Loving our neighbours

Lesslie Newbigin makes no mistake in going back to Augustine in order to understand how citizens of the city of God ought to live in the city of man.

God, the Instructor, teaches two main laws, love of God and love of one's neighbour. Here man finds three beings to love, God, himself and his neighbour. He who loves God makes no mistake in loving himself. Consequently, since he is ordered to love his neighbour as himself, he advises his neighbor also to love God. . . . He wishes to be similarly cared for by his neighbours if the need arise. So far as in him [it] lies he will be at peace with all men in that ordered harmony which is the peace of men. (Augustine's City of God XIX, 14, quoted in Foolishness to the Greeks p104)

For Augustine, the logic was inescapable. The great commandment and great commission are wedded; one who loves God cannot love his neighbor without advising his neighbor also to love God. Thus, under God, the commerce of the city of man is designed for each to call his neighbor to love God. Hence the call of gospel entrepreneurship is to embody these two main laws in the public square, and not merely in the realm of private belief.