Matthew 22:37-40, Luke 10:30-37, John 13:34
The Greatest Commandment's Companion
When a lawyer asked Jesus which commandment was the greatest, He gave a two-part answer:
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 neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets. — Matthew 22:37-40
The second commandment is not separate from the first — it is like it. The two are inseparable. John puts the logic starkly: "If anyone says, 'I love God,' and hates his brother, he is a liar." (1 John 4:20). Love for God that does not produce love for people is not genuine love for God.
Who Is My Neighbour?
The lawyer's follow-up question — "And who is my neighbour?" (Luke 10:29) — was an attempt to limit the command's demands. Jesus answered with the parable of the Good Samaritan.
A man was beaten and left for dead on the road. A priest and a Levite — religious insiders — passed by. A Samaritan — a despised outsider — stopped, cared for the wounds, transported the man to an inn, and paid for his care. Jesus asked: which of the three was a neighbour to the man who fell among robbers?
The neighbour is whoever is in front of you with a need you have the ability to meet. The command to love does not allow us to define "neighbour" narrowly enough to exclude the inconvenient, the different, or the undeserving.
What This Love Looks Like
The love Jesus commands is agape — the self-giving, others-oriented love that Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 13: patient, kind, not envious, not boastful, not self-seeking, not easily angered. It is action, not merely feeling.
"As yourself" does not mean self-love is a virtue to be cultivated — it means applying to others the natural care and concern everyone has for their own welfare. The same energy and attention you naturally give to your own needs — food, shelter, safety, dignity — is to be extended to your neighbour.
The New Commandment
Jesus took the love command further still: "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another." (John 13:34). The new standard is not "as yourself" — it is "as I have loved you." The self-giving love of Christ — washing feet, bearing shame, laying down life — is the model.