devouring

Sometimes Paul boils things down so much that I wonder why he needed to write all those long letters full of run-on sentences. It’s a reminder that the Bible message is both complex and wonderfully simple.

One of those nut-shell passages is Galatians 5:14-15: “For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.”

Everything required of me, Paul says, comes down to this one thing: Love other people as much as I love myself. To wish for them all the good things I want for me. To think of their needs as quickly and frequently as I do mine. To pray for them as often as I pray for myself and my loved ones. And then, after wishing and thinking and praying, to do for them whatever I can.

Not just some neighbors. Each neighbor that God puts in my life.

There’s an alternative, Paul says. Just keep looking down our noses at each other, biting and snapping until we completely destroy each other. Survival of the fittest, which will eventually mean the death of most. It’s exactly what we see in our national dialogue. That’s an unattractive option, leading to a miserable life.

Far better, then, what Paul writes that Jesus commands: Love, for all those near my home and my office, the ones I run into online and in the gas station. Love, like I love myself.

Simple. So why do I struggle?