Breaking the Second-Greatest Commandment

And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him.  "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?"
And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the great and first commandment.  And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets."

--Matthew 22:35-40 (ESV)

Some of us in the Christian community have a tendency for making and trying to keep large bodies of rules.  I confess that I have often done that sort of thing.  When we do, we tend to completely lose sight of what really matters to God.  We wind up with a long list of things that make us "Christian" which, at bottom, have nothing to do with Christianity and are generally just yardsticks for our pride (see list, it's still humbling for me to read it).

I think many churches and Christians are getting better, though, at recognizing that it is not adherence to a set of rules that makes us Christians, but a relationship with God.  The most important rule doesn't even appear on our list: and that is to love God.  I am getting better at understanding that this one rule is more important than anything on my list, and that I often fail to love God because I am too concerned with my list.  It is a process, but I am getting better.

But what about the second-greatest commandment?  Honestly, it's not only not on the list, but many of the list items contradict it.  So often we are focused on getting minutia of doctrine, belief, and respectability right that we forget about others.  Worse, we often decide that nailing these things is so over-ridingly important that people who fail (or are not quite as good as we are) are unworthy of our love or sympathy.  But if we're honest, the things on the list are all pretty stupid.  One person lambastes another because he doesn't have the exact same understanding of predestination--even though the exact points they disagree on aren't even in Scripture, it apparently matters much more to God than what God did put in Scripture.  One churchgoer snubs his neighbor because his haircut is too messy--since God looks on the outward appearance, apparently (or is it the other way around? 1 Samuel 16:7).  Two Christians tear each other up for using the "wrong" translation of the Bible--because apparently reading exactly the right English words is much more important than obeying them yourself.  One member of a church refuses even to acknowledge another, let alone work out a past conflict, but is highly praised because of her involvement in church activities--which are obviously more important than brotherly love, seeing as how the activities aren't even mentioned in the Bible but brotherly love is mandated at practically every page.  Do we really think this is how it's supposed to be?  Honestly, sometimes we would fit in so much better with the Pharisees whom Christ decried than with the penitent sinners with whom he spent his time.

The things on our list are generally extremely petty, and usually they aren't even remotely based on the Bible.  The list the Bible gives is shorter and much more pointed: love God with all you are, and love each other.  Particular emphasis is placed on this last commandment throughout the New Testament.  It is the only command Christ gives his disciples the night he is betrayed--so important to him, in fact, that he repeats it three times in his last address before the Cross (John 13:34; 15:12 & 17).  He goes on to say that it is this commandment and no other that will distinguish the true disciples of Christ to the world (John 13:35).  No other commandment gets such a mention.  Christ does not tell us that people will know we're really his because we dress in a certain style, understand theology in a certain way, use the right translation, attend the right church, or participate in the right outreach activities: what will distinguish us is our love for each other.

So I have to ask, are we really distinguishable at all?

Moving on, Paul says that if you follow this commandment, no other is necessary because you have fullfilled the law (Romans 13:8).  That takes a step further from saying love one another should be the first item that on the list and says that, actually it should be the list!  Elsewhere he says our love for each other is something taught to us by God (1 Thessalonians 4:9).  I remember many times praying that God would teach me to understand this or that doctrine, but it appears what I should have been praying was that He would teach me how to love.  Peter says our love is an outworking of the purifying of our souls (1 Peter 1:22).

So if we do not love one another, how can we hold ourselves to have purified souls regarding the other commandments?  If we have failed in love, we have failed entirely!

John, in his first epistle, spends most of his time rehashing this commandment.  He has a lot to say.  He tells us love is a commandment both new and old, a mystery revealed and a message heard from the very beginning.  He tells us that if we love one another, we know God and are born of Him, that He dwells in us and His love is perfected in us, and that we can therefore have confidence before the Judgement Seat of God...but he does not stop there.  He more ominously tells us that if we do not love each other, we do not know God (1 John 4:8), and that anyone who claims to love God while he does not love his brother is actually a liar and cannot actually know God at all (1 John 4:8).

This really gives me pause.  So many times I've heard non-Christians classify Christians as hateful people, and too often they are right: we put our petty doctrinal points, traditions, and "good" works ahead of actually having the love Christ commanded.  In doing so, we prove that we are not Christians, and that we do not know God.  This is bad enough.  Worse is when we praise other "Christians" for keeping the minutia of our man-made laws while they neglect this all-important commandment, instead of calling them out on it.

May Christ teach us to love, so that we may know Him and actually bear His image, rather than defaming it!