Biblical Answer

Understanding the Commandment to Love Our Neighbors as Ourselves

The commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves is a profound expression of obedience that requires a deep understanding of the relationship between loving God and loving others. Augustine notes that we cannot both love ourselves first and foremost and love God first and foremost. If we do not love God, we cannot love our neighbors as ourselves. This commandment is not just about feeling fond of our neighbors or finding them attractive, but about actively planning and acting for their welfare. It is a call to love our neighbors as we love ourselves, which means loving them with the same passion, kindness, and compassion that we would want for ourselves.

The Meaning of Loving Our Neighbors

Loving our neighbors as ourselves means more than just being nice to them or treating them with kindness. It means actively seeking to do them good and sharing with them our knowledge of Christ. When we love our neighbors, we are called to muster all our initiative and enterprise to find ways and means of doing them good. This includes sharing the Gospel with them, which is a chief way of doing them good. Loving our neighbors as ourselves is not just a moral obligation, but a fundamental aspect of our relationship with God. As Augustine notes, we cannot learn to love our neighbors as ourselves until we learn to love God, and we cannot learn to love God except by learning to obey Him.

The Challenge of Loving Our Enemies

The commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves is often misunderstood as simply being nice to those we like, but Jesus teaches us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. This is a radical call to love those who do not love us, and to seek their good even when they do not seek ours. This is not just a moral obligation, but a fundamental aspect of our relationship with God. When we love our enemies, we are demonstrating the same love that God has shown us, and we are shining like a bright light in a dark world. This is consistent with the teachings of Jesus, who said that we should love our neighbors as ourselves, and that all the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.