For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command:
“Love your neighbour as yourself.”
~ Galatians 5:14 (NIV)
The above statement by Paul the apostle seems different to what Jesus said was the greatest commandment in the entire law—to love God with all our heart—in Matthew 22:37-38.
But in the very next sentence Jesus explains what such whole-hearted love for God would mean in practical terms: Love your neighbour as yourself (Matthew 22:39 NIV).
So was the apostle Paul not wrong to quote the second (rather than the first) command that Jesus highlighted as the greatest in God’s law?
Yes, Paul correctly understood the Lord Jesus. Jesus did not say that the second command (to love our neighbour) was less important than the first command (to love God). Jesus said that the second command was “just like the first”.
But what did Jesus, and Paul, mean by loving others “as yourself”? Did they mean we should give priority to loving ourselves before we can think of loving others? Isn’t this somewhat selfish?
No, Jesus was not proposing a priority of self before others. He was providing a practical principle on how to love our neighbours.
It is the same principle that Jesus had articulated earlier as another way of summarising what all the law and the prophets in Scripture had said: “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets (Matthew 7:12 NIV).“
The practical principle is to ask how we wish other people would relate to us in all life’s different situations: the tone and manner in which they speak to us, the kindness and respect which they show us, and the help and encouragement they offer to us.
To love our neighbour as we love ourselves is to treat them not in the way they might actually treat us, but in the way we wish they would treat us! This is God’s greatest command in all Scripture.
Let us love God with all our heart by loving our neighbours as ourselves, always treating them in the ways we wish they would treat us.
Bishop Dr Gordon Wong was elected Bishop of The Methodist Church in Singapore in 2020. He served as President of the Trinity Annual Conference from 2013 to 2020. This is his final message as Bishop.