Loving Your Neighbor as Yourself

How many times do we read Scripture, especially sections with which we are familiar, and fail to see how those sections fit into the greater context of the passage? Matthew 22:34–40 is one that I was recently challenged to look into for greater clarity.

In the final days of Jesus’ earthy walk, various ones sought to challenge Jesus with hard questions, seeking opportunity to catch Him in some error they could use to discredit His claims. The Sadducees, the ruling priest class, tried to trick Him on the resurrection of the dead and the doctrine of levirate marriage (described in Deuteronomy 25:5–10). According to their laws, the brother of a man who died without a son had an obligation to marry his brother’s widow to continue his brother’s inheritance. Instead of being embarrassed Jesus utterly destroyed their argument (vv.23–33).

Emboldened, the Pharisees gathered together against Jesus and, using a lawyer, challenged Him on prioritizing the commandments. Again, their motive was entrapment (“to test him,” v. 35) in order to discredit Him. Jewish legal experts were set in an ancient but ongoing attempt to rank the commandments as to which were light and which were weighty.

With infinite wisdom, Jesus crushed their foolish debate and indicted their spiritual usurpation with one blow. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (v. 37). With the charge, Jesus immediately followed up with the evidence: “And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets” (vv. 39, 40).

One might ask, how does loving one’s neighbor prove one’s love for the Lord? It is beyond the limited space of this article to develop all the proofs revealed in the text, but to point out a couple, define love and its outworking. How does one “love” the Lord? Also, Deuteronomy 6:5, the text Jesus quotes as the first and great commandment, is identified as a covenant obligation to “Yahweh your God.” That requirement is defined as fearing Him in “keeping all his statutes and his commandments” (v. 2), or, simply, obeying Him in loving your neighbor as yourself (Romans 13:8–10).

Immediately, Jesus challenged the Pharisees on their understanding the Christ (their expected Messiah). The Sadducees erred, not knowing the Scriptures (v. 29). The Pharisee then pridefully sought to trip Jesus up with the Scriptures on fine points of the law. Now it is Jesus’ turn. He interrogated them about what the Scriptures taught about Messiah (vv. 41–46). They could not, or perhaps better, they would not answer Him (v. 46). “Then Jesus said to the crowds . . .” (23:1) and what follows is a lengthy and brilliant exposé of the hypocrisy of those who had the gall to challenge Him.

What we miss is that the issue derives from this line: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Keep these words in your minds as you read chapter 23, then ask yourselves, how much hypocrisy motivates our everyday behavior?