A good neighbor is not required to give aid where injury results from one’s breaking the laws of God or man. Second, a good neighbor is one who comes to the aid of another on the grounds of humanity and not some other grounds such as race or sex. Furthermore, any application of the “love your neighbor” principle should be predicated on God’s view of right or wrong and not some political or culturally motivated notion.

As Christians grapple with a response to cultural issues not directly addressed in Scripture, many have turned to applying the “love your neighbor” principle to justify their position. This seems, at least on first look, to be a reasonable approach, however it entails accepting the world’s standard of right and wrong which is suspect from the beginning. For example, during Covid the application of this principle was often used as justification for taking “the jab”. The reasoning was that if I did not, then I would be endangering my neighbor. That would be unloving, or so went the argument, but it was based on misinformation. Another example would be the social re-ordering practice of DEI. Christians climbed on the Social-Justice-Warrior bus in the name of loving their neighbor. What was not considered in both cases was the legitimacy of the claims of harm to my neighbor. This is not suggesting that there were no cases where certain groups had not been given fair opportunity, but that is a totally different issue. The concern here is whether loving my neighbor serves as the fundamental principle for Christian action in these cases, and if not what guidelines should be applied to identify my being a good neighbor. It will help to look at the text where Jesus addresses the love your neighbor principle. Luke 10:25-28 records the words of Jesus in response to a lawyer’s question: “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?”

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