{"id":27826,"date":"2026-10-29T09:59:38","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T13:59:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=27826"},"modified":"2026-10-29T09:59:38","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T13:59:38","slug":"loving-your-neighbor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=27826","title":{"rendered":"Loving Your Neighbor"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cac.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Love-Your-Neighbor-10-25-10-31-2026-Week-43--scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Loving Your Neighbor\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p> <iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Hollies - He Ain\u2019t Heavy, He\u2019s My Brother (Lyrics)\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/U6mfjLXDI1I?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Love Is the Law&nbsp;<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p>Thursday, October 29, 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Public theologian Rachel Held Evans (1981\u20132019) considers how Jesus understood love as the ultimate fulfillment of God\u2019s law:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesus made it clear that he did not come to abolish the laws of the Torah, \u201cbut to fulfill them\u201d (Matthew 5:17). The life and teachings of Jesus, then, embody all that these laws were intended to be. Jesus is what the living, breathing will of God looks like. This includes compassion for the poor, esteem for women, healing for the sick, and solidarity with the suffering. It means breaking bread with outcasts and embracing little children. It means choosing forgiveness over retribution, the cross over revenge, and cooking breakfast for the friend who betrayed you. As Elton Trueblood put it, \u201cThe historic Christian doctrine of the divinity of Christ does not simply mean that Jesus is like God. It is far more radical than that. It means that God is like Jesus.\u201d [1]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When Jesus was challenged by the experts on the Law to give an answer for what Scripture is all about, he offered a very straightforward, very Jewish response. Quoting Deuteronomy 6 and Leviticus 19, he replied, \u201cLove the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments\u201d (Matthew 22:37\u201340).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is the point of every liberation, every wandering through the desert, every law about oxen and yeast and blood. To\u00a0<em>love<\/em>\u00a0is to honor God and keep God\u2019s commandments.\u00a0<strong><em>Love<\/em>\u00a0is the law that liberates slave and slaveholder alike.<\/strong>\u00a0<strong><em>Love<\/em>\u00a0is the ultimate deliverance story<\/strong>, for only love can sustain the sojourner out of Egypt, through the desert, up the mountain, and into the promised land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The truth is, you can bend Scripture to say just about anything you want it to say\u2026. We all go to the text looking for something, and we all have a tendency to find it. So the question we have to ask ourselves is this: are we reading with the prejudice of love, with Christ as our model, or are we reading with the prejudices of judgment and power, self-interest and greed? Are we seeking to enslave or liberate, burden or set free?\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is why there are times when the most instructive question to bring to the text is not,\u00a0<em>What does this say?<\/em>\u00a0but,\u00a0<em>What am I looking for?<\/em>\u00a0I suspect Jesus knew this when he said, <strong>\u201cAsk and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you\u201d (Matthew 7:7).<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>If you want to do violence in this world, you will always find the weapons. If you want to heal, you will always find the balm. With Scripture, we\u2019ve been entrusted with some of the most powerful stories ever told. How we harness that power, whether for good or evil, oppression or liberation, changes everything.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>References:<\/strong><br>[1] Elton Trueblood, cited in Brian McLaren,&nbsp;<em>A New Kind of Christianity<\/em>&nbsp;(HarperCollins, 2010), 114.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Rachel Held Evans,\u202fInspired:&nbsp;<em>Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again<\/em>\u202f(Nelson Books, 2018), 55\u201357.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Image credit and inspiration<\/strong>: Samuel Oakes,<em>\u00a0untitled (detail)<\/em>, 2021, photo, Broadway, UK.\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/photos\/person-in-white-dress-shirt-holding-bread-kqirsAl0B3M\" target=\"_blank\">Unsplash<\/a>.\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/cac.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Love-Your-Neighbor-10-25-10-31-2026-Week-43--scaled.jpg\" target=\"_blank\">Click here to enlarge image<\/a>.\u00a0<em>Like bread offered to someone beyond the frame, we are invited to reach out to an unseen neighbor, both giving and receiving blessing.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack.com%2Fapp-link%2Fpost%3Fpublication_id%3D2863497%26post_id%3D222061873%26utm_source%3Dpost-email-title%26utm_campaign%3Demail-post-title%26isFreemail%3Dtrue%26r%3D69zmaq%26token%3DeyJ1c2VyX2lkIjozNzk1NzU0NTgsInBvc3RfaWQiOjIyMjA2MTg3MywiaWF0IjoxNzkyOTUwNDYyLCJleHAiOjE3OTU1NDI0NjIsImlzcyI6InB1Yi0yODYzNDk3Iiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.ED6EPoqaB1zxLTIN9L4sTS-GNcZb4s8z_n7T6hSJqk4&amp;data=05%7C02%7C%7C8ce8510da6274d92ed2908df32c012e2%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C639285472674463657%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=iU7k8hEz89NIMjignM8mU7mC%2FBwI4noHJhtfUt%2BBiCw%3D&amp;reserved=0\">Love Indivisible: John the Beloved on the Union of God, neighbor, and sibling<\/a><\/h1>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table><tbody><tr><td><a href=\"https:\/\/na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack.com%2F%40bradleyjersak&amp;data=05%7C02%7C%7C8ce8510da6274d92ed2908df32c012e2%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C639285472674494392%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=9%2Fnv93XZIMCV%2FAXrDN2793RtzoEsXAmYgrRN8F4gJwE%3D&amp;reserved=0\">BRADLEY JERSAK<\/a>OCT 25<\/td><td><a 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class=\"wp-block-table\"><table><tbody><tr><td><\/td><td><\/td><td><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Love Indivisible in John the Beloved&nbsp;<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>The First Epistle of John the Beloved is a treasury of challenges to every assumption that would sabotage Love\u2019s work in our lives and world. Read closely, it calls for a fearless self-examination that rattles religious presumptions and prepares us to hear the radical claims of divine love. Along those lines, I invite you to notice the \u201cfusion of two loves\u201d that push our notions of \u201cdivine union\u201d to the n<sup>th<\/sup>&nbsp;degree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Fusion of Divine and Human Love<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>First, let\u2019s notice how&nbsp;<em>John fuses divine and human love<\/em>. John learned from Jesus that the whole of the Law and Prophets can be expressed in a two-fold summary command: love God with your whole heart and love your neighbor with the same concern you have for yourself. John had witnessed Jesus unite love for God and neighbor in practice, such that the two loves became an indivisible fusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>J<strong>ohn boldly asserts that we\u00a0<em>cannot<\/em>\u00a0claim to love God while we still hate our human siblings. To imagine love for God but not our neighbor is, to John, a delusion. And living as if we could is hypocrisy\u2014a lie. <\/strong>Strong words, but consider: in John, l<strong>oving our neighbor\u00a0<em>IS<\/em>\u00a0loving God; it\u2019s\u00a0<em>how\u00a0<\/em>you love God. More than a \u201cshould,\u201d an obligation, or implication. More than an application or corollary to the Great Commandment. John has moved beyond a two-step\u00a0<em>\u201cfirst<\/em>\u00a0you love God (via devotion),\u00a0<em>then<\/em>\u00a0you love your neighbor (via kindness, etc.).\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>No. That would still imply a separation between God and humanity. It would overlook the radical union of Christ with his human family with whom he shares \u201cone substance.\u201d Jesus showed us that to love the poor, naked, hungry, sick, and imprisoned is to love him. In Christ and to Christ, \u2018they\u2019 are \u2018Me.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So too, he interrogates Paul,&nbsp;<em>\u201cSaul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?\u201d<\/em>&nbsp;<em>Not<\/em>by way of analogy. And&nbsp;<em>not<\/em>&nbsp;indirectly. To persecute \u2018them\u2019 is to&nbsp;<em>\u2018murder Me.\u2019<\/em>To kill the other\u2014whether the foreign enemy, the murderer on death row, or the war child\u2014<em>is to murder him.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The union of God and humanity is complete. We literally\u00a0<em>cannot<\/em>\u00a0know or love God apart from encountering him in every \u2018them\u2019 Jesus calls \u2018Me.\u2019 Cannot. <\/strong>I don\u2019t just mean we\u00a0<em>should<\/em>\u00a0not see them as separate. They just aren\u2019t. The union of God and humanity makes the separation impossible. Eventually, hopefully, unthinkable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p><em><strong>There is no \u201cLove God\u201d category AND \u201clove neighbor.\u201d&nbsp;<br>In Christ, the two loves are fused in hypostatic union.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Fusion of Neighbor and Sibling<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>When I spoke of fusing love for God and neighbor in John\u2019s epistle, I deliberately imported the language of neighbor. But that\u2019s not right; John does not mention our neighbor. He speaks of&nbsp;<strong>\u201cone another\u201d<\/strong>&nbsp;(<em>all\u0113l\u014dn<\/em>&nbsp;&#8211; 6x<strong>)&nbsp;<\/strong>and&nbsp;<strong>\u201cbrother(s)\/sister(s)\u201d<\/strong>&nbsp;(<em>adelphos\/adelph\u0113<\/em>&nbsp;&#8211; 15x). Since&nbsp;<em>John\u2019s heart and theology are gender universal<\/em>, I\u2019ll use the inclusive term \u201c<em>siblings.\u201d&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As a child literalist with a King James Bible, I knew John was at least addressing my relationship with my one and only actual human brother, Rodney. I\u2019ve told the story somewhere of the Sunday School poster I posted on my wall,&nbsp;<em><strong>\u201cYou cannot love God and hate your brother.\u201d<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/em>That\u2019s short for the admonition:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>\u201cThose who say, \u2018I love God,\u2019 and hate a brother or sister are liars,&nbsp;<br>for those who do not love a brother or sister, whom they have seen,&nbsp;<br>cannot love God, whom they have not seen.\u201d&nbsp;(<\/strong><em><strong>1 John 4:20,&nbsp;<\/strong><\/em><strong>NRSVUE)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I left the poster on my wall for months, undergoing its work on me because I genuinely wanted to love God, but I knew I was often impatient, unkind, and sometimes cruel to Rodney. I wanted to do better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While John didn\u2019t mean for my obedience to be that exclusive, many of us still assumed \u201cbrother\u201d referred to our Christian brothers and sisters. In fact, some streams of Christian theology not only narrow&nbsp;<em>our<\/em>&nbsp;love from all our neighbors to \u2018the elect,\u2019 but pull the same stunt with God! They claim that \u201cGod is&nbsp;<em>not<\/em>love\u201d by nature and does&nbsp;<em>not<\/em>&nbsp;love everyone\u2014God, they say, is&nbsp;<em>only love in the experience of the elect<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In this model, God\u2019s love and ours are directed not at our neighbor, but specifically at our Christian brothers and sisters\u2014John seems to urge love for a specific faith community of Christian believers. But history demonstrates this constricted love reopens the door to misuse and violence toward the feared minority, the despised stranger, and enemy other (a worrisome trend again today).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Universal Siblings<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>I want to offer an alternative reading of 1 John that I believe better reflects the same author who proclaimed,&nbsp;<em><strong>\u201cGod so loved the world.\u201d<\/strong><\/em>&nbsp;This is John\u2019s transformative takeaway from the revelation of God\u2019s love in Christ. So I propose a second fusion: rather than seeing&nbsp;<em>\u201csiblings\u201d<\/em>&nbsp;as the faith-bearing subgroup within the broader human population, John\u2019s vision of love is that in Christ,&nbsp;<em><strong>all neighbors are now revealed as siblings.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Practically, the Sikh hymn (and title of Valarie Kaur\u2019s book) teaches us to&nbsp;<em><strong>\u201cSee no stranger.\u201d<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/em>Just as John sees love of God and neighbor as one indivisible act, so he replaces the language of&nbsp;<em>neighbor&nbsp;<\/em>with&nbsp;<em>sibling&nbsp;<\/em>because there is no difference. We look at the world in terms of strangers, enemies, and neighbors (categories of difference), but in Christ, we are one, a united family of siblings\u2014including Jesus. He is not ashamed to call us siblings, and we must honor all humanity as siblings too.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em><strong>In Christ, my neighbor is now my sibling.&nbsp;<br>And all are in Christ, not because they \u2018became Christian,\u2019&nbsp;<br>but because in his incarnation, he became human,&nbsp;<br>united to every human person.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">My Brother\u2019s Keeper?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019ll close by revisiting the biblical archetype of Cain, who famously asked God (ever so defensively),&nbsp;<em><strong>\u201cAm I my brother\u2019s keeper?\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Today, I hear Jesus, piercing our eyes and hearts with this sober reply,&nbsp;<em><strong>\u201cNo. You are their sibling. And they are Me.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Love Is the Law&nbsp; Thursday, October 29, 2026 Public theologian Rachel Held Evans (1981\u20132019) considers how Jesus understood love as the ultimate fulfillment of God\u2019s law: Jesus made it clear that he did not come to abolish the laws of the Torah, \u201cbut to fulfill them\u201d (Matthew 5:17). The life and teachings of Jesus, then, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27826"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27826"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27826\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27827,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27826\/revisions\/27827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}