What does it mean to be Christian? It means that we adhere to the belief that Jesus is the incarnate Son of God, that he suffered and died for us in order that we would be freed from our sins and reconciled to God. We need to follow some parts of the old covenant as well as to follow the parts of the New Covenant. The old covenant is based upon our taking in the stranger and our loving our neighbor. As far as the authors of Deuteronomy were concerned, it was more important for us to take in the stranger. The New Covenant seems to have emphasized loving our neighbor more. You may want to add to or emphasize one or more elements of faith here. I’ve tried to streamline them so that they are all-inclusive. You may emphasize some of these elements more than others. Some people would deny the two primary Deuteronomy Laws – love of neighbor and love of the stranger on the grounds that it comes from the Old Testament. I would suggest to you that you will find this same material in the Beatitudes, in James, in Paul’s letters, and in John’s Gospel. You see many of the people who founded our faith were Jews first. Some of them remained Jews all of their lives like Jesus did. Others like those that John wrote about in his gospel broke off from their Jewish synagogue. Still others were Gentiles, those persons who were not Jewish, a large portion of whom were Greek to begin with.
