Who Is My Neighbor?

In his book “Intellectuals,” Paul Johnson reveals that Karl Marx, the self proclaimed defender and lover of the working class, never truly knew or associated with a single member of the proletariat (working class). In fact, as far as historians know, Marx never set foot in a mill or a factory or a mine or any other industrial workplace in his whole life. Rather, he himself preferred to keep company with the upper-crust of society. When he and Friedrich Engels created the Communist League, he made sure that the working class members were eliminated from any position of influence. It is also clear, that despite his supposed efforts to be the social benefactor of humanity, he truly disliked people.

Marx lived his life in an atmosphere of verbal violence, quarreling with anyone whom he associated with including his own family. He also fathered an illegitimate son with his wife’s maid and then refused to have anything to do with him. He spent the last two decades of his life in comfort with no less than two servants waiting on him!

So what?

All humans find it difficult to live up to what we espouse intellectually and often those who proclaim their ideas the loudest are the same people who will not hold themselves to that which they are perpetrating on others. It is after all, easy to love the idea that you love people, without actually living a life of love for others. This is especially true of our ruling/political class.

You see, love for people or the lack of it, reveals the true quality and effectiveness of the philosophy or belief system that we hold to. For us as Christians, our love for others is even more revealing, because it actually indicates the authenticity and the health of our relationship to God. All of which is made clear in a passage of scripture that I want to examine.

Luke 10:25-37 is a great passage that deals with the dual emphasis of Loving our God and Loving our fellow man. It is the case that the two are intricately connected together, because if you truly love God as you should, then you will love your fellow man as you should. These two things should be as basic to the Christian as a football is to a football team or as a half note is to a musician or as a book is to a librarian. My friends, if we truly love God then we will truly love our fellow man.