There are only two laws which I recognize as the basis of what is legitimate and lawful. Both can be found in Matthew 22: 37-40.
“Jesus said to him [the lawyer who asked the question in v. 36], ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.'”
Notice that Jesus did not say that the first commandment was the greatest and that everything else falls short of it. This is the FIRST…and the SECOND is its equivalent. Nothing else matters. Nothing else matters. Everything hinges on these two orders, which are identical. In fact, the apostle Paul verified this distinction and went even further in his letter to the Galatians, ch. 5, v. 14.
“For ALL (emphasis mine) the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Let me rephrase that to make it more personal. You shall love your neighbor as if he were you. How do you love yourself?
“The man who does not value himself cannot value anything or anyone.” — Ayn Rand
How do you want to be treated by your neighbor? Well, then, doggone it, treat him the same way. Further, since you proclaim yourself as “Christian”, then treat him that way first, before you ever see any reward for your action. Without ever knowing that you will receive any reward at all, but acting only on faith and believing that your action WILL have some benevolent effect on your neighbor. Someday. Perhaps. You know, “Do unto others…”, which is known as the Golden Rule, although not a lot of people regularly bank on it.
Love God. Love your neighbor. The first is easy, the second somewhat more difficult and sometimes near impossible. My recommendation: quit trying to love God. God can take care of Himself and there is nothing, absolutely nothing, which you can do about that. Instead, love your neighbor, your f***ing neighbor, whom you know, whom you cannot get along with, who may be caught in the grip of sin which you have been miraculously set free from. If you have been redeemed by the grace of God and set free from that, then, what excuse do you have for NOT loving your neighbor who has not yet attained to that understanding? This is your duty and it is the only way you have to show your love for God. In loving your neighbor, you are loving God.
Let me repeat that. Loving your neighbor as if he were you is the ONLY way you have to show your love for God. Of course, this raises the question, “Who is my neighbor?”, but if you need an answer for that, then you don’t understand the order in the first place.
“How can you hate your brother whom you have seen, yet still claim that you love God, Whom you have not seen”? — 1 John 4:20, paraphrased quite loosely.
“Hating your brother, whom you have seen, is incompatible with claiming to love God, whom you have not seen, because genuine love for God must be reflected in love for others, especially fellow believers. The Apostle John states that if someone claims to love God but hates their brother, they are a liar, as one who does not love their visible brother cannot genuinely love the invisible God. This principle underscores that love for God is demonstrated through tangible actions toward others, making it impossible to truly love God while harboring hatred toward a fellow human being.” — from a Brave search.
Let’s change direction. In the first post of this series, my argument was conditional, an if-then statement and I think it is worth repeating. If, and I put a considerable amount of weight on the word if, citizens restrain themselves, tolerate disagreement, act with integrity, and recognize right from wrong, then what need is there for laws? If people voluntarily behave themselves the way that they should, according to the Great Commandments (Matthew 22: 35-40), then doesn’t that obviate the necessity of laws which attempt to force people to live in a certain manner? If. If. If. If these conditions are met, then…
“When the power of love overcomes the love of power, then the world will know peace.” — Jimi Hendrix
The problem is (and always has been) is that people do not (will not) live under the absurd, tyrannical, autocratic, and extremely difficult rules system laid down in Jesus’ message. Instead, rather than controlling themselves and loving their neighbors as they are instructed, they prefer to live under an absurd, tyrannical, autocratic, and extremely difficult rules system laid on them by other people who are determined to exercise power and control for their own sake, regardless who has to suffer for it, including poverty-stricken wives and children of fishermen who are killed because they ventured out into the Caribbean Sea to feed their wives and children, running the risk of being executed because someone more powerful said, without any provable evidence, that they were bringing drugs into the United States, and were, therefore, without value and dispensable.
Without value. Dispensable. Kill them all. Let God sort them out.
Let that sink into your soul for a moment and then ask yourself this question. How much further do we have to go before I get the point?
Extreme? You betcha!
Poor Roger's Almanac 
You are spot on to say that we show our love for God by how we love our neighbor.
Who is my neighbor? You are right to point to fellow believers as a focal point – it certainly was lived this way in the early Church (as we see in the book of Acts and in many of the apostle Paul’s letters).
But then there is this, in a section with how to relate to fellow believers:
1 Timothy 5: 8 But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
I have no closer “neighbors” than these, my own household.
Of course, then we have the parable of the Good Samaritan to deal with!
AMEN to Matthew 22: 37-40!
The two greatest commandments have existed from the beginning of time with the creation of man and His responsibilities to His Creator and His creation.
But what does Verse 40 mean, which says “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets,” particularly as it concerns “all the law”?
The two greatest commandments cannot be severed from that which explains how they’re fulfilled – that is, the first four of the Ten Commandments that explain the greatest commandment and the last six of the Ten Commandments that explain the second greatest commandment.
Neither can the Ten Commandments be separated from their respective statutes that explain them and/or from their respective judgments that enforce them.
The Ten Commandments did not come into existence when Moses came down Mt. Sinai with the two tablets. (See, for example Genesis 26:5.) They (and thus the two greatest commandments) are the foundational law for all of the Covenants, including the New Covenant. See Hebrews 8:8-10. Also, Romans 3:31 and plethora of others.
For more on how the Bible’s triune and integral moral law (the Ten Commandments and their respective statutes and judgments) apply and should be implemented as the law of the land, see free online book “Law & Kingdom: Their Relevance Under the New Covenant” at https://www.bibleversusconstitution.org/law-kingdomFrame.html
Then “A Biblical Constitution: A Scriptural Replacement for Secular Government.”
Bionic,
I think the following quote by JD Vance answers your dilemma quite well.
“There is this old school…and I think it’s a Christian concept…that you love your family, and then you love your neighbour, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens, and then after that…prioritize the rest of the world.”
It can be argued that to “love” in such a way is cold, callous, and unchristian, but that attitude overlooks one indisputable point: we, unlike God, cannot love all people equally and prioritize our relationships as a result of that truth. Is this wrong? See also this, in which the author addresses every point you raise above.
https://slowtowrite.com/is-jd-vances-ordered-love-biblical/
In a lengthy post (https://johnwaters.substack.com/p/is-the-pope-a-catholic) wondering about the politics of the recently (s)elected pope, Leo XIV, (Robert Prevost), John Waters mentioned this as well.
“A short time before his elevation, in the course of a social media spat between a left-wing podcaster and American Vice President J.D. Vance, on the subject of immigration, the then Cardinal Robert Prevost reposted an article entitled ‘J.D. Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others’, written by a woman called Kat Armas, who purported to rebut Vance’s argument that Catholics should ‘love your family and then you love your neighbour, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country, and then after that, you can focus and prioritise the rest of the world.’ Armas wrote: ‘the problem with this hierarchy is that it feeds the myth that some people are more deserving of our care than others’, which by retweeting it, the soon to be elected Pope Leo XIV appeared to endorse. This argument is self-evidently nonsense, for how on Earth could it be argued that fathers and mothers have a greater responsibility to strangers than to their own children?”
I had never thought about this before, but it rings true.
It is irrelevant to the discussion, but when Donald Trump nominated JD Vance to the position of vice-president, my first reaction was that he could have done worse. Choosing Vance may have been one of Trump’s better decisions.
Incidentally, or maybe coincidentally, I posted my article on Dec. 6 and Bionic commented on Dec. 7. John Waters posted his article on Dec. 8. Sometimes I am amazed at the way that things work. Romans 8:28.
Roger, Jesus may not have said explicitly that we are to rank in some order who we are to love, but the Scriptures are full of teaching on this. I am quite comfortable with a ranking, and I guess if I am wrong then this will be explained to me in heaven!
And that is good enough for me.