The Art of Loving Our Neighbor
The Art of Loving Our Neighbor
The two greatest commandments, and the verse Jesus said unlocks the whole Bible.
The Art of Loving Our Neighbor
Leviticus 19, the two greatest commandments, and the verse Jesus said unlocks the whole Bible.
I've fallen down a YouTube rabbit hole lately — long-form debates between prominent atheists and Christians. And one thing keeps jumping out at me: morality is the hardest spot to defend on the atheist side. Where do our ethics actually come from? Why do we sense — almost instinctively — that some things are right and some things are wrong?
C.S. Lewis argues in Mere Christianity that the natural moral law, visible across cultures, points us toward a Lawgiver. Tom Holland — the historian, not Spider-Man — argues in Dominion that the water Western culture swims in (care for the poor, the dignity of every human, hospitals, schools, the impulse toward justice itself) traces all the way back to Jesus. And then I turn to Leviticus 19, and I realize God was making the same argument three thousand years earlier.
Leviticus 19 walks through every dimension of life — family, worship, the courtroom, the harvest, business, the way you speak about a neighbor when they aren't in the room. And after almost every command, God gives the same reason: I am the Lord. That phrase repeats fifteen times in one chapter. It isn't "because it's efficient" or "because the social contract requires it." The rule is His character. He is the reason.
It's the finale of It Was Always About Grace, and it bookends where we started. Way back in week one we said the whole point of being God's people is to reflect His image — like a mirror tilted at forty-five degrees, receiving God's likeness and reflecting it out to everyone we meet. Worship is the room where He smooths the cracks and wipes the smudges. Leviticus 19 is where that smudge-free mirror walks back into Monday morning. This is where the rubber meets the road.
The chapter opens with one of the great hinges in Leviticus: "You must be holy, because I, the Lord your God, am holy." It's the first time God hands the language of holiness to the whole community — not just the priests at the altar but every member of His people. And the wild thing is, He doesn't follow it up with "now go live on a mountaintop." He follows it up with how to harvest your field, how to honor your parents, how to keep your books, how to speak in court. Holiness here isn't separation from the world. It's fully integrated, with a different animating force underneath.
Jesus picks up Leviticus 19 again in Matthew 22. An expert in the law asks Him for the greatest commandment, and Jesus answers with two — Deuteronomy 6 (love God) and Leviticus 19 (love your neighbor as yourself). Then He says on these two commands hang all the law and the prophets. These two verses unlock the whole Bible. Vertical and horizontal. Us and God. Us and everybody else. We are meant to live in the tension between them.
Then the chapter does something strange. Verse 17: do not hate your neighbor in your heart — rebuke them strongly. What does don't hate have to do with rebuke? It took me a long time to see it. The only people I'm ever willing to rebuke are the people I actually love. With my kids, we call things out all the time — because we are invested in who they're becoming. The annoying coworker I won't call out? That isn't love. That's apathy with a polite face.
This might be one of the most counter-cultural verses in the book. Our culture's prevailing wisdom is mind your own business, don't meddle. Leviticus 19 says — politely — mind one another's business. Be so invested in your people that you would actually say something when a friend is headed for the cliff. Our family has lived in Morgan Hill for seven years, and we've been blessed with a circle of families whose kids have grown up alongside ours. We trust each other enough that one parent can step in and call all the kids back, and then the next parent takes a turn. That's a small picture of what God is after at the church scale.
Verse 18 lands the plane: do not take revenge, do not hold a grudge — instead, love your neighbor as yourself. Years back I was a Starbucks barista, and there was a guy on the crew who never covered anyone's shift but always asked for his to be covered. Three options every time he asked. I could take revenge — "no, I'm not covering you." I could hold a grudge — say yes, but quietly congratulate myself for being the bigger person. Or I could forgive whatever was past and love him. Love was always the harder choice and always the better one. We get a version of that Starbucks moment a hundred times a week — at the office, in our marriages, in the school pickup line. Three options. One leads home.
And if you read that whole list — the business, the family, the harvest, the court — and your gut tightens because you aren't measuring up, please don't hear God saying muster it up, get your act together. Hear what He's actually saying. Be holy, because I am holy is not a command. It is an invitation. Because I am holy, come into my presence and let me make you holy. Let me smooth the cracks. Let me wipe the smudges. Then walk back out and reflect me into the world.
Same grace from the very first chapter of Leviticus to the very last. And the rest of the road is just learning how to love our neighbor — one apathy at a time, one grudge at a time, one Starbucks shift at a time.
