Exodus 22. 20 - 26 ・Ps.18. 3, 23+25, 47 - 50 ・ 1 Thessalonians 1. 5 - 10 ・
Matthew 22. 34-40
"Love Your Neighbor As You Love Yourself"
“Loving,” can be the most 「catchy」 present participle word in every language. Maybe one of the many things really unthinkable, and maybe no one will never wish for is the absence of love. Christian faithful(s) basically believe that the presence of love is the manifestation of God`s presence. “Loving” indeed is the heart of our daily living, and so the commandment to love is the heart of Christian message. In a Christian perspective however, with plenty of meanings that we can derive from the word love, we are not actually talking about either emotional or romantic love. We have the Ten commandments that has been laid down all through from the Old Testament Bible up to the present time. These same Commandments must have been interpreted in many ways by many past & recent authors.
We have today what Jesus wants us to clearly understand about the Ten Commandments. He (Jesus) sums up the Ten Commandments by saying, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. And the second is, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
While taking into heart these great commandments to love, the challenge that is being left on us is to see and understand the interconnected of these two great commandments. The last part of the Chapter 25 of the Gospel according to St. Matthew can be the most helpful supplementary reading for us to dig deeper on the interconnectedness of these two great commandments. Worth quoting are some words from the discourse on final judgment, “whenever you did this for one of the least important of these followers of mine, you did it for me” (Matthew 25.40). Loving God who is the source of all being and life has a natural outcome of loving others.
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