And the second is like unto it

It has always fascinated me how different conversations can lead us to look at the Word of God in a way that, perhaps, we might not usually think about. This happened to me recently when two totally unrelated conversations caused me to think about two questions that they raised.

Two important questions that affect our discipleship

The first question is:

 “What priority should God have in our lives”.

And the second question is:

“Who is the least of these my brethren” (Matthew 25).

When I first began to think about them, I thought that they were unrelated; as I said, they were raised in my mind from two unrelated conversations. But, as I began to think more closely about them, I realised that, rather than being unrelated, they were, in fact, inseparable.

The answers are inseparable

The answer to both questions is given by Christ himself in answer to a question that was put to him. Mark 12 records a conversation that took place between one of the scribes and Jesus. In verses 28–30 we read:

“…one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, and perceiving that he [Jesus] had answered them well, asked him, Which is the first commandment of all?” …Jesus answered him,  “The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.”

That is part of the first question: “What priority should God have in our lives?”

But Jesus didn’t leave it there. He continued:

“And the second is like, namely this, thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.”

And that relates to the second question: “Who is the least of these my brethren”.

The conversation continues with the scribe answering Jesus (vv32-33):

“Well, Master, thou hast said the truth: for there is one God; and there is none other but he: And to love Him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbour as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.”

Jesus then brings the conversation to an end (v34):

“And when Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, he said unto him, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God. And no man after that durst ask him any question.”

From these verses we see that not only are the two original questions inseparable but understanding the answer to them plays a vital role in the life of the disciple.

Looking at the OT source for this answer

What does the Word of God tell us about these two subjects? Both Jesus and the scribe refer to the same place in Scripture in reference to the first part.

Deuteronomy 5:1 tells us that Moses called all of Israel together to address them. His opening words give us the reason why Moses is addressing them.

“Hear, O Israel, the statutes and judgments which I speak in your ears this day, that ye may learn them, and keep, and do them.”

When we consider the Hebrew, we find that a slightly better translation of these words might be “that you might teach them, and preserve them, and perform them.”

This was the threefold mission of the nation of Israel if they were prepared to show obedience to God.

They were told that by Moses in Exodus 19:5-6:

“Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people, for all the earth is mine: And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and an holy nation.”

Their mission was to take the message of the gospel to the nations of the world, to preserve the holiness of that message, and to present themselves as a living example of what that message was about. Moses goes on to explain what that meant in real terms and what God required of them.

In Deuteronomy 6:1 Moses says,

“Now these are the commandments, the statutes and the judgments which Yahweh your God commanded to teach you, that ye might do themin the land whither ye go to possess it.”

And then in verses 4-6:

“Hear, O Israel: Yahweh our God is one Yahweh: And thou shalt love Yahweh thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart.”

Moses sets before Israel the priority that God should have in their lives, and there can be no mistaking what he is saying. Yahweh demands priority in our lives: All the Mind, All the body, All the strength.

And what does He want us to do with His word?

In verses 7-9 we are told:

“And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.  And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.”

Let’s apply the exhortation of these two related principles

The question we have to ask ourselves is: Is this the priority that God plays in our lives?

1. If we have children in our homes, do we understand the privilege and the responsibility that we have to “teach them diligently” about God?
2. As they grow older do we teach them about the priority God should play in their lives?
3. Is God a living presence in our homes?
4. Do we talk about the things of God in our homes?
5. If a stranger was to walk into our home would they know that they had entered the home of someone who has God as the priority in their lives because the influence of that word is clearly written upon the posts of our houses and on our gates?
6. Is the word of God at the forefront of our minds?

Or, have the commandments and the statutes and the judgments of God been relegated to second place, or third place, or no place in our lives because we have become too busy or too lazy to be bothered?

Moses concludes with the words (verses 17-18):

“Ye shall diligently keep the commandments of Yahweh your God, and his testimonies, and his statutes, which he hath commanded thee. And thou shalt do that which is right and good in the sight of Yahweh: that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest go in and possess the good land which Yahweh sware unto thy fathers”.

“But that’s the old testament. That’s the Law. What about the New Testament?” (How often do we hear these words nowadays?)

Does God come first?

Matthew chapters 5-7 record the opening policy speech of the future king of the world. And in that policy speech he outlines the character of those who will take the role that Israel refused and will rule the kingdom with him as kings and priests.

And in that speech in Matthew 6:19-21 Jesus says:

“Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

The Lord tells us that our mind will be focused on one or the other: treasures on earth, or treasures in heaven. And he reinforces that in verse 24, “No man can serve two masters”.

What he says next (verse 25) is staggering in its implication:

“Therefore, I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment”?

What sort of a group was Jesus talking to? He wasn’t talking to people like us.

Food? If we want food, we go to the supermarket and get it. If we don’t feel like cooking anything, then we go to a fast-food place and get them to cook for us.

Drink. We have such an array of drinks that, half the time, the difficulty lies in wondering what to drink, not wondering if we have anything to drink.

Raiment. Most of us have wardrobes full of clothes. Mine is.

Jesus wasn’t talking to people like us. He was talking to people who struggled every single day to provide the basic necessities of life such as food, raiment, and shelter for themselves and their families.

And what did he say to them? Don’t worry about these, he said. Worry about this:

 “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” (Verse 33)

We can ask ourselves the question: What priority did Jesus think God should play in our lives?

Obviously, He should be first. Nothing comes before Him. And it’s no good going through life kidding ourselves that we can get away with putting God second or third or nowhere.

When speaking to Timothy, Paul says to him in 2 Timothy 3:14-15,

“continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them; And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.”

“Seek ye first the kingdom of God”. That should be the priority in our lives.

So that deals with the first question. What about the second?

Do we love our neighbour?

Who is “the least of these my brethren”?

The word itself is described by Strong as being equivalent to the word mikros, from which we get the word microscopic, so by definition it speaks of the most insignificant amount.

And that is what the Lord is saying in Matthew 25 when he says, “In that ye did it unto one of the most insignificant of my brethren, ye did it onto me.”

So, who is the most insignificant of our brethren? Well, the answer to that question is going to be different for every one of us, but we can narrow it down a bit.

It’s not going to be the members of my own family is it? My wife is not going to be the least of these my brethren as far as I am concerned, is she? In fact, she stands as the greatest of my brethren in my life. Our children are the fruit of that relationship. They are our pride and joy, although, like all parents we sometimes shake our heads as we watch them make the same mistakes we have made. If baptized, they are also our brothers and sisters in Christ. So, my family is not going to fall into that category of “the least of these my brethren”.

It’s not going to be the person you get on with better than anyone else in the ecclesia. In other words, it’s not going to be all the people with whom you have good relationships in ecclesial life. You are not going to classify those brethren as “the most insignificant” of your brothers and sisters.

Who, then, is the Lord speaking about? Perhaps a parable will help us to understand more fully.

Who is my neighbour?

Luke 10 records the parable of the good Samaritan. Notice how Jesus does not describe the plundered man. The audience, being Jewish, would naturally assume that he was a Jew. But he wasn’t recognisable as a Jew. Being half dead, he would be unconscious. Stripped naked he is unidentifiable. A person at that time could be identified in one of two ways: his dress and his speech or dialect. (Remember the conversation Peter had on the night of the crucifixion in Matt 26:73: “And after a while came unto him they that stood by, and said to Peter, Surely thou also art one of them; for thy speech betrayeth thee”). So, this man in the parable is anybody; he has no ethnic background, no stature, and no position.

First of all, along comes the priest. He cannot identify the man and, if the person lying there is a non-Jew, then the priest is risking defilement, and even more so if the person is dead. He cannot afford to risk the defilement of his own righteousness by associating with this half-dead, naked body. He moves on.

As we know so well, behind every parable of the Lord lies a much deeper spiritual truth.

We wouldn’t be like this would we? If we saw someone in our own meeting spiritually half dead, spiritually naked, we wouldn’t pass by for fear of risking the defilement of our own righteousness, would we?

The Levite does the same, and probably for the same reasons.

Then we come to the Samaritan. The Samaritans were a mixed race (Israelites of captivity and captive people of other nationalities settled in northern Israel). The relationship between the Jews and Samaritans was hostile. The Jews despised the Samaritans. The Mishna, which is a record of the oral traditions that developed out of the Law stated: “He that eats the bread of the Samaritans is like to one that eats the flesh of swine” (Mishna Shebiith 8:10).

The Samaritan of the parable, then, was not a Gentile—he was bound by the same laws as the Jew. So, by his actions he is ceremonially defiled by his contact with this half dead, naked, unrecognisable man—according to the priest and the Levite, that is.

Again, the spiritual question goes begging. We wouldn’t think like that would we? We wouldn’t see someone trying to help a brother or sister through difficult times and consider them to be defiled by that contact, would we?

But, as for the Samaritan, he doesn’t care about that. He simply cares about the welfare of his brother. He binds up his wounds using oil and wine. The oil and the wine were both used in the voluntary offerings of the meal and the drink offerings under the Law. They are both tied intimately with our service to God. In 2 Timothy 4:6 (NKJV) the apostle Paul says “For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand.”

And the Samaritan continued his ministrations until he was absolutely certain that the unrecognisable, half-dead, naked man was going to make a full recovery. And by his actions he saved the man’s life. We would do the same wouldn’t we? Or would we feel that we could not risk being defiled by such contact?

“Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves? And he said, He that shewed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise.” (vv36-37)

And we could add, “unto the least of these my brethren.”

Who is the least of Christ’s brethren?

So, who is that? Well, just as the Lord never answered the lawyer’s question, “Who is my neighbour?” there is no general answer to this question, for each of us must answer it for ourselves. And it is a question that we must answer because in Matthew 22:40, when speaking of these two inseparable commandments to put God first in our lives and to love thy neighbour as ourselves, Jesus said: “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” The Word of God and our association with it pivots on these two great issues.

You know, there is another man in the Word of God who was also half dead and naked and unrecognisable. We remember him in that situation every Sunday morning. And you know what he said when he was in that condition? He said this: “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luke 22:34). And when we compare ourselves with him in the sight of God, then we can only say one thing.

We are “the least of these his brethren”.

Romans 6:23 tells us that “the wages of sin is death”, and, if the Lord tarries, we will all collect our wages one day. But, in spite of that, we have the opportunity of defeating death, of being raised up to eternal life in the kingdom of God, if . . . if we love the Lord our God with all our hearts and with all our souls and with all our minds and with all our strength and if we love our neighbour as ourselves.

That’s all we have to do. God will do the rest.