ISSUE 6: Knowing Our Neighbor and Understanding Our Witness

“And who is my neighbor?”

Luke 10:29

“You also are to testify for me.”

John 15:27

The daily path that the Christian person takes in the surrounding context will define their identity and determine their function in everyday life, whereby the person will witness to who they are and whose they are—a testimony all the world observes. Moreover, whose is an existential issue of belonging that is either typically ignored by Christians, or ambiguous to observers. What the Christian person experiences in all this is dependent on their depth of knowing God and their extent of understanding the Word.

The journey we’ve been on so far in this study keeps widening in its scope of essential issues such that our challenge is unavoidable. On the other hand, whether our path is actually narrowing is based on our resolve for these inescapable issues. The next two issues will challenge our resolve much further, so that our path narrows in very practical terms for the unmistakable viability of our Christian faith (not any faith). Perhaps this should further alert you to suspend any assumptions you might have, given the seeming familiarity of these next two issues. “Listen and learn” is our ongoing challenge to be open to these issues and then to be vulnerable to resolve them.

The Rule of Law or Rule of Relationship

When God’s people originally received the Torah from God, it became their Rule of Law. God communicated to them (not unilaterally commanded) the terms of the Law in relational language to define the relational terms for covenant relationship together. They, however, too often received the Law in referential language, which thereby transposed those terms of relationship to a mere behavioral code for them to follow with variable connection to covenant relationship. Hence, God’s Law was transposed from its essential qualitative terms as the Rule of Relationship to a reduced quantitative system for a Rule of Law. When the Rule of Law is quantified outer in, it inevitably distorts justice and becomes inequitable—the systemic condition prevailing globally today. As this reduced system evolved further as an outer-in behavior code, it shifted further away from the qualitative significance of relationship and its primacy for God. This Rule of Law prevailed in the ancient history of God’s people and became a major issue of contention with Jesus throughout the incarnation because Jesus embodied and enacted the Rule of Relationship. Let’s examine some parts of the interaction that Jesus had with experts of the law.

Generally, since Jesus wasn’t into observing a quantitative system, the legal experts frequently indicted him for breaking the law. Each occasion always gave Jesus the opportunity to clarify and correct their bias by using the qualitative terms of God’s Law for the primacy of the Rule of Relationship. During one of their debates, another teacher of the law asked Jesus to state the most important commandment (Mk 12:28-31, cf. Mt 22:34-40). Clearly, Jesus distinguished the Rule of Relationship from a Rule of Law. Yet, here again, the Rule of Relationship can only be understood in relational language, and merely having the same terms in reference is misleading and misguided.

This emerged on another occasion when a lawyer tested Jesus about inheriting eternal life; Jesus used the opportunity to clarify and correct what’s written in the Law (Lk 10:25-28). But, the lawyer was an outer-in person defined by what he did, so he asked “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus’ response made the answer unmistakable to the lawyer (vv.29-37), yet likely without him understanding the human dynamics involved. Such a lack of understanding the Word’s Good Samaritan is common among Christians also, so what Jesus illuminates challenges many assumptions about the Good Samaritan.

Who Jesus made unmistakable thereby challenged the lawyer to change from compliance with a quantified Rule of Law to qualitative adherence to the Rule of Relationship. The Good Samaritan also makes unmistakable to all of us the human dynamics in the issue of neighbor, so that we would enact the Rule of Relationship rather than a Rule of Law. The challenge to change is not simply replacing the latter with the former, but a major turnaround for the persons involved and the nature of their interactions.

The Human Dynamics of Neighbor

Who would better know the details in the Book of Leviticus than a priest and Levite? They certainly heard these details of the Law often, but whether Leviticus 19:18 rang in their ears upon seeing their injured neighbor is an open question. I’m sure many Christians in their shoes would have at least called for emergency help; but they could still be engaged in human dynamics about neighbor not unlike the priest and Levite. Really, how so?

When the priest and Levite separately saw the beat-up man on the road, they each chose to pass by him on the other side of the road. They didn’t overlook him or even deny his bad condition, or else they wouldn’t have moved to the other side. Overlooking, ignoring or denying neighbors are certainly dynamics that happen all the time among neighbors—even among friends and Christians. Jesus illuminated, however, a more pervasive human dynamic engaged by the priest and Levite: keeping relational distance.

In ancient Israel, all priests belonged to the Levite tribe, a tribe that had special status among its tribes (Num 3-4). Given the Levites’ status, what human dynamics emerge from Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan? The Levites were a unique tribe that took seriously their role to serve as priests and teach the torah. The first human dynamic emerging, then, centers on this equation used for their identity formation. This equation added up what they did to define their identity. In other words, their identity was based on a person from outer in, whose function would be centered in self-consciousness more than person-consciousness. Their outer-in lens focusing on human distinctions inevitably engaged in the comparative process of human dynamics, which measures the outer-in distinctions of self and others on a vertical scale stratifying their status. Remember, Jesus’ disciples also engaged in this comparative process (e.g. Lk 9:46). So, how do these human dynamics affect how we engage in relationships with this type of interaction?

Since the Levites were knowledgeable about the terms of God’s Law, they were aware of how to treat neighbors, strangers, and aliens (as in Lev 19). But they transposed God’s relational terms to quantified details of a Rule of Law, and this outer-in lens determined how they saw others, and thus how they related to neighbors, strangers and aliens. Based on their lens, how would you describe the way the priest and Levite treated the injured man?

Their outer-in identity as priest and Levite also projected an outer-in identity onto the injured man. Other than his injury we don’t have any information about him, but he was obviously not one like them. His different distinction didn’t measure up to theirs, and the usual consequence at the very least was to keep relational distance (contrary to Lev 19). Even if they assisted the man in some way, their action toward him would have been condescending, paternalistic at best, which still would have maintained a stratified structure in the relationships between them—which should not be confused with love of neighbor. The diverse ways these human dynamics could be enacted can also be subtle to elude the awareness of those giving or even receiving the action. Thus, it is critical to understand:

These human dynamics converge with the quantified terms of a Rule of Law to make it variable or relative; and the dynamics also conflate with culture to shape its beliefs and values—a culture that helps formalize human distinctions to systematically stratify the surrounding context.

Remember the basis for skin-ny identity and ableism identity and their consequences (discussed in Chap. 2), because it’s all part of the human dynamics of neighbor.

I think it’s safe to assume that the priest and Levite observed a Rule of Law, because I don’t think that Jesus was illustrating the blatant disregard of neighbor by their behavior. As the object of comparative treatment himself, Jesus had a deeper purpose in this parable to illuminate these human dynamics:

1. The range of ways the treatment of neighbor can have.

2. And that merely observing a Rule of Law should not be confused with and must not be considered as enacting the Rule of Relationship, and thus cannot be a substitute for God’s relational terms constituting “love your neighbor as yourself.”

3. Bringing to the forefront and making foremost the relational involvement required to love just as Jesus loved.

It is likely Jesus used the actions of the priest and Levite as a cautionary tale to fulfill the first part of his purpose, so that others like us will be alerted about the discordant treatment of neighbors. Therefore, based on Jesus’ threefold purpose, the Good Samaritan widens the challenge for all Christians and unavoidably narrows the path for our existential treatment of our neighbors.

The Tactical Action for Neighbor

Given the fact that the human dynamics of ‘neighbor’ can be subtle and elude awareness, Christians have to understand how our actions can be in actual discord with the Rule of Relationship for neighbor. For example, various neighborhoods in the surrounding context implement a tactical plan to keep their neighborhood strictly on their terms—terms, that is, in order to prevent any intrusion that would change things in their biased view. The tactic is ‘not in my backyard’ (NIMBY). The distinctions used for NIMBY are always quantified on a comparative basis, with the value measurement enacted in a stratified process. Those neighbors having the same (or similar) distinctions join together to preserve their joint neighborhood, likely with little regard for how neighbors in other neighborhoods would be affected by NIMBY. Christians haven’t been immune from using this tactic and may in fact take the lead for the cause of NIMBY. What NIMBY Christians need to account for is how their actions create discord with Jesus’ Rule of Relationship for neighbor. This emerges as we understand the tactical action for neighbor that the person of Jesus embodied to enact with each of us, his neighbor.

First of all, Jesus’ person from inner out embodied the strategic action of whole-ly God’s relational response of grace to the human condition. Jesus then enacted God’s tactical action that distinguishes unmistakably God’s vulnerable relational involvement of love with persons in the human context, which functionally unfolded directly in relationships face to face—all condensed in the often misunderstood parameters of John 3:16, which the whole Gospel of John summarizes. The strategic, tactical and functional actions by Jesus embodied the relational terms of God’s Rule of Relationship, which he unequivocally constituted in the primacy of the relational involvement of love: first with God, then with others, including our own person (Mk 12:29-31; Jn 13:34). Love is the tactical action in God’s Rule of Relationship that obviously widens the challenge for all Christians. Less obvious, however, is that the relational terms of love certainly narrows the path for relationships in the Rule of Relationship.

“Just as I have loved you” is the irreducible and nonnegotiable basis for the tactical action of love. When we don’t understand or even directly experience Jesus’ love, we readily turn to variable forms of love to observe his two commandments. If Jesus’ love is misrepresented, then, the love we give to others doesn’t represent him—a common witness that Christians project. The tactical action of Jesus’ love is first directed to us in order for us to personally experience the relational reality of his love’s involvement with our whole person from inner out—not merely a love of what he does for us. The latter is secondary to the primacy of his love’s relational involvement with us face to face, which does not keep a sacred distance. On this irreplaceable basis, Jesus makes further definitive the tactical action of love: “Just as I have loved you, you also need to be vulnerably involved to love one another. By this tactical action everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you are relationally involved in love for one another” Jn 13:34-35).

Yet, Peter ignored the tactical action made definitive by Jesus and instead immediately focused on the secondary, both about Jesus’ person and his own person. With the secondary, he expressed his devotion to Jesus not by his relational involvement of love but about what he would do for Jesus—that is, sacrificing his body for Jesus but not giving him his whole person (13:36-37). Given Peter’s relational distance, it should be no surprise for him to hear later the disarming question from Jesus: “Do you love me?” (Jn 21:15-18). Peter answered with a variable form of love (phileo) because he didn’t understand how Jesus loved (agape) him. The love of phileo can have merit, for example, in the fellowship between Christians, but it is not a substitute for the relational involvement of love given us by Jesus and for our reciprocal response of love to him and others. Agape is the only constituting basis for the tactical action of love.

Peter’s relational distance caused him to misrepresent Jesus’ tactical action of love; and the tactical action Peter used as a substitute made outer-in distinctions (Acts 10:13-16), which Peter assumed in observing a quantified Rule of Law. But Peter’s tactic dealt a harmful blow to the early church’s tactical action. Thus, his tactic along with other leaders needed to be confronted and changed in order for Jesus’ tactical action of love to constitute the church (Gal 2:11-14; Acts 15:1-19). Even though the tactical action of love turned persons around to grow the early church, this tactical cycle recurred through church history and has been consequential for the relationships by Christians—first with God, second with each other, and then with all others. Yet, repeating the tactical cycle should not surprise us, since the variable forms of love used by Christians generate simulations and illusions in relationships that readily perpetuate relational distance embedded in the secondary over the primary, the quantitative over the qualitative, and thus the outer in over the inner out.

Where does this leave the tactical action for neighbor? There are numerous tactics Christians can take with neighbors, even in the name of love. The issue for us, however, is not about the numerous ways we can love our neighbor. Jesus narrows the path for all Christians by an interdependent relational dynamic essential for God’s Rule of Relationship: (1) “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Mk 12:31), and (2) love others “just as I love you” (Jn 13:34). Commonly for persons, of course, there are also various ways that persons love themselves. But the qualitative terms of the Rule of Relationship always define the person as whole from inner out. Love our whole person from inner out requires us to be vulnerable with our heart and not maintain distance that prevents love from touching us deeply. This involves more, for example, than a spiritual exercise but getting down to the whole person, which also requires vulnerably listening to our heart in all its feelings. Jesus only loves with his whole person, whereby he only loves our whole person. That’s why when our focus is on secondary matters—no matter how important that secondary may be—we become distracted from his relational involvement of love. This happened to Peter when Jesus washed his feet. In this condition—a default mode for many—how do Christians experience the relational reality of his love and thereby be able to love our whole person, so that we can love our neighbor and love each other just as he loves us?

We cannot reciprocate in Jesus’ likeness and give out what we do not vulnerably experience in our whole person. In the path Christians take, all must account for this reality:

Love is variable in a Rule of Law, but love is irreducible and nonnegotiable in the Rule of Relationship—the agape Jesus embodied in his whole person to vulnerably enact with nothing less and no substitutes.

Anything less and any substitutes for the tactical action of love enacted by Jesus to be embodied in the Rule of Relationship unmistakably leaves our neighbor at a distance on the other side of the wide path taken—left out in the cold. To undertake nothing less and no substitutes requires, necessitates, makes imperative, even demands the tactical action of agape, which is demonstrated by the Good Samaritan. Make no mistake, however, the Good Samaritan demonstrated not in the extensive secondary (albeit important) things he did for his neighbor but in the primacy of his relational involvement of love he made vulnerable to his neighbor. Here is a person whose sociocultural distinction was a marginalized identity that many wouldn’t want in their neighborhood, yet he chose not to be defined by those outer-in terms. Thus, he loved himself, so that his person from inner out would love his neighbor.

This relational process and outcome can only unfold from nothing less and no substitutes for the tactical action of love as Jesus enacted in order for his followers to enact in his relational likeness. Hence, the Word’s Good Samaritan identity is ascribed incorrectly to too many persons just because of their goodwill and deeds—which in itself is good but not to the qualitative depth of the Good Samaritan. Christians needs to understand this critical difference and account for their tactics with neighbors.

Therefore, the tactical and functional actions in our everyday practice will constitute what kind of person we are and thereby determine who is our neighbor. The results make evident what we give to our neighbor and thus what our neighbor receives.

The Nature of Witness

The non-virtual fact: Our neighbors only experience from us what we give out. The existential reality: What we give out is limited to what we personally experience. This fact and reality underlie a Christian’s witness in the surrounding context, whether their witness is intentional or inadvertent. Hence, all Christians need to understand the nature of their witness and account for the witness they give out.

All persons give out a witness during the course of everyday life, which others can experience or at least observe. This is a passive witness that merely gives out something about that person. Christians are always giving out a witness about themselves that others use to assess our faith, even though that witness wasn’t so intended. Most of Christian witness is just the passive type, and this prevailing testimony is rarely accounted for. Consider the partisan evangelicals who, despite their emphasis on evangelism, don’t address the passive witness they give out that also bears witness to the gospel they proclaim.

Then, there are two active types of witness that are relevant for Christians also to account for. The active witness and passive witness form the witness loop that puts Christian witness in an ongoing mode—even a default mode signifying Christians are always bearing witness. The shift to active witness emerges with Jesus before his crucifixion and after the resurrection. Gathering with his disciples afterward, he summarized what just happened to him and stated “You are witnesses of these things (Lk 24:46-48). In the N.T., witness (martys and its verb, martyreo) denotes one who has knowledge about what they saw and heard, and thus can confirm it by bearing witness or giving testimony. On the one hand, Jesus seems to be identifying what actually just defines the first active witness as simply witnessing to what they saw, heard or know—that is, in effect as an observer of these facts and information that are received from the embodied Word or collected from the written Word. As Christians progress from a passive witness, more often than not they become this first active witness expressing what facts and information they heard and know. Perhaps most Christians would think that this active witness is important to form the witness loop, or that it’s better than just having a passive witness. Jesus would not agree that such an active witness would be “my witnesses in the global human context” (Acts 1:8).

His witnesses are the second active witness that emerges with Jesus before his crucifixion. When Jesus revealed that his relational replacement, the Holy Spirit, is going to “testify for me, not just truths and knowledge about me,” he also declared unequivocally to his followers: “You also must testify” (Jn 15:26-27). Why so? “Because you have been involved with me to experience my person in relationship together.” The second active witness is clearly distinguished from the first by being a witness who doesn’t just observe Jesus for facts and info. Rather this witness experiences Jesus by being a relationally involved participant, who thereby can testify of and for his whole person—sharing with others his vulnerable presence and intimate relational involvement embodying the whole gospel. Nothing less and no substitutes can be, will be and are “my witnesses.”

The Basis for Our Witness

Have you examined your witness loop yet? Have you ever considered what your neighbors observe from your witness, or from your Christian friends and church witness? The basis for our witness prompts these questions, so we can understand the path we’re on and meet the challenge before us.

All Christians certainly give out a passive witness in their everyday life and the composition of this witness should have our ongoing attention. At the same time, our active witness must be understood regarding its basis. Whatever we actively express about our faith is always either subject to critical review by others receiving that witness, or subjected to evaluation by the Word (together with the Spirit)—or by both. Our witness should never be considered an end in itself but always understood as a primary means to the existential end that confirms either some reality about ourself or the reality of whole-ly God embodied by the Word. When the latter is conflated with the former, the means-end process becomes ambiguous such that the end of “my witnesses” eludes our witness. These dynamics make it imperative for Christians to understand the basis of their current witness. Lacking this understanding relegates our witness easily to having no legitimately significant basis or simply no basis at all. When Christian witness and the Word are not on the same page, the world (including our neighbor) has a basis to render our witness without significance and dismiss the relevance of the Christian faith.

In effect, Christians need to be part of a Witness Protection Program in order to ensure the integrity of their witness is maintained. Without this maintenance, Christians will labor in the means-end witness process and thereby lose their voice to echo the Word and to rightly proclaim his whole gospel. The lack of integrity in our active witness also exposes our passive witness being rendered by various influences in our surrounding context, which then begs the question about what we are really experiencing to determine the nature of our giving out. Therefore, whenever our witness’ integrity is not ensured, our passive witness becomes the main determinant for our witness loop; this then delegitimizes the basis of our active witness and makes it subjected to scrutiny by the Word (with the Spirit).

“Listen and learn” from the scrutiny by the Word of the witness given out by the following churches:

Two churches gave out a very active witness, which many churches today would be proud to have. One of those gave out such a popular witness that they gained a reputation of “being alive.” But the Word’s scrutiny assessed their witness as effectively “dead.” They needed to “Wake up…for I have not found your witness complete, that is, whole in the sight of my God” (Rev 3:1-2). The other church actively gave out a witness that strictly adhered to the facts and information about God, regardless of the pushback they received in their surrounding context. The Word wasn’t impressed, “But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you experienced at first” (Rev 2:2-5). They basically shifted their witness from the tactical action of love constituting the Rule of Relationship to a quantitative tactical action composing a Rule of Law that merely conforms to a code of behavior. They needed to turn around (“repent”) and return to what’s primary for “my witnesses,” so that what they give out would be based on their relational experience of the Word’s relational involvement of love with them.

Another active church witness was less active than the two above. Their witness gave out a very accepting hand to the diversity in their surrounding context, which absorbed those outer-in distinctions into a hybrid process for this church. The Word scrutinized their witness to its core in order to both reconstitute their witness from inner out and so that “all the churches will know that I am the one who searches minds and hearts” (Rev 2:18-23). The last church witness to learn from was a relatively passive witness that maintained relational distance in what they gave out. Basically, their witness emerged from the esteemed distinctions of their quantitative resources, which rendered what they gave out as “neither cold nor hot”—as in a distasteful “lukewarm” water that “I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” Since the Word will “reprove and discipline those whom I love,” in spite of their lukewarm witness the Word gently called out to them to turnaround and “Listen! I am relationally involved at the door to your heart, knocking to be let in so that there is no relational distance between us” (Rev 3:14-20).

Though the Word does not subpoena us to “testify on his behalf” as the Spirit testifies (Jn 15:26), he ongoingly pursues us for relationship so our testimony will be in likeness. Sadly, too many Christians merely quantify Jesus’ knocking (Rev 3:20) without its qualitative-relational significance, such that their personal experience lacks the Word’s intimate relational involvement of love. The relational consequence diminishes the experiential basis of what they give out to lukewarmness—what becomes a distasteful witness others would spit out of their mouths.

Our witness loop has much to “Listen and learn” from in order for our witness to undertake the narrow path of “my witnesses.”

The Constituting Basis of “My Witnesses”

When Jesus declared without equivocation that others will know “you are my disciples,” what did he illuminate that those disciples give out? Certainly this outcome is contingent on disciples loving each other but that’s not the constituting basis for the witness with this outcome. “Just as I have loved you” is not a reference to what Jesus did but brings to the forefront the constituting basis for loving one another (Jn 13:34). What is given out by these followers witnesses to the experiential truth and relational reality of their persons who “follow my person” in the primacy of relationship together to be intimately involved “where I am” (Jn 12:26). The integrity of this witness is not unequivocal just by loving one another, because human love is too variable to ensure its integrity. Therefore, “just as I love you” is the only constituting basis to provide the experience necessary to give out the love that witnesses unequivocally for all others (especially our neighbor) to “know that you are my disciples” (13:35). And while Jesus’ agape no doubt transforms our person, we shouldn’t assume that it alters our genes to make giving out agape our default mode.

This tactical action of love constituting the basis of our witness as “my witnesses” is essential to understand at its qualitative-relational roots. These roots begin from the trajectory of God’s grace to humanity and emerge strategically when the Word embodied the whole and uncommon (holy) God to tactically enact the agape involvement of the Trinity. Foremost, these roots distinguish the agape involvement within the Trinity (as in Jn 17:23,24,26), which unfolds in reciprocal relational involvement between the trinitarian persons. It is only on the basis of their reciprocal relational involvement of agape that the Son gives out love: “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you” (Jn 15:9). Therefore, whole-ly God’s agape is not unilateral, but by its qualitative-relational nature it is always reciprocal for those who experience God’s agape involvement. Does this clarify and correct Christian notions of John 3:16, which John unfolds in his Gospel?

Jesus used the metaphor of the vine and the branches to describe this relational process (Jn.15). We tend to perceive this as a static structural arrangement that is necessary for quantitative results (“fruit”). This shifts the focus from the dynamic process of intimate relationship Jesus is describing. Three times he mentions the reciprocal effort “to remain” in each other (15:4,5,7). The word “remain” (Gk. meno) means to remain, dwell, abide; applied to another person it denotes reciprocal relational involvement. This is the same word Jesus used to describe his authentic (Gk. alethes) disciples intimately involved (“hold,” meno) with his “teachings” (logos, his essence, his person, Jn.8:31). When there is this kind of relational involvement, there are distinct relational outcomes experienced in this process. One outcome is to know God intimately—not to be confused with knowing information about God—which only emerges from vulnerable reciprocal interaction. A further outcome is the experience of agape involvement, not only from Jesus but also from the Father (Jn.15:9; 17:26). These relational outcomes underlie the fruit his disciples bear. This fruit does not reflect the quantitative results of what we do; this fruit witnesses to the relational outcome of being intimately involved in reciprocal relationship with Jesus as his disciple (Jn.15:8). The specific relational outcome witnessed to is the experience of God’s qualitative difference in his agape involvement. This fruit of the vine must be seen as the agape involvement with others that Jesus said clearly distinguishes his disciples (Jn.13:35). Hence, only these relational roots bear this relational fruit just in reciprocal relationship without relational distance.

“To remain” is a reciprocal effort because it is a relationship involving the relational work by each participant. Jesus remains in us with his agape involvement, as he further shared about the progression of the vine (Jn.15:9). But he also said, “Now remain in my love.” God doesn’t do all the relational work, nor do we but we have our part in the relationship. Our relational work includes obedience – the relational act of submitting our person (15:10). This may seem like a contingency to experience his love or to be his friend (15:14). Yet, it is crucial for discipleship to grasp that these really are not conditional statements but relational messages. What comes first in these verses is his love, not our obedience (15:9).

Moreover, obedience can be either adhering to the quantitative terms of a Rule of Law, or making our person vulnerable in response to the Rule of Relationship. According to the Word, obedience is the relational way we submit our true and whole person to him for intimate relationship that has the outcome of further experiencing his love (Jn.14:21,23). Accordingly, love is not some substance he gives us and thus we possess it; love is what we experience from him in how he involves himself with us and treats us. Love is not a feeling; it is what we relationally experience of him in our heart that increasingly transforms it and grows it. Love is not something we do, or even he does; it is what we ongoingly share together in reciprocal intimate relationship. Through obedience we vulnerably submit our inner-out person to him for this relationship. As noted earlier, Jesus defines his own obedience to the Father for the purpose of this relationship and remaining in his love (15:10b).

In his tactical action of love, Jesus was always closing the relational gap in his interactions with others, as well as reducing the relational distance in his connection with his followers. As hearts kept opening to each other, there would be intimate connection. Thus, the nature of the witness he always gave out was based on the vulnerable relational involvement of his whole person from inner out. The love he enacted embodied the whole-ly God, which he distinguished in his prayerful communication with the Father that became definitive for his family. In this closing prayer to the Father for all his disciples, Jesus shifted from the vine-branches metaphor to the relational reality the metaphor symbolized: the intimate reciprocal relationships uniting them together in family love (Jn.17:20-23). The uncommon bond of these reciprocal intimate relationships, which is rooted in the irreducible and nonnegotiable relational process engaged in agape involvement, witnesses to the world of the experiential reality in the relational progression of the incarnation (vv.21,23). Jesus reconstitutes our quantitative reductions of what witnessing involves; and he radicalizes our common notions about evangelism by deepening our focus from merely what he did to the qualitative substance of his intimate relational presence in order for our reciprocal response to be “my witnesses.”

Therefore, the tactical action of love constituting the basis of our witness is neither reducible nor negotiable to our variable terms in order to constitute the integrity of “my witnesses.” This is the qualitative-relational nature of the witnesses that the embodied Word constituted as he prepared to ascend from the earth (Acts 1:8). Though the palpable Word would still be present and involved, his relational replacement, the Holy Spirit, would testify further “on my behalf.” Most challenging is that the Word constituted the reciprocal relational involvement of his followers to give out cooperative testimony with the Spirit (Jn 15:27) to be his personal extension in the global human context as “my witnesses.” Accordingly, as we share his agape love with others (including our enemies), then we witness unmistakably to him who is agape involved with us. Christians must not mistake “my witnesses” with merely giving out facts and important info about him, nor with just confirming propositional truths of the gospel. To witness to Jesus’ person as the whole-ly God (with Father and Spirit) is to share the experiential relational reality of intimate involvement in his life and of receiving his vulnerable qualitative ontology and relational function given directly to us in face-to-face relationship together as family.

How many neighbors in the world have been the relational recipients of “my witnesses”? The palpable Word continues to scrutinize what we give out.

Take heed: The tactical action of love undertakes a narrow relational path of involvement “just as I am relationally involved in love with you” to account for being “my witnesses” with the integrity of nothing less and no substitutes. This directs us to the integral theology and practice of our discipleship and of church, which inescapably converge in the 7th issue to further widen our challenge and narrow our path.