Loving Obedience

“If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it. For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.”

James 2:8-13

 
In the passage prior to this, James confronts the believers for showing partiality to people coming into church. They showed deference to a rich man who was dressed in fine clothes, but they showed disdain to the poor man who came into their fellowship. They made sinful distinctions judging people by worldly standards. As believers, how should we treat others? James’s answer is simple, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
 
Jesus was asked one time, “Who is my neighbor?” This question was posed by a man who wanted to justify how he treated others. In response Jesus replied by sharing the story we know of as the “Good Samaritan” (Luke 10:25-37). As a man was going down the road, he was attacked by robbers and brutally beaten. Lying there helpless his only hope was the mercy of others. Two religious people came by, first a priest and then a Levite. Both in turn walked around him on the other side of the path. Perhaps they were too busy, couldn’t be bothered, were afraid to be ceremonially unclean, or didn’t want to get their hands dirty. Maybe they thought, “This is none of my business.” Regardless, they did nothing.
 
Finally, a Samaritan walked by. He was the least likely hero of this story. Samaritans were considered inferior by the Jews and there was animosity and hostility between the two groups. Samaritans were seen as ethnically mixed, being both Jew and Assyrian, so their bloodline was impure. It was this man who saw the man who had been beaten, bound up his wounds, placed him on his animal, and took him to an inn where he paid the innkeeper to care for him. The conclusion is clear, our neighbor is anyone whom we come across.
 
Some think this negates the need for other commands. If you show love you don’t need to worry about all the other commandments in the Bible. Jesus is not replacing all the moral teaching of Scripture, but reveals that love is central to fulfilling each command.  He is saying that true obedience flows out of our love for God and our love for others. We all tend to compartmentalize and rationalize our behavior. God does not want partial obedience. We think because we are being good in one area of our lives that God will overlook another area where we are sinning. External obedience without the right heart attitude of love is defective. Their showing partiality revealed a glaring defect in their understanding of what it meant to obey Christ. God wants us to be consistent in every area of our lives and there is not a part of it that he overlooks. If we don’t show mercy to others, should we expect to be shown mercy in our time of need?