If God Meant Everybody, why did he say Neighbour?

In Leviticus 19:18, God commands his people to “love your neighbour as yourself”. Jesus called this the second greatest commandment, after loving God himself (Mark 12:28-31). When a religious leader asked him to clarify, “who is my neighbour?” Jesus used the parable of the Good Samaritan to illustrate that your “neighbour” could be anybody—even strangers, foreigners, and natural enemies.

This raises a question: if God meant for us to love everyone, why didn’t he say that in the first place? He could have commanded us to “love everyone as you love yourself”, which would seem clearer and more to the point. Doesn’t the word “neighbour” lend itself to definitions that are narrower than God intended? In fact, we have Biblical proof of just such a misunderstanding in Matthew 5:43, where Jesus refers to a saying that seems to have been popular at the time, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’” Jesus rejects this saying and turns it around, commanding us to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven” (Matthew 4:44-45). That’s a good correction, but couldn’t the confusion have been avoided if God had simply said “everybody” in the first place?

I don’t think so. For starters, if you actually read the context of God’s command in Leviticus, you’ll see that it summarises a much larger sweep of laws giving many practical examples of how to love and care for all kinds of specific “neighbours”—including people who are poor, people who are foreigners, people with disabilities, people who are working for you, people who have wronged you (ie, your enemies), people you do business with, your parents, the elderly, anyone who might be endangered by your carelessness, and more—and these are just examples from Leviticus 19. The rest of the law includes many more. So when God said, “love your neighbour as yourself”, he didn’t leave us guessing about who he meant. He went out of his way to give us many specific examples of how this love ought to work, and who it should be expressed to.

I don’t think it’s an accident that God’s method for teaching people what it means to love was not to use broad, sweeping generalities like “everybody”, but rather to give us many individual examples. When answering the question, “who is my neighbour?” Jesus also used the specific example of the Good Samaritan. He didn’t just say, “your neighbour is everybody, ok?” And why not? I think the reason is because God’s command to love was never intended to just promote broad, warm feelings and a general attitude of positivity towards everybody, everywhere. God’s command to love was always meant to be expressed in real, tangible action towards the real, live, actual somebody who happens to be near you right now—or to put it another way, towards your neighbour.

Let’s face it: it’s far easier to love “everybody” than it is to love a specific somebody standing next to you. Everybody won’t require anything from you, or have any expectations. Everybody won’t notice if you don’t feel like helping today, or if you’d rather not make the effort to talk. Everybody won’t mind. The trouble comes when everybody is narrowed down and embodied into an actual somebody, with actual needs. A somebody with annoying habits. A somebody who would benefit from your precious, limited time and attention. A somebody who could really use your help right now. A somebody who slandered or snubbed you. Loving everybody is easy—until everybody includes them.

God didn’t say “love your neighbour” because he only wants us to love the people closest to us. He said “love your neighbour” because real love has to start with the real people closest to us. Do you want to love everybody? Start with the somebody who lives next door. The somebody down the street, at your workplace, or living in your own home. God’s command to love is not just a general principle. It is a specific command to reflect the actual, tangible love of God to the actual, specific people he has placed around you today—to love your neighbour as yourself.