Interpretation of the Bible / Mark 12:31

In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus teaches that the second greatest commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself. This teaching is a natural extension of the previous commandment, which is to love God with all your heart, all your strength, and all your mind. Jesus teaches that there are no other commandments greater than these two.

A natural question many might ask when reading this verse is: Who is our neighbor? Jesus answered this question in the parable of the Good Samaritan. In the story, a man is attacked and injured on the road. Three people pass by, but only the Samaritan stops and helps the man. Jesus shows that our neighbor is anyone in need, even someone we don’t know or who comes from a different religion or culture.

The commandment to love our neighbor is fundamental to our relationships with others. This commandment calls us to look beyond our differences and see all people as equal before God. The practice of loving our neighbor has many concrete consequences in our daily lives: helping those in need, compassion for those who suffer, forgiving those who harm us, and an attitude of service to others.

An essential part of the commandment to love our neighbors is to love ourselves. What we need is not self-centeredness, but a healthy attitude toward our human value and the image of God that we carry within ourselves. If we learn to love ourselves and treat ourselves with respect, we will be able to project this love and respect onto others.