Am I My Brother's Keeper?

AM I MY BROTHER'S KEEPER?

With some people, you would expect them to say 'no', but those who profess to be Christians know that's not the right answer.  Let's review that passage of Scripture, shall we?  "And the LORD said unto Cain, 'Where is Abel thy brother?'  And he said, 'I know not: Am I my brother's keeper?   And He said, 'What hast thou done?  The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto Me from the ground.'" (Gen. 4:9 - 10)  Now Cain's response seems as though he doesn't know the omniscience of the Lord, does he?  There is no Scripture prior to this saying that Cain was taught the 6th commandment of Exod. 20:13, but his answer certainly suggests he doesn't have fear of the Lord, doesn't it?  To flaunt a lie in the face of the Lord!

Did you realize, since I bring up the Ten Commandments, that the last five are geared toward being your brother's keeper?  "Thou shalt not kill.  Thou shalt not commit adultery.  Thou shalt not steal.  Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.  Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's." (Exod. 20:13 - 17)  As a matter of fact, the last 6 commandments deal with our relationship with the rest of mankind, including our parents!  Let's examine these briefly; thou shalt not kill thy brother; no, you're not keeping him very well doing that.  Thou shalt not commit adultery against him, and nowadays with homosexuality totally out of the closet, that brings on a whole new level of meaning.  But seriously, I don't think being your brother's keeper means taking advantage of his spouse's personality flaw, or as I alluded to, taking advantage of HIS flaw, because then you're not being your sister's keeper.  You do have to be your sister's keeper, too!  Thou shalt not steal means you're taking your brother's possessions without his okay; he obviously wouldn't want you to be his keeper of things that belong to him, that he wants to see again in good condition!  Thou shalt not bear false witness; no, I wouldn't want to be lied about by anyone.  I'd want my reputation to be kept intact, unless the truth would be hard to bear, in which case I would need to take steps to fix my reputation that I made ugly in the first place of my own accord!  Lastly, there's thou shalt not covet, or lust after.  Seems like a repeat about the stealing, only this is the thinking about it before it becomes stealing.  Keeping up with the Jones' on steroids.  Wanting your brother's things to keep for yourself is not being his keeper!  Deut. 5:6 - 21, by the way, is a repeat of the Ten Commandments.

Do you know the story of Joseph?  How he dreamed dreams, and his brothers hated him for it, even wanted to kill him?  What a poor job they did of being their brother's keeper!  "And it came to pass, when Joseph was come unto his brethren, that they stript Joseph out of his coat, his coat of many colours that was on him; and they took him, and cast him into a pit: and the pit was empty, there was no water in it.  And they sat down to eat bread: and they lifted up their eyes and looked, and, behold, a company of Ishmeelites came from Gilead with their camels bearing spicery and balm and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt.  And Judah said unto his brethren, 'What profit is it if we slay our brother, and conceal his blood?  Come, and let us sell him to the Ishmeelites, and let not our hand be upon him; for he is our brother and our flesh.'  And his brethren were content.  Then there passed by Midianites merchantmen; and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmeelites for twenty pieces of silver: and they brought Joseph into Egypt." (Gen. 37:23 - 28)  For those who know the rest of the story, it panned out well in the end, but their treatment of their brother was shameful!  Joseph did not let them starve, nor did he do any evil in return for what his brothers did to him, but rather, he did righteously as his brother's' keeper!

Sometimes we are our brother's keeper when we cannot help physically, but we can give wise advice.  Such it was between Moses and Jethro, his father-in-law.  Exod. 18:13 - 26 tells the story how his father-in-law lovingly advised him, that he should be able to bear his duties in judgment of the people, by sharing the small matters with godly people, so that he only had to bear the weighty matters of the people.  When we give advice to protect someone, we are being our brother's/sister's keeper.

Some of Leviticus' laws were given by God to teach more closely how to be one's brother's keeper.  Trespass offerings were required when this occurred, along with restitutions!  "And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, 'If a soul sin, and commit a trespass against the LORD, and lie unto his neighbour in that which was delivered him to keep, or in fellowship, or in a thing taken away by violence, or hath deceived his neighbour; or have found that which was lost, and lieth concerning it, and sweareth falsely; in any of all these that a man doeth, sinning therein: Then it shall be, because he hath sinned, and is guilty, that he shall restore that which he took violently away, or the thing which he hath deceitfully gotten, or that which was delivered him to keep, or the lost thing which he found, or all that about which he hath sworn falsely; he shall even restore it in the principal, and shall add the fifth part more thereto, and give it unto him to whom it appertaineth, in the day of his trespass offering.  And he shall bring his trespass offering unto the LORD, a ram without blemish out of the flock, with thy estimation, for a trespass offering, unto the priest:'" (Lev. 6:1 - 6)  I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want to take a loss after doing any of these things, so we all would see the wisdom of the Lord in the manner in which He prescribed penalty for maltreatment of a brother!

Another passage commanding the keeping of brothers and sisters is in this manner; "And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy field, neither shalt thou gather the gleanings of thy harvest.  And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather every grape of thy vineyard; thou shalt leave them for the poor and stranger: I am the LORD." (Lev. 19:9 - 10)  What wise teaching, to have us learn from the Almighty how to keep our destitute brothers and sisters!  "Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbour, neither rob him: the wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night until the morning.  Thou shalt not curse the deaf, nor put a stumblingblock before the blind, but shalt fear thy God: I am the LORD.  Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment: thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honour the person of the mighty: but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbour.  Thou shalt not go up and down as a talebearer among thy people: neither shalt thou stand against the blood of thy neighbour: I am the LORD.  Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him.  Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD." (Lev. 19:13 - 18)  See how in all these we rightly keep our brothers and sisters, and look on the world today, how so few of us keep these statutes!

In the New Testament, Jesus often referred to how you treat your brother as how you treat your neighbor; you are your neighbor's keeper just as you are your brother's keeper.  "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.  This is the first and great commandment.  And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.  On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." (Matt. 22:37 - 40)  Mark 12:30 - 31, and Luke 10:27 is worded similarly.  So how profound is this tenet?  "And the scribe said unto Him, 'Well, Master, Thou hast said the truth: for there is one God; and there is none other but He: And to love Him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbour as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.'  And when Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, He said unto him, 'Thou art not far from the kingdom of God.'" (Mark 12:32 - 34)  Mark well here that discreetly in verse 34 means that the scribe answered understandingly, not with any malice in his heart, as the other scribes and Pharisees often answered Jesus.

Luke 10:29 - 37 has a scribe wishing to justify himself concerning his neighbor, and Jesus tells the famous story of the good Samaritan.  Think not that they did not have discrimination in those ancient days, because they did!  Jews considered Samaritans low lifes, churly knaves, dirty dogs...well, you get the picture.  Jesus purposely used a Samaritan as the one obedient to the law concerning his neighbor because it taught that even one looked upon as someone to shun, even they are our neighbors and our brothers/sisters.

So what is the basic drive for being our brother's and sister's keeper?  "Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law." (Rom. 13:10)  That's right!  We are to love our neighbor, no matter what about them we find repulsive, enangering...even they who want to kill us, we are to love our enemies, such as by praying for them.  I pray for mine that God would send the Spirit to open their eyes and metamorphose them from children of perdition into children of God!

And there is another reason to love our neighbor as ourselves.  We do this by being strong for the weak ones to their edification, and therein imitate Christ!  "We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves.  Every one of us please his neighbour for his good to edification.  For even Christ pleased not Himself; but, as it is written, 'The reproaches of them that reproached Thee fell on Me.'" (Rom. 15:1 - 3)

Much of how we love (or not!) our neighbor is with our tongue!  Our tongue can be a weapon worse than battery acid, or it can be used as God meant for it, to glorify God, and love our neighbors with what words we speak.  "Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another.  Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: Neither give place to the devil.  Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth.  Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers." (Eph. 4:25 - 29)  I talked to one woman whose husband couldn't even love her with his tongue, all kinds of corrupt communication came out of his mouth toward his wife to the point she wanted a divorce to get away from the evil that was spewing out at her from his heart off his tongue onto her ears!

Now let us treat everyone we meet as our brothers, sisters; our neighbors!  Let us treat them the way we want to be treated.  Hard to do for the unlovely, but God commands it!  We indeed are our brother's keeper!