Who's My Neighbor? A Biblical Call To Love Others预览

Using God’s Standard

Sadie Crouch

Matthew 25:31-46 contains what might be one of the most well-known and most often recited parables of all. Sometimes this seems to cause scripture to lose its freshness or flavor, so to speak. This parable is not one to merely gloss over, though. It is crucial and relevant for us today.

Jesus says something to us that may seem common sense. Of course, God wants us to feed the hungry and clothe the naked and take care of the sick. This just seems to go along with calling ourselves Christians. If we clean out our closets once a year to donate clothing we don’t like anymore, or spend time in our local food bank every once in a while, surely we’re doing our Christian duty, right? This passage tells me there is so much more to it. Jesus wouldn’t have taught this lesson with a parable if it wasn’t something that the people of the time were having a hard time getting through their heads. The parable is still so relevant today because we’re still having a hard time getting it through our heads.

Nowhere in this passage did Jesus say that the hungry/thirsty/stranger/naked/sick/imprisoned person deserved it. He didn’t say to help people in need unless they didn’t fit some type of criteria we may hold that helps us to decide whether a human life is worth loving or caring for. There was so much said in what Jesus didn’t say. His criteria for helping people was both broad and clear. If the person is in need and exists, they are worth it.

Jesus astounds those listening, even more when he says that whatever a person does for the least of these, he or she does for Jesus. Because Jesus loves human beings so much, what we do for His loved ones is something He takes on so personally; it is as if we do or don’t do those exact same things for Him. We serve a God who loves us that intimately and intricately.

This entire parable is what follows Jesus explaining eternity and where we will spend it.  In order to be sheep on the right rather than goats on the left, we must take this teaching seriously. To love God, we are required to love our neighbors by God’s criteria rather than our own.