WHO IS MY NEIGHBOUR?
Sakkie Parsons
Someone wrote to me the following:
“I would like to know, who is your neighbour? Is every single person on earth your neighbour, or only those whom you know and have dealings with? This subject makes me wonder a lot, especially because the Bible says you must love your neighbour.”
Here, then, is how I see this matter and how, to the best of my ability, I try to live it out in my own life:
Between one person and another, so to speak, there are many kinds of love, or many different ways of loving.
I will give two examples before I share with you about love for my neighbour –
• who my neighbour is, and
• what kind of love I must show towards my neighbour:
There is the kind of love for my wife, which I have only for her and may have only for her.
There is the kind of love for my children, which I have only for them, and I could go on and on, but in this writing I want to share with you how I see in the Word who my neighbour is, for whom I must have the same love as for myself, and what this love for my neighbour looks like, or what this love for my neighbour includes.
First, just read one of the examples from the Word where Jesus Himself quotes for us the law which He came to fulfil, and which He wants you and me, His disciples, to keep.
Just look how Jesus, in a few simple words, fully sets out what I call our Lord’s “law of love”:
MATTHEW 22:36-40
36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
37 Jesus replied: “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’
38 This is the first and greatest commandment.
39 The second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’
40 The whole Law and the writings of the Prophets depend on these two commandments.”
Let me show you what our Lord’s Holy Spirit has shown me regarding this law of love for you and me.
In my spirit, I become ecstatic when I read Jesus’ law of love for myself — and compare it with the Mosaic covenant (the law of Moses with its incredibly many do’s and don’ts), as well as the other religions around us with all their “you may do this” and “you may not do that,” “this you must do” and “this you must not do” — and I see that Jesus’ law of love for me contains only two “musts.”
The Old Translation puts it this way:
MATTHEW 22:36-40
36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?”
37 And Jesus answered him: “You shall (this is a command, not an option) love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”
38 This is the first and great commandment.
39 And the second is like it (the second is not subordinate to the first): “You shall (this is a command, not an option) love your neighbour as yourself.”
40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.
Do you know what is also so wonderful about Jesus’ law of love which He gave to you and me?
There is not a single “you shall not” or “you may not” in it. In fact, there is nothing, absolutely nothing negative in His wonderful law of love for you and me — and that is simply because, as I understand the Word and try to live it out, there is nothing negative in Christian love.
We can already now, if we want to, as it were begin to get a slight taste of what our life in the hereafter will be like, if we live out Jesus’ law of love.
You see —
If I truly live out these two “musts” in my life, I never even have to wonder, as people who practise other religions do, about all the “musts,” all the “must nots,” as well as the “this you may do” and “this you may not do” that exist because of sin.
For our love for our Lord and for our fellow man will cause us to do the right thing, without us even having to think about whether I may or may not, and whether I must or must not.
That is also why, I believe, it is no wonder that in Jesus’ law of love for us there is not a single “must not,” “may not,” or anything else negative.
Now I want to show you how I see in the Word who your and my neighbour is, and how your and my love for our neighbour takes shape and is expressed in us as disciples of Jesus.
Who is my neighbour?
Someone, a very religious person, asked Jesus the same question, and it was someone like many people today, also here in South Africa. (That is why we boast that 80% of the people in South Africa are Christians, and yet despite the 80% so-called Christians, we have the highest crime rate per hundred thousand in the world.)
This lawyer was one of those people who usually decided for himself who his neighbour was, and his neighbour was determined according to his own likes and dislikes.
Just as there are still people today, also in South Africa, who would not even sit next to certain people in a church service, even though those other people are also fellow Christians for whom Jesus died on the cross. Yes, even though before our Lord they are fellow brothers and sisters who have accepted Him as their Redeemer and Saviour.
They would rather change congregations or churches. Yes, they would even establish their own church, as has also happened in our beautiful country, where the people whom they do not want to acknowledge as neighbours are not welcome.
LUKE 10:25-29
25 One day an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus by asking Him this question: “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
26 Jesus answered: “What is written in the Law of Moses? What do you read there?”
27 The man answered: “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind.’ And, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’”
28 “Correct!” Jesus said to him. “Do this and you will live!”
29 But the man wanted to justify his actions, and so he asked Jesus: “And who is my neighbour?”
Now I just want to mention here, as I have often mentioned in the past and will probably mention again in this writing as well:
Always listen very carefully when Jesus says something, because Jesus never, ever says anything merely for the sake of saying it. There is always a very good reason why Jesus says something and also why He says it the way He does.
Jesus tells this story and then says the following:
LUKE 10:30
Jesus answered with an illustration: “A Jewish man was travelling from Jerusalem to Jericho when he was attacked by robbers. They stole his clothes and money, beat him up, and left him half dead (and of course naked) beside the road.”
Now why does Jesus tell us, you could say in detail, what they did to the man?
Because, you see, Jesus, God in the flesh, knew that there would be people who would question whether the victim was really a Jew, as has already happened when people have argued with me about this matter. Some people, because of their own preferences and sometimes resentment and hatred, would very much like God to have given them a choice, according to their likes and dislikes, as to whom they may call their neighbour. But now Jesus tells the story in such a way that the Samaritan who discovered him there could have had no uncertainty about from which people group that man came. Because the man was naked, since the robbers had also stolen his clothes.
Now, I know it does sometimes happen that robbers steal the clothes someone is wearing, but we know that this is the exception when someone is robbed — and Jesus uses the exception here.
Now why does Jesus mention that the man was lying there naked, without his clothes?
Because, you see, this is how I understand this passage as led by the Spirit.
There was simply no way that the Samaritan could not have known that it was a Jew lying there before him on the road. For all Jewish baby boys are circumcised, if at all possible, when the baby is eight days old.
It is said that sometimes during the Second World War, if Nazi soldiers came across a man and thought he was a Jew, and the man could not prove otherwise, they would simply say:
“Pull down your trousers.”
So yes, that Samaritan certainly knew that it was a Jew whom he was now making his neighbour.
Now Jesus continues the story — and pay close attention here as well to what you are reading, because Jesus tells it this way for a very good reason, which I will also share with you further on.
LUKE 10:31-37
31 “By chance a (religious and also a Jewish) Jewish priest came along, but when he saw the man lying there (a Jew just as he himself was a Jew), he crossed over to the other side of the road and passed by him.
32 A Levite (also a religious Jew) came over and looked at the man lying there (and of course clearly saw that the man lying there without clothes was a Jew), but he also passed by on the other side of the road.
33 Then a despised Samaritan (whom the Jews despised and who himself had no love for the Jews) came along, and when he saw the man (and of course also saw that he was a Jew, because the man was naked), he was deeply moved with compassion for him.
34 The Samaritan then knelt beside him, treated his wounds with medicine, and bandaged them. Then he helped the man onto his own donkey, took him to an inn, and cared for him there.
35 The next day he gave the innkeeper two silver coins and asked him to take care of the man. ‘If the bill is more than this,’ he said, ‘I will pay the difference when I come back this way again.’
36 ‘Now, which of these three would you say was a neighbour to the man who was attacked by robbers?’ Jesus asked.”
37 The man answered: “The one who showed mercy to him.” Then Jesus said: “Yes, now go and do the same.”
The first thing you must keep in mind here, as I have already mentioned, is this: Jesus never does or says anything merely for the sake of doing or saying it. If Jesus uses a Samaritan as the example to demonstrate neighbourly love, then you must know that it was the best possible example there was to demonstrate neighbourly love.
I would now like, in my opinion, to show you something very insightful in this particular story, something that struck me immediately because I know how the Jews and the Samaritans felt about one another.
I absolutely believe that this is yet another reason why Jesus chose a Samaritan as the neighbour of the wounded man in His story.
At the end of the story, Jesus does not tell the lawyer who the wounded man’s neighbour is. No, Jesus wants to teach the lawyer — and you and me — something, and therefore Jesus asks the man:
LUKE 10:36
“Now, which of these three would you say was a neighbour to the man who was attacked by robbers?” Jesus asked.
The man answers Jesus:
LUKE 10:37
The man answered: “The one (notice, the man does not use the word ‘Samaritan’)who showed mercy to him.” Then Jesus said: “Yes, now go and do the same.”
You see, the Jews hated and despised the Samaritans so much that you would not get a respectable, well-mannered Jew even to say that name which, to the Jews, was almost a disgusting word — namely “Samaritan.”
In other words, Jesus is saying to this man, and to you and me, that even if someone is so detestable in my eyes that I cannot even bring myself to mention the name of his people group — if he crosses my path, then according to our Lord, that person is my neighbour, and if I truly am a Christian/disciple of Jesus, then I must and will love him.
Yes, Jesus teaches me here that if someone, so to speak, crosses my path, then our Lord has decided that this person is my neighbour. In other words, as a child of our Lord, I do not have a choice, just as that wounded man also had no choice — but how wonderful, if my relationship with my God and Saviour is right, then I also do not want a choice. The only thing I want is to live out my Lord’s law of love.
I say again: Remember, God does not give me a choice; I am given a command, because our Lord has already made the choice for me.
For those who want to choose their own neighbour, and then naturally only choose people with whom they can identify, I simply want to point this out:
The Jew lying there in the road also did not have the choice to decide, “this Samaritan is my neighbour.” When he lay there and the Samaritan crossed his path, then according to Jesus, the Samaritan became the Jewish man’s neighbour, and the Jewish man in the road became the Samaritan’s neighbour.
We have now seen that every person who crosses my path is my neighbour and gives me the opportunity, even if only through my way of living and conduct, to proclaim to him or her the Gospel of love of Jesus.
Next, I would like to try and answer the following logical question concerning this subject:
What does this love that I must feel for my neighbour look like, and how do I experience this love for my neighbour? For surely it cannot, for example, be the same love that I have for my God, or my wife, or my children.
I myself call this love “compassion” love.
The reason why I use the English word “compassion” is the following:
Just read the wonderful words, which absolutely ought to form part of a true Christian’s way of life, that the dictionary uses, among others, for “compassion.”
“Compassion:” mercy, pity, caring, empathy, sympathy.
You know, as I understand the Word —
If you and I look at people with “compassion” love and, where necessary, like the Good Samaritan, act with “compassion” love toward the person who has now become my neighbour — then, my friend, the Word says that we have fulfilled the law, Jesus’ law of love.
ROMANS 13:8
Pay all that you owe, but the one debt that you will always owe is to love one another. If you love your neighbour, you fulfil the law.
ROMANS 13:9
“For every commandment — the ones against adultery, murder, stealing, coveting, and whatever other command there may be — is summed up in this one great command: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’”
No — I, Sakkie, do not love the woman/man in the street who crosses my path in the same way that I love, for example, my wife or my child or my family, but I — a Christian/disciple of Jesus — look at him/her, whoever and whatever he/she may be, with human compassion and love. Yes, I look and I see, with “compassion,” a person for whom Jesus died on the cross.
In summary then —
Who is my neighbour?
Every person who, so to speak, crosses my path.
If I cannot find it in my heart to feel human compassion and love for that person, then I must speak to our Lord about it and work hard on my Christian walk and being a disciple of Jesus.
For then, as I understand Jesus in His conversation with this lawyer, I can at best be religious, like this lawyer and the priest and the Levite, but certainly not yet a Christian/disciple of Jesus.
That is also, I believe, why Jesus — who never simply says or does something merely for the sake of saying or doing it — used a Jewish priest and a Levite (religious people, so to speak, church people) to show who did not act like a Christian/disciple of Jesus.
LUKE 10:31 “By chance a Jewish priest came along, but when he saw the man lying there, he crossed over to the other side of the road and passed by him.
LUKE 10:32 A Levite (a Jewish religious leader) came over and looked at the man lying there, but he also passed by on the other side of the road.”
There is also something else very, very important in this conversation of Jesus with the lawyer to which I must once again draw your attention:
Do you remember that the lawyer asked Jesus what he had to do to inherit eternal life?
After the lawyer correctly quoted Jesus’ law of love for us, Jesus said to him:
LUKE 10:28 “Correct!” Jesus said to him. “Do this and you will live!”
The question I must ask myself as I look around me at my neighbour is the following:
Am I truly in my heart a Christian/disciple of Jesus?
Or am I at best merely religious, like this lawyer and also the priest and Levite of whom Jesus tells us in His Word that they were merely religious?
Listen to this:
COLOSSIANS 3:13
Bear with one another and if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other. Forgive each other just as the Lord has forgiven you.
COLOSSIANS 3:14 Above all, clothe yourselves with love. Love binds everything together perfectly.
ROMANS 13:8 “… If you love your neighbour, you fulfil the law.”
It is my opinion that if I cannot look at another person with “compassion love,” then I may certainly be religious, and yes, even very religious — but I am certainly not yet a true follower of Jesus, even if I believe and live out some things from His Gospel.
I just think how this country could look if the 80% of people who confess that they are Christians truly lived out Jesus’ law of love correctly.
I close this writing to you with Jesus’ words to the lawyer:
LUKE 10:28 “… do this, and you will live.”
(For a Practical Example of Neighbourly Love, the testimony: “I Will Never Leave You nor Forsake You” may be ordered from me at any time — I will gladly send it to you.)
Greetings,
Sakkie