Love Your Neighbor as Yourself
The second great commandment extends divine love horizontally to all human relationships.
The second commandment is inseparable from the first: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and Prophets hang on these two commands. Loving neighbor means treating others with the care and consideration we instinctively give ourselves. The parable of the Good Samaritan defines 'neighbor' as anyone in need, regardless of social or ethnic boundaries. Self-love here is not narcissism but the natural self-regard that becomes the measure of other-regard. We cannot truly love God without loving the neighbors God loves.
The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these.
Martin Luther King Jr. preached that 'we are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality'—love of neighbor is not optional but essential to human flourishing.
Gospel of Mark
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- What Christianity says about love
The second command is not presented as a lesser one. Loving a neighbour means extending the care a person already gives themselves without having to be persuaded.