Loving your neighbor

Last week was "Love one another" but the "as I have loved you" is an important distinction. (John 13:34)

There is a progression that has been going on, culminating in this commandment.

In Leviticus 19 the Israelites were told to love their neighbors:

18: Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of they people, but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself: I am the Lord.

Now, you will notice that there is no commandment to hate enemies in there, but -- perhaps because of the mention of "the children of they people" -- that appears to have been interpreted as being insular. In the Sermon on the Mount we get...

You have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine 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. (Matthew 5:43 - 44)

Perhaps there was some resistance to having to love too many people; even now there are signs.

As it is, we get two more clarifications on this one.

A lawyer who was looking to trap Jesus asked a question that would have worked well just with loophole seeking, "Who is my neighbor?" (Luke 10:29)

Jesus answers with the parable of the Good Samaritan, which tells us that everyone is your neighbor. 

Actually, it tells us that the neighbor is the one that showed mercy.

Despite the injunction to go and do likewise, I suppose that could be interpreted in a way that the people who treat you well are your neighbors, so you need to love them. If someone is a jerk to you, then you can hate them, except the hate may have always been extrapolation.

Fortunately, there was some more clarification back in the Sermon on the Mount:

Therefore, all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets. (Matthew 7:12)

The Leviticus version, mentioning not bearing grudges, may be giving kind of an idea to not let bad treatment or behavior creep in; the Golden Rule may be telling us to be actively good. You would like this; you would not like that... shouldn't that be an obvious guideline for how we treat other people?

Many years ago, there was a youth speaker talking about motivation. (It was Brother Winwood, for those who might remember.) 

He was talking about taking his wife out to dinner, and compared doing it out of fear (like she would get mad at him if he didn't) versus doing it out of a sense of responsibility (it's the right thing to do) versus doing it because he loved her.

It kind of came down to "I have to", "I ought to", or "I want to."

I remember thinking of it as aligning to telestial, terrestrial, and celestial, and that often you can break things down into three levels. Regardless of whether that actually fits here (where I am seem to be finding four groups), it was a pattern I would look for.

It does appear there are people who claim to follow Christ who are at the level of being nice to people who are good to them, and comfortable leaving it at that. I would like to remind them that the part about it being okay to hate your enemies is only referenced as hearsay. Also, the people in that camp can change who's in and who's out at the drop of a hat. 

Regardless, that is even below the bare minimum, where loving (maybe mostly the people around you) focuses on avoiding the bad. 

There is a higher level where you are actively doing good.

Then there is loving like the Savior loves. 

There is actively doing good in there, but there is also more.