings,
Sakkie