Holiness Demands True Love
Part 2: Loving Our Neighbor
Leviticus 19:18
Introduction.
The next three chapters in Leviticus (18-20) are very much related.
Just by reading it, you’ll note that the sins listed in Lev. 18 are repeated in Lev. 20, along with a penalty.
All but two of the sins in Lev. 18 are repeated in Lev. 20, but penalties are implied.
Because of this, I will quickly summarize Lev. 18 here, and deal with it more fully in conjunction with Lev. 20 next time.
Lev. 20 also mentions a couple things brought up in Lev. 19 (and even all the way back in Lev. 11), so we will look at Lev. 19 tonight.
Chapter summaries and connections.
Lev. 18 – Unholy love.
Many in our society today tend to equate sexual behaviors with love—or worse, they treat it as casual and meaningless.
The Lord provides boundaries for proper sexual behavior in Lev. 18.
These sexual behaviors are, in fact, unholy acts.
They were also practiced in pagan religious rituals in the nations around them.
These behaviors are contrasted with Lev. 19.
Lev. 19 – Holy love.
The central thesis of Lev. 19 is to love your neighbor as yourself.
This central thesis is identified by Jesus as the second greatest commandment that God has given.
The acts expressed here show true, godly love.
Lev. 20 – Judgments on unholy love.
Moses here shows a progression of idolatry leading to all manner of unholy acts.
There must be a penalty exacted to keep these behaviors in check.
Of course these are OT penalties, but they are reserved for us in the Final Judgment if we do not repent and follow Christ.
“I am the Lord your God” (19:1-2).
This is one common refrain that we see in this chapter.
We see it throughout the books of the Law, but primarily in Leviticus and 16 times in this chapter alone.
It provides a truth, but also our motivation—He is our God.
And He implores that we be holy as He is, a command repeated in the NT by Peter (1 Pet. 1:15-16; Lev. 19:2).
While many of these rules don’t apply to us today, the principles do—particularly that of “love your neighbor as yourself.”
This chapter helps to teach us how we can be holy like He is holy!
Preview.
Loving our neighbor means helping the poor and stranger (19:9-10).
Loving our neighbor requires honesty (19:11-12).
Loving our neighbor means not exploiting the vulnerable (19:13-16, 32-36)
Loving our neighbor may require rebuke, but it shuns veangence (19:17-18).
Loving our neighbor requires a distinction (19:19-22).
Body.
Loving our neighbor means helping the poor and stranger (19:9-10).
We’ll see that in a little bit, too, but here the poor are taken care of.
This is put into practice in the book of Ruth.
Naomi and Ruth return to Israel as two poor widows.
Ruth is also a stranger, a Moabite woman.
In most places, they would have been driven to starvation and death.
Ruth goes to the fields of those farmers who are more wealthy, particularly that of Boaz.
Boaz was a righteous man who did not reap the corners of his field so the poor and the stranger could eat, including his future wife Ruth!
We ought to remember such people, taking care as needs arise.
We are to remember the poor as Paul was eager to do (Gal. 2:10).
James tells us, “Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit widows and orphans in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world” (James 1:27).
Widows and orphans were among the poorest people of that time.
They took care of the poor and vulnerable as best they could—as we should, too, as we have opportunity (Gal. 6:10).
Loving our neighbor requires honesty (19:11-12).
Theft, false dealing, lying, swearing falsely, and profaning God’s name violates commandments #3, #8, and #9.
Doing these things also shows a lack of love for others.
It even shows a lack of love to God when it’s to the point of dragging His name through the mud to help you in your deceit.
How many use the name of God without a second thought today?
While these are negative commands, we know that it can be easy to fall into this trap for our own personal gain.
Many of these are due to greed, and Paul tells us that the “love of money is the root of all kinds of evil” (1 Tim. 6:10).
Such people who succumb to greed have “strayed from the faith,” doing all manner of wickedness for a buck—lying, cheating, defrauding, robbing.
Paul says they have “pierced themselves through with many sorrows.”
Loving our neighbor means not exploiting the vulnerable (19:13-16, 32-36) – 7 groups.
The laborer (19:13).
The worker is at the mercy of his employer.
They have essentially made a contract that one work for a certain amount.
The employer is to compensate the worker for his time and skill.
If he doesn’t pay him, or pay him enough, or pay him in a timely fashion, he is stealing the time from the worker.
The laborer has his bills to pay and food to sustain him and his family.
Delaying to pay is exploitation and it was wrong then and is wrong now.
The disabled (19:14).
You are to treat those less able than you with compassion because they are human beings, too, made in God’s image.
Don’t make things worse for them.
This is a principle that can be applied for all time—don’t make things worse for those less fortunate than you.
That is not loving.
Jesus healed the blind and deaf—should we treat them any differently.
We can’t heal them like Jesus could, but we should do what we can to help them.
The poor (19:15).
We talked about helping the poor with food, but this brings justice to the poor.
It is easy to see, even now, that the rich tend to get away with a lot more than you or me.
Recall the rich young man who killed four people driving drunk but essentially got off on an “affluenza” defense? Such partiality is wrong!
Everyone deserves their day in court with a fair trial and an impartial jury.
That’s what our justice system is meant to provide, though it’s not always easy, and doesn’t always happen that way.
James tells us not to play favorites with the rich, but to treat the poor well (James 2:1-13).
James even quotes Lev. 19:18, that we need to love your neighbor as yourself.
The accused (19:16).
Slander and false accusations were forbidden.
Truth is an important part of being a child of God.
Making such false accusations could be considered murder by the justice system if the sentence for such crimes was death.
This is precisely what happened to Jesus which sent Him to the cross.
It was wrong then and it’s wrong now.
The elderly (19:32).
Respect and honor the elderly.
At a certain point, once we have passed our prime, we become weaker and weaker.
Our bones begin to creak, our muscles ache – I’m beginning to feel it a little bit already! Especially after seeing what my kids can do.
And it becomes easier for some people to take advantage of the elderly, particularly those whose minds are not what they used to be.
Instead of exploiting the elderly, they deserve our honor and respect.
Timothy was told not to rebuke an older man, but exhort him as a father (1 Tim. 5:1).
The elderly may need to be corrected, but it should be done through exhortation/encouragement and love.
The stranger (19:33-34).
We saw this back with the corners of the field, but this adds on the notion that they must not be mistreated.
When one is in a strange place, no friends, no support system, perhaps even the language and culture are different, it can be very scary.
Such people are easy to take advantage of, too, since they are far from anyone who can help them if they run into trouble.
The Lord makes this command even stronger, though, by saying they were to love the stranger as themselves.
We’ll talk more about that later, but the reason is because they were once there, strangers in a strange land.
For anyone who darkens our door, real or virtual, we ought to be willing to extend the love and hospitality that we would extend to our friends and family.
Why? We were once visitors, too.
And don’t we remember and appreciate the churches with the warmest welcomes?
The qualifications of elders include being hospitable, and such actions are commended (Heb. 13:2).
The customer (19:35-36).
Customers are often at the mercy of the merchant, particularly back then.
The merchant will play up whatever product they want to sell, and back then and in other places now they will haggle for the price.
Once a price is agreed upon, the currency, the thing bartered, or the product sold often had to be measured.
The merchant would have a scale with a series of weights to determine how much currency to take from the customer.
If they were selling grain or something to that effect, they would need a standard way to measure the amount—their units were the ephah for dry goods or the hin for liquids.
We have such things standardized by the government (for the most part), so for us, the issue would be not to sell anyone a bill of goods.
In other words, be honest in your business dealings and don’t try to cheat people.
That is extortion, and clearly taught against in the NT.
Loving our neighbor may require rebuke, but it shuns vengeance (19:17-18).
We often look at the NT as a higher standard than what’s given in the OT.
But here we see the overriding principle over the entire law: love your neighbor as yourself.
This means don’t hate your brother in your heart, something Jesus very plainly teaches also.
He does amplify the teaching, saying that such hatred is committing murder in your heart (Matt. 5:21-22).
Rebuke, however, maybe necessary—we are to “speak the truth in love” (Eph. 4:15).
Preachers are told to rebuke, but with patience and teaching (2 Tim. 4:2).
We shall not, however, hold a grudge or take vengeance on our neighbor.
Vengeance belongs to God, not to us (Rom. 12:19).
Then the second greatest commandment: Love your neighbor as yourself.
A man asked Jesus who his neighbor was, and we get the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:34ff).
Looking at this, it appears the neighbor is an Israelite brother in context (19:17), but then the Lord extends this love to strangers in 19:34.
Jew or Gentile, sinner or saint, American or <insert foreign nationality here> – all are to be loved as we love ourselves!
Just as the Samaritan, one hated by the Jews at that time, helped the Jewish man when he was in trouble when the Jewish religious leaders wouldn’t lift a finger.
Loving your neighbor means making a distinction (19:19-22).
These few verses don’t appear to fit with the theme, and they don’t directly apply to us today.
This is in the middle of the chapter, but there are some applications we can draw.
There are distinctions that the Israelites were to make with livestock, seeds, and garments.
Such things were not to be mixed together of different kinds.
While love ought to be shown people, even strangers, there still must be a distinction made between the Israelite and the foreign nations around them.
Then had to keep themselves separated from them—be holy (20:26).
We, too, must be separate from the world, not joining in the sin that they engage in.
We are also to “do good to all men, especially to those of the household of faith” (Gal. 6:10) – this makes a distinction by giving fellow Christians priority when helping others.
While we show love to all people, we must not let them influence us for evil, either (1 Cor. 15:33).
Then there is one more vulnerable group: the slave girl.
We’ll talk more about this next time since this deals with sexual sins, but for now, the penalty for sleeping with a betrothed slave girl was not death.
She was not free, so she was to be spared, though still punished.
The offending man was to offer a trespass offering, which included money.
While not ideal, it preserved the poor woman’s life and compensated the betrothed man for damages.
This showed love for the slave girl by not killing her, and love for the betrothed man because his concubine was defiled.
We don’t have legal slaves today, we should not exploit any vulnerable person for our own selfish desires.
And we also know that Christ is our Redeemer who has taken care of our sins at the cross.
Conclusion.
The contrast is great, as we’ll see next time, between faux love and true love.
Faux love is focused on things of a sexual nature.
True love is obedience to God and embracing justice for all.
Let us work all the more to show that love to God …
by keeping His commandments,
by worshiping Him as He wishes,
by showing our devotion to Him, and
by worshiping Him alone.
Let us work also to show love to our neighbors …
by helping those in need,
by being honest in our dealings,
by not exploiting the vulnerable,
by rebuking without being vengeful, and
by making the appropriate distinctions.
Recall in Romans, when Paul quotes many of the Ten Commandments in rapid succession, he caps it off with Rom. 13:10.
And that is the point of these greatest commandments.
If we keep this principle in mind, we will naturally treat others well, taking care of them, being honest with them, not exploiting them, and not holding a grudge.
Let us show this love for our God and our neighbor, fulfilling this Law of God that is found in both covenants.