First Corea first principles look at the Bible
Playbook 02 · People · Law 2

How to love

Jesus said the whole law hangs on two commands: love God, and love your neighbor as yourself. In the Bible, love is not a feeling. It is what you do for the actual person in front of you, including the one you don’t like.

The rule

In short: Love the person in front of you: neighbor, stranger, enemy.

“Let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth” (1 John 3:18).

The rule underneath: Law 2 · Love the actual person

Love the person in front of you: neighbor, stranger, enemy.

Keep it: Trust grows and people are cared for.
Break it: Faith turns into talk, and real people get hurt.

Shows up in: Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Ruth, Luke, Romans, 1 John

Other rules in this book: God first, Image, not tool, Protect the weakest, Repair

37Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38This is the first and great commandment. 39And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 40On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.Matthew 22:37-40 · KJV

Why it matters

It is easy to love people in general. It is hard to love one tired, rude, or difficult person. The Bible always points at the second.

When a lawyer asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbour?” (Luke 10:29), Jesus told of a Samaritan — a man from a group the Jews of that day despised — who stopped for a beaten stranger that two religious leaders had passed by. Then Jesus flipped the question: which one acted like a neighbor? The answer: “He that shewed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise” (Luke 10:37).

The steps

1 · Make love something you do. Feed, visit, help, tell the truth, keep your word. Jesus lists food, drink, welcome, clothes, and visits to the sick and those in prison (Matthew 25:35–36). You can love someone you don’t like. You can’t love someone you will do nothing for.

2 · Your neighbor is whoever you can reach. Family, coworkers, customers, the person affected by your choices, the stranger. The more power you have, the wider your reach. “Thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Leviticus 19:34).

3 · Use the golden rule, and ask. “All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them” (Matthew 7:12). Don’t guess what they want from what you would want. Ask what would help.

4 · Start with the nearest hard person. The coworker who takes credit, the relative who votes the other way. Pick one. Do one good thing for them this week, without telling anyone (Matthew 6:3).

5 · Love your enemy in practical ways. “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them” (Matthew 5:44). Even the old law said to return your enemy’s runaway ox (Exodus 23:4). Pray for them by name.

6 · Tell the truth, kindly. Love “rejoiceth in the truth” (1 Corinthians 13:6). Covering for someone’s harm is not love. Say the hard thing in private first (Matthew 18:15).

7 · Let rules serve people. “I desired mercy, and not sacrifice” (Hosea 6:6). When a rule, even a religious one, crushes the person it was made for, fix how it is used.

Where it goes wrong

  • Love as a feeling. Warm words, no help: “be ye warmed and filled,” but nothing given (James 2:16).
  • Love for “people,” not persons. Caring about causes while ignoring the person next to you.
  • Love for my side only. “If ye love them which love you, what reward have ye?” (Matthew 5:46).
  • Love without truth. Flattering, enabling, avoiding the hard word.
  • Truth without love. Right and cruel. “Though I… understand all mysteries… and have not charity, I am nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:2). *Charity* is the KJV word for love.

One practice

This week

One hard person

  1. Pick one. Write the name of one person you find hard to love.
  2. Pray by name. Each day this week, pray for their good by name.
  3. One deed. Do one practical good for them, and don’t mention it.
  4. One stranger. Help one person outside your usual circle.

Write in your journal what changed in you, not in them.

Go deeper
  • The pattern across the Bible. Law of Moses: “Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge… but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Leviticus 19:18), and the same love for the stranger (19:34); return your enemy’s animal (Exodus 23:4). History: Ruth, a foreigner, shows loyal love to her mother-in-law, and Boaz shows it to her (Ruth 1–4). Wisdom: “If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat” (Proverbs 25:21). Prophets: “I desired mercy, and not sacrifice” (Hosea 6:6), quoted twice by Jesus (Matthew 9:13; 12:7). Gospels: the two great commands (Matthew 22:37–40); love your enemies (5:44); the good Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37). Letters: “love is the fulfilling of the law” (Romans 13:10); love defined by actions (1 Corinthians 13:4–7); “he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?” (1 John 4:20).
  • Original words. Ahavah, Hebrew “love,” is used for God, family, friends, and the stranger. Chesed, often “mercy” or “lovingkindness,” means loyal love that keeps showing up. Agapē, the Greek word in 1 Corinthians 13, is often taught as love that chooses the other’s good, not only a warm feeling.
  • Older voices. The rabbi Hillel, around the time of Jesus, is reported to have summed up the law as “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor; the rest is commentary” (Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 31a).
  • How the laws interlock. Law 2 comes straight from Law 3: love the person because they bear God’s image. It needs Law 5 (love tells the truth) and Law 12 (love forgives and repairs). And it grows into Law 4: love aimed at the person with the least power.
  • Worked example. A neighbor reported you to the homeowners’ group over nothing. Now her car won’t start and she’s stuck in the driveway. She is in reach. Offer the jump. Love does not mean you pretend the report was fine. You can raise it later, calmly. It means you do her good now.

Hard passages

“Hate not his father, and mother”

What it says “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children… he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26). Matthew’s version: “He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:37).

The rule underneath God first, then love the actual person.

What people added Most readers take “hate” here as a Hebrew way of saying “love less by comparison,” as Matthew’s wording suggests. The same Jesus condemns people who use religion to avoid caring for their parents (Mark 7:10–13).

Does loving enemies rule out war?

What it says “Love your enemies” (Matthew 5:44). “All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword” (Matthew 26:52). Yet Paul says the ruler “beareth not the sword in vain” (Romans 13:4).

The rule underneath Love the actual person; protect the weakest.

What people added Mennonites, Quakers, and other peace churches read Jesus as ruling out killing in war. Most Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant churches hold a “just war” view that allows force under strict conditions. Churches have split; this page does not settle it.

Books that feed it

Leviticus · Deuteronomy · Ruth · Hosea · Jonah · Matthew · Luke · Romans · 1 Corinthians · 1 John