by David Gibson<\/p>\n
It was Jesus Himself who identified loving God and loving neighbor as the first and second commandments (Matthew 22:36-40). It’s worth noting that the second commandment, like a magnet, has both a positive and a negative pole.<\/p>\n
“For the commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,’ and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law<\/em>” (Romans 13:9-10).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The Positive Pole:<\/h2>\n
Referring to the second commandment, a lawyer asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?<\/em>” Jesus answered his question by telling the story of the Samaritan who met the needs of the wounded traveler, providing first aid, transportation, and lodging. He then asked the lawyer which of the key players in the story had “proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers.” The lawyer admitted, “The one who showed him mercy<\/em>.” Jesus replied, “You go, and do likewise<\/em>” (Luke 10:25-37).<\/p>\n
Both Poles<\/h2>\n
So if we love our neighbor as ourselves, there are certain things we will not do to our neighbor-to harm him (Galatians 5:14-15; James 2:8-9). And there are things we will do for our neighbor-to help him (Galatians 5:13-14).<\/p>\n
Let’s see how good a neighbor we can be this week!<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by David Gibson It was Jesus Himself who identified loving God and loving neighbor as the first and second commandments (Matthew 22:36-40). It’s worth noting that the second commandment, like a magnet, has both a positive and a negative pole. The Negative Pole: “For the commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[65,1392],"class_list":["post-88748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-love","tag-neighbors"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":29105,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/what-about-the-ten-commandments\/","url_meta":{"origin":88748,"position":0},"title":"What about the Ten Commandments?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"December 28, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Jerry Blount It seems a constant source of confusion among Christians to determine our relationship to the Ten Commandments. How do we sort all this out? On the one hand, Paul said,\u00a0For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/MosesTablets.gif?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":35881,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/what-is-the-royal-law\/","url_meta":{"origin":88748,"position":1},"title":"What is the “royal law”?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 17, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I was doing a short study on James 2:1-13 in being brief, I said: \"that the royal law is basically the law of Christ or the law of liberty which very much entails love.\" Do you think I have done justice to the passage by just stating that? Answer:\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":89505,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/commandment-keeping\/","url_meta":{"origin":88748,"position":2},"title":"Commandment Keeping","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 17, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Kevin Cauley There are those in the religious world today who ridicule the idea of keeping commandments. They claim that keeping God's commandments has nothing to do with our salvation today. 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