Love your neighbor as yourself

“Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.” (Leviticus 19:18)

 

“Love your neighbor as yourself” is same contents to Jesus’ words in the New Testament. However, this sentence is the Lord God’s words in Leviticus of the Old Testament. Many races and tribes live on the earth, but they are all people out of one root, who are created by God. Of course it is good to think to be close one’s family and the relatives and respect, but no less important to that it needs importantly to think of everyone in merciful mind. If we think deeply about who Jesus the Redeemer is, we could also realize well the meaning of Jesus’ lesson, Love your neighbor as yourself.

 

If you don’t know on what the Old Testament and the New Testament have interrelationship to each other, you will inevitably fall into an error of misunderstanding to the Bible words. Because disregarding the relationship with the front, rear, left, right between words and sentences of the Bible may be produced various wrong interpretation. The purpose of studying is in order to gain knowledge, and correct knowledge has to be based on a reasonable understanding. The Bible is one wholly completed by combined the Old Testament and New Testament. That means what Jesus said “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” written in Matthew 5:17. The words by Jehovah written in the Old Testament and Jesus’ saying in the New Testament agree with each other. There is no choice but to be said with equal contents because the names Jehovah and Christ are two names of same One God. Jesus Christ is God the Word that had existed from the beginning, that is, Logos. He is God Jehovah who is the Lord of all things.

If you care and love own children and relatives very much, you should bestow love and good will even to everyone else. But if you like to carry out not both sides but for one only, it is shown that as a man of character you are not really treating your children and relatives. That’s because it’s nothing more than like an animal behavior just same to dogs or cows do to their own young of the beast. The world is not a place where a person live alone, but where many people created by God live together. We know it’s never easy to love neighbors as much as doing for one’s family. However, if you strive to practice the word of God “Love your neighbor as yourself,” a good world just will come.

There are many refugees in the world who wander by losing their countries. While wandering, they have to risk death and may flow into other countries. But even there a new place, they are not welcomed, so they spend unfortunate years casting faces and struggling. Most of them will have a life of pain and bad luck rather than happiness and success. There are refugees from Afghanistan in Korea at present. There are people who insist just as have to be kicked them out right away, toward the people who not long after stepping on this land. Each person has own different opinion, so anybody can express one’s opinions as oneself will, but at least I would like Christians not to say so. The selfish rationalization said by some Christians is that the refugees should not be accepted ‘because they have Muslim beliefs’. But Korea is not a country for Christianity only. There are people of various religions like Muslims, Buddhists, and etc. among our neighbors. And all of them need the love of God, and the gospel of Christ. Don’t think you’re threatened by them, but please give the love of Christ for them.

God the Lord demands the created people an obedience absolute for Him. If the men He made lives according to His words, what else is better than that? However, it is true there are many wandering sheep away from the Lord God’s arms. Sheep who do not follow Christ the true shepherd cannot have good pasture nor clean water. God told in the Bible, do to leave away the ears of the field for others, and also to leave away the remaining fruits of the vineyard. Such the Lord’s command means to think for the poor and the strangers. Please remember the refugees are our neighbors who are currently suffering from misfortune.

 

Saying to love your neighbors like oneself is a goal but in fact an ideal almost impossible to fulfill. Ideal means a thing which has to be achieved, but it’s hard to be done really. Considering that dilemma between present weakness and the ideal, I want to let go of this work that I have been doing several tens times over a day. It is because of my sense of shame that a guy who does not love the neighbors at all how would preach the gospel of Christ. However, I believe everything would be better successfully in the end if I try to live sincerely obeying Jesus’ words, even a small thing.

 

(Written by Koonoh, Pastor of JDO Presbyterian Church in Korea, on Oct 10th 2021)