When asked, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” Jesus replied, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself ’” (Mark 12:29–31). This summary of the Old Testament law was likely not original to Jesus. In Luke, a Jewish lawyer gives a similar summary of the law (Luke 10:27). What is utterly radical is how Jesus then answers this lawyer’s follow-up question: “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus responds with a story of self-sacrificing love across racial, ethnic, and religious difference. In the story, a Jewish man is robbed and beaten and left to bleed out by the roadside. Two Jewish religious leaders pass by and don’t help. Then, a Samaritan shows up and cares for the victim. The Jews of Jesus’ day despised the Samaritans, and vice versa. This story, known as the parable of the good Samaritan, defines the neighbor we are called to love as the exact kind of person we were raised to hate.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus presses this expansive principle of love even further: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 5:43–45). Christians should be known as Jesus’ followers not only by our love for one another (John 13:35), but also by our love for those most hostile to us.
What does this love look like? “If your enemy is hungry,” Paul writes, “feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink” (Rom. 12:20). This hospitality includes things Jesus’ first followers would have done: inviting those most hostile to their faith to share their food or hang out in their homes. It also extends to things belonging to our modern world. Loving our enemies today might look like coming to the defense of our ideological enemies when they’re being unfairly attacked online or responding graciously when we’re attacked.
Often, loving our enemies means patiently listening to those who think of Christians as foolish, immoral, or harmful, and asking gentle questions to find out more about what’s shaped their perception, rather than immediately leaping to defend our tribe. Best-case scenario, it means building real friendships based on mutual love and respect, despite deep disagreement.
So, are there any limits on the ways that Christians should pursue relationships with nonbelievers? Yes.
To Eat, or Not to Eat
As the apostle to the Gentiles, Paul repeatedly addressed the question of how Christians should relate to those who worshiped pagan gods. Two potential responses would have been straightforward. Paul could have prescribed separation: have nothing to do with pagan neighbors, family members, work associates, or former friends. Alternatively, Paul could have recommended syncretism: Jesus is the Son of God, but it’s okay to worship other gods as well to keep the peace. But Paul’s answer is neither separation nor syncretism. It’s shining. “Do all things without grumbling or disputing,” Paul writes, “that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life” (Phil. 2:14–16).
Paul’s “No” to syncretism is crystal clear. “You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons,” Paul explains to the Corinthians. “You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons” (1 Cor. 10:21). Joining non-Christians in worship—which often involved eating and drinking—was antithetical to faith in Christ.
Just as believers in the Old Testament were called to separate themselves from the pagan nations that surrounded them, so Christians were to separate themselves from the pagan worship that surrounded them. So, does this mean that Paul was teaching total separation between Christians and their pagan neighbors? No.
“If one of the unbelievers invites you to dinner and you are disposed to go,” Paul writes, “eat whatever is set before you without raising any question on the ground of conscience” (1 Cor. 10:27). Eating with an unbeliever would have been a big deal for Paul, who was raised with the practice of not eating with non-Jews. Paul clarifies that it is not wrong for a Christian to dine with a non-Christian, even if the food has been sacrificed to idols.
If you, like me, are a Christian, we should be completely clear that we will only worship the one true Creator God, revealed in Jesus Christ. At the same time, we should be willing to set aside our own cultural preferences to come alongside the nonbelievers in our neighborhoods, schools, workplaces, and families. We’re not called to blend in or to check out, but to shine.
Remember, God Hates Pride
One of the most disorienting things for many Christians in the West today is finding that they’re on the moral low ground in the eyes of their non-Christian friends and neighbors. In previous generations, Christians tended to be recognized as on the moral high ground.
Today, that ground has shifted. Christians are more likely to be seen as morally inferior. Especially when it comes to sexual ethics, gender identity, and abortion, those who hold to scriptural beliefs about male-female marriage, the givenness of biological sex, and the right to life of unborn babies are seen by many as morally repugnant.
Some Christians have reacted to this shift by trying to fit in. The arguments for affirming same-sex marriage and self-determined gender identity can feel so compelling when the alternative is being accused of hateful bigotry—and when you’re aware of the times when Christians have acted in hateful ways. Other Christians have reacted in the opposite direction: refusing to acknowledge any history of sin in the church and doubling down on genuinely hateful attitudes that contradict the love of neighbor Jesus calls us to pursue. But Jesus calls us to another way.
In one of His most powerful parables, Jesus contrasts a man who would have been seen as impressively religious with a man who would have been spurned as a shameful sinner. Jesus told this parable to “some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt” (Luke 18:9). The story went like this:
“Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” (Luke 18:10–14)
Jesus calls His followers not to self-righteousness but to humble recognition of our sin. We’re called to cling not to the moral high ground but to Jesus. We’re called to walk in humbleness before Him and before our nonbelieving friends. Our message is not, “We’re so good, you really should become like us!” Our message is, “We’re so bad we needed God’s own Son to die for us. That offer’s on the table for you too.” Shortly after listing various kinds of sin that are against God’s law—from things our culture would affirm, like same-sex sexual relationships, to things it would rightly condemn, like enslaving people (1 Tim. 1:10)—Paul declares, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost” (1 Tim. 1:15). If we’re following Jesus, then the basis for our friendships with non-Christians is not condescension, judgment, or self-righteousness, but humbleness and love.
One day, there will be no more sin and struggling. Jesus will wipe away every tear from my eyes (Rev. 21:4). But in the meantime, I hope to relate to my non-Christian friends with humility and love. I’m honored by the people in my life who do not follow Jesus but are willing to be friends with me. My earnest prayer is that one day, I’ll get to call these friends my sisters and my brothers. In the meantime, I will do my best to love them as my neighbor, and therefore—with Jesus’ help—to love them as myself.
Adapted from No Greater Love by Rebecca McLaughlin (© 2023). Published by Moody Publishers. Used by permission.