Article July 27, 1946 Issue

Learning to Love the Neighbor

MARJORIE B. BANER

When Jesus was asked what is the first commandment of all, he answered (Matt. 22:37), "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind." And then he added (verse 39), "And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."

Apparently Jesus felt these two commands to be so closely related that one was hardly separable from the other. Indeed, the second may be considered an elucidation of the first, for loving God "with all thy mind" excludes all that is unkind, unjust, selfish, or unloving from our concept of our neighbor as well as of ourself, and includes love for all that God creates.

We are constantly called upon to reject false pictures presented by mortal mind, and material sense, as for example the beliefs that the world is flat, that the sun rises from behind a mountain or out of the sea, and that it again drops out of sight over the rim of the earth. This rejecting we do naturally because we know the truth about these phenomena. However, we may still be accepting false pictures about man, although Christian Science reveals the truth about God and His perfect creation.

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