Who Is My Neighbor?

At my day job, I manage software development projects for an engineering consulting firm. When a new piece of software is being developed, we often produce what we call an MVP release. That is the Minimum Viable Product, the “must haves” to be developed so the software can be used and accomplish what was intended at the outset of the project. Nothing more.

There are those who approach life with an MVP mentality. They like to watch the scales. They like to keep score and keep the balance tilted just ever so slightly in their favor. They like to know They’ve done just enough good things and just few enough bad things that heavenly salvation won’t slip through our fingers. You may have even heard someone say, “Yeah, I don’t need a big mansion and crown. I just wanna make it through the gate.”

That’s the mentality of the man below who tried to trade rapier wits with Jesus in Luke 10. What’s the minimum requirement for me to get my golden ticket to eternal life?

And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”
– Luke 10:25, ESV

What do I need to do to slip through the door, Jesus?

Lawyer/Scribe

The text calls him a lawyer, but this is not to be confused with what we typically think of as lawyers or attorneys. No, this man is a scribe.

The scribes were those who sat for hours on end, copying the contents of one papyrus manuscript onto another piece of papyrus. Letter after letter – line after line. There was no such thing as a printing press, so any shared documentation had to be meticulously reproduced through manual copying.

Using stringent mathematical equations to ensure hyper-accuracy, these scribes copied the scriptures page by page, and every sheet was verified by an independent checker. Even the slightest imperfection resulted in the papyrus having to be tossed aside and reproduced. Doing this work day after day for years on end, one would become an expert in the Law of God, hence the appellation, “Lawyers.”

The First Round

This expert in the Law decided to get in the ring with Jesus in an attempt to discredit him. He launched his first, rather benign, salvo asking Jesus how he might obtain an inheritance of eternal life. Rather than answer the man, Jesus artfully turned his own question back on him. “You’re the expert in the Law. How do you read it?” And, of course, the scribe comes up with the right answer:

And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”
– Luke 10:27, ESV

Jesus commended the man for his accuracy.

Round Two

But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
– Luke 10:29 ESV

“But, but, but . . .” he objects, thinking, If I can get a list, and if the list is short enough, and if I can draw my circle of neighbors tightly enough, perhaps I can attain this rather lofty goal of loving my neighbor.

In response, Jesus told the well-known Parable of the Good Samaritan, ending it with the statement, “Go, and do likewise.” There are dozens of life-lessons and truisms to be drawn from this fascinating story Jesus told. I am operating under the assumption that all my rea

Who Is My Neighbor?

I have neighbors next door and across the street. Pretty good ones too. Over my lifetime, I’ve had good neighbors and a few nasty ones too. But “neighbor” in Jesus-speak is not necessarily someone whose home is close to my own. To qualify as neighbor, I don’t even have to know you. We have no reason to believe the beaten man in Jesus’ story and the Samaritan traveler had ever met one another. They weren’t even from the same country.

Yet Jesus saw these two as neighbors. How so?

To Jesus…

1. a neighbor is someone whose path (for whatever reason) intersects with our own.
2. a neighbor is someone who has a genuine need, large or small.
3. a neighbor is someone whose need is one I can meet.

It is loving others as we want to be loved. It is doing for others what we would wish to have done for us. It is love devoid of self-interest. It is love that understands our Master and King is a servant, and therefore we can never aspire to a higher calling than to be servants ourselves.

Blessings upon you, my friends.

Victoriously in Christ!

– damon

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