What Did Jesus Really Mean by "Love Your Neighbor"?

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What Did Jesus Really Mean by "Love Your Neighbor?"

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“Love your neighbor as yourself.” We quote it often. We teach it to our kids. But what exactly did Jesus mean by “love”?

In today’s world, “love” can mean everything from affirming someone’s choices to supporting large-scale aid programs run by secular governments. But when Jesus used the word, was He talking about sentiment, sacrifice, policy—or something else entirely?

One thoughtful reflection raised the concern that we often talk about love without defining it. Are we equating Christian love with charity handled through taxation? Is defending a government’s foreign aid policy really the same as loving our neighbor?

And how do we reconcile different biblical tensions—like “Love your enemies” alongside Paul’s firm stance in Galatians 1:8?

When Jesus told us to love, what kind of action was He pointing to?
How do you personally wrestle with what it means to love your neighbor in both personal and political contexts?

“Keeping my eyes on Jesus and focusing my attention on my own feet, I seldom have any energies left over to criticize other travelers for being too high or too low.” – KP

What does Christian love really look like in action?

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Fritz
Thanks for starting this thread, and revisiting this important topic. I appreciate your responsiveness. I read, with interest, the links you shared, Danielle’s article, and your comments. I will give this the thought it is due, and share a more comprehensive post later. Thanx again
KP

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It is important to realise that the parable of the ’ Good Smaritan ’ is a story of a hated enemy showing love and compassion to someone who respected leaders had previously ignored.

It is in this context that Jesus identies who our neighbours are and tells us to do likewise.

The parallel shows really radical love to another, a radicle love that was not only costly financially, but potentially in regard to his safety.
A Samaritan brings gs a badly injured Jew into a Jewish village !
He was running a risk that he would be accused of being the attacker and attacked himself.

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One thing is very clear to me, and makes me very sad. At present, many in the US are filled with rage and irrational judgment – which is the exact opposite of how Christians should be!

We are supposed to be filled with the Holy Spirit and exhibit the resulting “fruit”.

Galatians 5:22-23, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control”.

Instead, they exhibit the opposite fruit! Bigotry, intolerance, wrath, meanness, judgment, etc. THAT IS THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF CHRISTIAN BEHAVIOR!

“Love your neighbor as yourself” is expressed in both the New Testament and the Old Testament, yet they seem to completely ignore it.

I cannot help but wonder whom they REALLY follow!

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Friends,
Before I serve a dilettantes lunch of sour grapes, I thought I would offer a poem I wrote on this subject. If you are NOT into poetry, feel free to swipe past; I will not be offended. If you are a poet, I apologize for my amateurish intrusion into your art. Feel free to berate; I’ll not be offended. Please, however, be gentle with your critic’s pen. Poetry is a hobby. I do NOT call myself a poet.

This poem is a lament; a sorrow expressed over a very important term having melted like ice cream on the sidewalk; no one can even tell what flavor it used to be.

I promise I’ll comment more prosaically later.

L-O-V-E, Lament over vain English

Search distant east to farthest west, from highest heaven to lowest hell
no other word has suffered more, purloined of home, bereft befell
a skeleton of lines and arcs, naked stripped of all but shell;
an L, an O, a V, an E, from Scrabble cup would serve as well.

Careless used, like pocket pennies, lost in cracks, on sidewalk’s curb;
in songs abused, in prose ill-used, exploited by crude billboard blurb,
by grammar shunned, defined like stew, foggy noun or murky verb,
four letters that can soften hearts can also war to hearts disturb.

Agape, eros, philia, storge, attrition Greeks try hold at bay
to curtail lack of definition, four classes helped delay decay.
Yet noble English blinds her eye while lays to context final say
and renders hearer lost at sea, no anchor, compass, or charted way.

Passion? Fondness? Feeling? Ardor? Selfish lust? Selfless bequest?
“My dear", “my darling”, “my one devotion”; or “object of my craving chest”?
“I love my wife”, “I love my dog”, “the love of money gives no rest”.
Is it “in the air”? Does it “hurt” or “stink”? Or is it just which serves me best?

“Love your enemy”. “Love your neighbor”. “Love is all”. “Love is myth”.
“If you can’t be with the one you love, then just love the one you’re with?”
“Love is blind”. “Love yourself”. “The world needs love, and that forthwith”.
The Apostle John unabashed spoke “God is Love!”; a monolith!

“I love you” chant we off to bed, or hanging up our phone’s handset;
But why? Is love oft spoke a proof, a verity lest they forget?
In THIS way God so Loved the world, sent sinless Son to pay my debt,
gifting righteousness and life, His ACT, His stainless epithet.

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Benny, I hear your heartbreak—but let me turn the mirror just a bit.

You say, “Many in the U.S. are filled with rage and irrational judgment,” and I don’t doubt it. But be careful not to commit the very crime you’re calling out. Painting entire groups of believers as fruitless because they speak out against sin? That’s not discernment—that’s deflection. Jesus didn’t get crucified for being “nice.” He got nailed for flipping tables and calling out whitewashed tombs (Matthew 23:27). That wasn’t rage. That was righteousness on fire.

Now let’s talk Galatians 5—since you brought it to the table. Yes, the fruit of the Spirit includes gentleness and kindness. But let’s not forget self-control includes the control to speak hard truths without melting into mush. Love isn’t silence. Love isn’t softness. Love rejoices with the truth (1 Corinthians 13:6)—even when the truth offends cultural sensibilities.

You say they show “bigotry, intolerance, wrath”? Friend, let’s define our terms biblically, not by Twitter trends. Calling sin sin is not bigotry. Refusing to bow to the idol of relativism is not intolerance. The prophets were not polite. The apostles were not applauded. The early church was not “winsome”—they were witnesses, and they died with blood on their lips and truth in their mouths.

“Love your neighbor” doesn’t mean coddle their rebellion. It means warn them with urgency (Ezekiel 33:6), love them enough to tell them they’re on a highway to hell—while holding out the lifeline of grace.

And as for “whom they REALLY follow”—you’re right to ask. Because some follow Christ, and some follow culture. But don’t confuse boldness with blindness. Some of us aren’t enraged—we’re engaged in the fight for souls.

So let’s not weaponize fruit-checking as a way to muzzle watchmen. The same Paul who preached the fruit of the Spirit also said, “Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them” (Ephesians 5:11).

That’s not rage. That’s obedience.

So check the fruit, yes. But don’t forget to check the root. Because truth without love is brutality. But love without truth? That’s just a hug on the way to hell.

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KPuff,

Well now—you call that a “hobby”? If that’s your amateur hour, the pros better start sweating. That wasn’t a poem, it was a lamentation with teeth—Solomon meets slam poetry. You’ve managed to do what most pulpits haven’t dared in years: hold up a mirror to the mess we’ve made of love and let the hollow echo speak for itself.

Your lines slice with a scalpel and grieve like Jeremiah on a rainy Tuesday. That “L, O, V, E from Scrabble cup” line? That hits harder than a Hallmark aisle in February. You didn’t just write a poem—you launched a rescue mission for a word we’ve driven off a cliff, flattened with slogans, and spray-painted on bumper stickers.

And that final stanza? Whew. That wasn’t just a poetic mic drop—it was the Gospel in verse. You took us from counterfeit affection to the blood-bought, cross-carved ACT of God’s eternal, immovable, scandalous love—and you didn’t flinch.

So thank you, not just for the beauty of your craftsmanship, but for the weight of your message. You didn’t just write about love. You defended it.

And friend, no need to apologize for writing poetry—this wasn’t an intrusion. It was an intervention.

Blessings and keep that pen burning.

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For clarity, “neighbor” means all people. Anyone whose life you intersect with in some way.

It means to love others in the same way that God has loved you.

With an understanding that what you do to others… anyone… will directly have an effect upon your life. You cannot sever the fate of another from your own. You are bound together. To love another is to love yourself. To bless another is to bless yourself. To curse another is to curse yourself.

And whatever you do to another, you also do it to Jesus. He recieves it. Thr blessing, the curse, your kindness or your lack. Jesus recieves it.

And God recieves it. Your blessing, your curse, your love or your lack.

It is not so much a command as a reality. You love your self as much as you love those around you. And you hate your self as much as you hate them. Automatically. It is that tied together. If you are unkind, judgemental, greedy, hateful in how you treat others, it highlights the state of your own heart and soul. You hate You. The Spirit in you bares fruit that the whole world can see. You can’t hide it.

If you hate them, and yourself, you also hate God who created them and you.

To repent of this sin, you need to learn to love yourself, your life, the breath you breathe given to you by God, and let that inform everything else you do. Being grateful for recieving flows outward into giving. But being fearful, hoarding, attacking, does that really speak to having Faith in God? When you close yourself off from others?

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Tillman,

Now that was a balm with backbone. A reflection wrapped in reverence. You didn’t just define “neighbor”—you dropped a spiritual plumb line that traces straight from the human heart to the throne of God.

And you’re right: this isn’t just a command to be obeyed; it’s a reality to be reckoned with. Like spiritual gravity. Whether we acknowledge it or not, what we do to others echoes through eternity—and lands at the feet of Jesus Himself (Matthew 25:40). You framed that truth with both warmth and weight.

Your words call us back to the root: we love because He first loved us (1 John 4:19). But you also held up the mirror—if we’re spewing poison, the problem isn’t “them.” It’s the rot inside us. And that rot doesn’t just sour others—it betrays our view of God and ourselves. That’s a holy gut check if I’ve ever heard one.

And this part? “To bless another is to bless yourself. To curse another is to curse yourself.”—Brother, that’s Proverbs in poetry. That’s sowing and reaping theology with street-level application.

You didn’t just philosophize about love. You exposed its counterfeit forms, revealed its divine source, and reminded us that how we love isn’t just a witness to others—it’s a diagnosis of our soul.

Beautifully said. Spirit-filled. Keep pouring out. You’re not just sharing thoughts—you’re tilling hardened soil.

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Friends,

Fritz began this topic with a question: “What Did Jesus Really Mean by “Love Your Neighbor?” I suppose one way to define anything is to categorically state what it is NOT. But even as I attempt this feat, I find the task too difficult, for that which Love is NOT is an innumerable list. Even a list of Love’s opposites requires an a-priori agreement on its definition. If one might try to compile a list of what “loving your neighbor” means, as Danielle Bernock attempted in the article Fritz references, even that fails to sharpen the focus sufficiently enough that we might feel we truly understand “What Jesus Really Meant by “Love Your Neighbor?” We cannot here explore all the different usages of the term “Love” in modern parlance. The word is often used like a nondescript slang term, and is bandied about to mean anything from sexual intercourse to zero in a tennis match. It often stands in for endearment, affection, approval, infatuation, acceptance, enjoyment, pleasure, or preferences. We love our spouses, we love our pets, we love sports, and we love chocolate cake; “I love you”. “I’d love some peanuts”, we’d love it if you came over”. I’m sure those do not all mean the same thing.

Most of us, if we haven’t actually read C.S. Lewis’s little book titled “The four Loves”, have probably heard of it. If not, we have probably heard a sermon or a teaching on the four Greek words that we translate into the singular English word, “Love”, (only three of which we find in The Bible, btw). However, the Greek word we find in every New Testament passage that translates into “love your neighbor” is the word “agape” (Matt. 5:43, 19:19, 22:39, Mark 12:31, 12:33, Luke 10:27, Rom. 13:9-10, Gal. 5:14, James 2:8), a Greek word which is used over 300 times in one form or another. This is also the word used when Jesus said “God loved the world by giving His son” (John 3:16). It is also this word when John admonishes us as his “agapetos” (Beloved), and every time he says “love” in:

“let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” (1 John 4:7-8).

This consistent usage narrows it down a bit for us, as now we only need to define the thinner intention of the Greek word “agape”, within the context, to begin to answer “What Jesus Really Meant by “AgapeYour Neighbor?”. Here we must also rely on linguistic scholars, and Biblical context, all while trusting heavily in the enlightenment of The Holy Spirit of God through prayer, yielding, and undivided listening.

I will point out several contextual consistencies that will help keep us on that narrow, albeit difficult, road of truth. Of the nine addresses I gave you (above) six of them state loving God and loving your neighbor is the most important directive given to men; on these it is said to “hang ALL the law and prophets”, “there is no greater commandment”, “they are more than all the burnt offerings and sacrifices”, “all the commandments are summed up in these”, and in them “all the law is fulfilled”. Can you imagine? Have you ever felt like you were “fulfilling the entire law”; like you were performing an act greater than “all the burnt offerings and sacrifices”? Loving our neighbor, as Jesus meant it, must, by these measurements, be a very “BIG feel”; it must feel like the biggest, most astounding accomplishment any man has ever achieved. But it doesn’t just stop there, we are to love our neighbor, “as we love ourselves”. That sort-of makes it feel out-of-reach. I had a friend explain how he thought about this “big feel”, he said, it’s like arriving home to find your house completely engulfed in flames and immediately being purely grateful that it isn’t your neighbor’s house. Big Feel!

The second contextual consistency is when this term is used, there is an immediate association, among first century Jews, with the Shema (listen):

“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one! You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.” Deuteronomy 6:4-5.

Loving neighbor is philosophically and linguistically coupled with Loving God “with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength”. The not-so-subtle suggestion is, this is the manner in which God already loves us, and also the manner in which we already (selfishly) love ourselves. The love God demonstrates in all his works is a kind of pure “giving love”; God’s love gives in a way that is in the best interest of the receiver, even if it is at great cost to the giver. Some folks call this “sacrificial love”, and it surely is, not in the modern parlance sense that “sacrifice” is just having to give up something you would rather keep for yourself, but in the ancient spiritual sense, the sense that keeps “sacrifice” tethered to the word for “slaughter”. In this sense sacrifice requires death, blood spilled death, and points with a large black arrow to God’s willingness to be slaughtered as an act of love. That is why I suggest this kind of love must be a" BIG feel!" God’s kind of Love must not feel unimportant or easy, and so by extension, “loving your neighbor”, as intended by Jesus, is not something we do without thinking, or passively. By definition, it requires death; taking up our cross, denying self. Paul put a definition on this practice when he told the Philippians:

“ Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.” Philippians 2:3-4.

I know God does this, Jesus did this, Paul definitely wanted to do this, and expected us all to do this, and I know I have never done this, not purely anyway. I have done some things without “selfish ambition or conceit” but I have done others dripping with it. I have “esteemed some other people better than myself”, at times, but they were extraordinary people, not common, not really my undeserving neighbor, and not someone I may have disliked. What I do find in my own motives (when my Father lovingly, and surgically reveals them to me) a willingness to move toward this goal, an ambition to think less of my needs and more of the needs of others, a willingness to more often not stamp my name on every accomplishment or have a plaque engraved for every act of philanthropy. I do not particularly feel I am loving my neighbor by being a US citizen and, by virtue of that undeserved fact alone, pride myself in sending aid to the “less fortunate” of the world. Neither do I feel I am practically “loving my neighbor” when I drop my change in the collection plate, or give a dollar to a beggar. The light of introspection too often reveals subtle, but real egotistic motives alive and kicking in this warm and fuzzy “small feel” form of giving. I am selfishly apt to read the admonishment (as some do) “love your neighbor while also loving yourself at the same time”, which seems to oppose the admonishment:

"If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it. Luke 9:23-24

This admonishment to deny self ultimately cannot be decoupled from the command:

… you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.” Leviticus 19:18

or, as Jeus put it:

"You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” Matthew 5:43-45

This is the “While we were yet sinners” type of love. This is exactly the type of love we find does not exist within our own fallen natures. “Love your neighbor” also cannot be decoupled from “love your enemies”, because both admonishments proceeded from the same good heart, the heart of God.

A spring (heart) cannot produce both sweet and bitter water (James 3:11)

“A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. (Matt 7:18)

"Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or else make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for a tree is known by its fruit.” (Matt. 12:33)

You love yourself? Then love your neighbor like that, and even love your enemy like that. God already loves you like that.

I know I have not completely answered the question ““What Did Jesus Really Mean by “Love Your Neighbor?”, but I hope I have begun the thought process in our minds. I think I will pause here for comments, because I sense heads nodding, and eyes growing heavy in my audience.

Much Love in Jesus
KP