The Kingdom of Heaven – Part 3
Once, a religious leader asked Jesus “which is the greatest commandment in the law?” His answer was: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the most important commandment.” But Jesus didn’t stop here. He continued, “The second most important commandment is like it: Love your neighbor as you love yourself. The whole Law and the teachings of the prophets depend on these two commandments.” (Mt 22:36-40)
These commandments are so important that all the law depend on these.
No one shall wonder about the reason for the first commandment: Love God. But probably few of us would have thought the second most important commandment is about loving our neighbor. Actually, the phrase ‘love your neighbor’ is mentioned at least 10 times in the New Testament.
Another religious leader asked Jesus: “what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” Once again Jesus’ answer was: “Love God and love your neighbor”. But this conversation didn’t stop here. The leader asked Jesus: “who is my neighbor?” Then Jesus began telling a story about a man from Jerusalem that was attacked down the road to another town and left for dead. Two religious people went by him and didn’t stop to help. But a man from Samaria, whose people were considered enemies by the Israelites (John 4:9), stopped, helped him, took him to a place where others could take care for him and paid for all the expenses. After completing the story Jesus asked the religious leader “who was this man’s neighbor?” and the leader answered “He who showed mercy on him. ” Then Jesus said “Go and do likewise.” The lesson in this story is that we shall be neighbors to others as this Samaritan was to the man who needed help. (Lk 10:25-37)
Dictionary.com defines neighbor as
- a person who lives near another.
- a person or thing that is near another.
- one’s fellow human being
- a person who shows kindliness or helpfulness toward his or her fellow humans
However, Jesus’ definition of neighbor includes a complete stranger, and even someone that considers you an enemy. Doing good to a stranger might not be that difficult. But doing good to an enemy sounds like a tough task. Remember, this is so important that it is considered the second greatest commandment.
There will be no enemies in the kingdom of heaven, but as citizens of this kingdom we shall consider begin living in this earth as if we were already living in the kingdom.
In the fourth part of this teaching series we will continue talking about the importance of loving one another.
If you would like to begin a discussion on this teaching please do so by accesing the topic about the Kingdom of Heaven our forum site http://forum.forachangeonline.org/
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