Many years ago I saw an article or perhaps a book that focused on the phrase “one another” in the scriptures. I didn’t read it, but the phrase always stuck with me as something fundamentally important to our obedience to what Jesus identified as the most important commandments. “Love God with your whole heart, mind, soul, and strength, and your neighbor as yourself.” That could only be done with one another.
So I pulled out of the NT all the verses containing “one another,” and saw that they fell naturally into three categories: Positive, Negative, and Neutral. Take a look . . .
Enliven One Another
How citizens of God’s kingdom treat one another.
Mar_9:50 Salt is good. But if salt loses its taste, how can you restore its flavor? Keep on having salt among yourselves, and live in peace with one another.”
Joh_13:14 So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you must also wash one another’s feet.
Joh_13:34 I am giving you a new commandment to love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.
Joh_13:35 This is how everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Joh_15:12 “This is my commandment: that you love one another as I have loved you.
Joh_15:17 I am giving you these commandments so that you may love one another.”
Act_2:44 All the believers were united and shared everything with one another.
Rom_13:8 Do not owe anyone anything—except to love one another. For the one who loves another has fulfilled the Law.
Rom_14:19 Therefore, let’s keep on pursuing those things that bring peace and that lead to building up one another.
Rom_15:7 Therefore, accept one another, just as the Messiah accepted you, for the glory of God.
Rom_16:16 Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the churches of the Messiah greet you.
1Co_16:20 All the brothers greet you. Greet one another with a holy kiss.
2Co_13:12 Greet one another with a holy kiss.
Gal_5:13 For you, brothers, were called to freedom. Only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity to gratify your flesh, but through love make it your habit to serve one another.
Eph_4:2 demonstrating all expressions of humility, gentleness, and patience, accepting one another in love.
Eph_4:25 Therefore, stripping off falsehood, “let each of us speak the truth to his neighbor,” for we belong to one another.
Eph_4:32 And be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another just as God has forgiven you in the Messiah.
Eph_5:19 Then you will recite to one another psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs; you will sing and make music to the Lord with your hearts;
Eph_5:21 and you will submit to one another out of reverence for the Messiah.
Col_3:13 Be tolerant of one another and forgive each other if anyone has a complaint against another. Just as the Lord has forgiven you, you also should forgive.
Col_3:16 Let the word of the Messiah inhabit you richly with wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, and singing to God with thankfulness in your hearts.
1Th_4:18 So then, encourage one another with these words.
1Th_5:11 So then, encourage one another and build each other up, as you are doing.
Heb_3:13 Instead, continue to encourage one another every day, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin,
Heb_10:24 And let us continue to consider how to motivate one another to love and good deeds,
Heb_10:25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another even more as you see the day of the Lord coming nearer.
Jas_5:16 Therefore, make it your habit to confess your sins to one another and to pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.
1Pe_1:22 Now that you have obeyed the truth and have purified your souls to love your brothers sincerely, you must love one another intensely and with a pure heart.
1Pe_4:9 Show hospitality to one another without complaining.
1Pe_4:10 As good servant managers of God’s grace in its various forms, serve one another with the gift each of you has received.
1Pe_5:14 Greet one another with a loving kiss. Peace be to all of you who are in the Messiah!
1Jn_1:7 But if we keep living in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.
1Jn_3:11 This is the message that you have heard from the beginning: We should love one another.
1Jn_3:14 We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love one another. The person who does not love remains spiritually dead.
1Jn_3:23 And this is his commandment: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus the Messiah, and to love one another as he commanded us.
1Jn_4:7 Dear friends, let us continually love one another, because love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born from God and knows God.
1Jn_4:11 Dear friends, if this is the way God loved us, we must also love one another.
1Jn_4:12 No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.
2Jn_1:5 Dear lady, I am now requesting of you that we all continue to love one another. It is not as though I am writing to give you a new commandment, but one that we have had from the beginning.
Here are the words, mostly action words, associated with God’s people:
Live in peace with Wash … feet
Love Have love for
Love … intensely United and share everything with
Building up Accept
Greet … with a holy kiss Make it your habit to serve
Accepting We belong to
Be kind to Recite to … psalms, hymns,
Submit to Be tolerant of
Teaching and admonishing Encourage
Motivate Confess your sins
Show hospitality to Serve
We have fellowship with We have passed from death to life because we love
Continually love
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Hurt One another
How citizens of this world treat one another.
Mat_24:10 Then many people will fall away, will betray one another, and will hate one another.
Luk_12:1 Meanwhile, the people had gathered by the thousands and were trampling on one another. Jesus began to speak first to his disciples. “Watch out for the yeast—that is, the hypocrisy—of the Pharisees!
Act_19:38 So if Demetrius and his workers have a charge against anyone, the courts are open and there are proconsuls. They should accuse one another there.
Rom_1:24 For this reason, God delivered them to sexual impurity as they followed the lusts of their hearts and dishonored their bodies with one another.
Rom_1:27 In the same way, their males also abandoned their natural sexual function toward females and burned with lust toward one another. Males committed indecent acts with males, and received within themselves the appropriate penalty for their perversion.
Gal_5:15 But if you bite and devour one another, be careful that you are not destroyed by each other.
Gal_5:26 Let’s stop being arrogant, provoking one another and envying one another.
Col_3:9 Do not lie to one another, for you have stripped off the old nature with its practices
Tit_3:3 After all, we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, and misled. We were slaves to many kinds of lusts and pleasures, spending our days in malice and jealousy. We were despised, and we hated one another.
Rev_6:4 A second horse went out. It was fiery red, and its rider was given permission to take peace away from the earth and to make people slaughter one another. So he was given a large sword.
Here are the words associated with those of the world:
Betray Trampling
Accuse Dishonored their bodies with
Burned with lust toward Bite and devour
Provoking Envying
Lie to Despised
Hated Slaughter
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Neutral
How citizens of both the world and God’s kingdom can treat one another.
Mar_4:41 Overcome with fear, they kept saying to one another, “Who is this man? Even the wind and the sea obey him!”
Mar_8:16 So they were discussing with one another the fact that they didn’t have any bread.
Mar_9:34 But they kept silent, because they had argued on the road with one another about who was the greatest.
Mar_10:26 The disciples were utterly amazed and asked one another, “Then who can be saved?”
Mar_12:7 But those farmers told one another, ‘This is the heir. Come on, let’s kill him, and the inheritance will be ours!’
Mar_12:28 Then one of the scribes came near and heard the Sadducees arguing with one another. He saw how well Jesus answered them, so he asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of them all?”
Mar_14:4 Irritated, some who were there asked one another, “Why was the perfume wasted like this?
Mar_16:3 They kept saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?”
Luk_2:15 When the angels had left them and gone back to heaven, the shepherds told one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see what has taken place that the Lord has told us about.”
Luk_4:36 Overwhelmed with amazement, they all kept saying to one another, “What kind of statement is this?—because with authority and power he gives orders to unclean spirits, and they come out!”
Luk_8:25 Then he asked the disciples, “Where’s your faith?” Frightened and amazed, they asked one another, “Who is this man? He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him!”
Joh_4:33 So the disciples began to say to one another, “No one has brought him anything to eat, have they?”
Joh_7:35 Then the Jewish leaders asked one another, “Where does this man intend to go that we won’t be able to find him? Surely he’s not going to the Dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks, is he?
Joh_11:56 They kept looking for Jesus and saying to one another as they stood in the Temple, “What do you think? Surely he won’t come to the festival, will he?”
Joh_12:19 Then the Pharisees told one another, “You see, there is nothing you can do. Look, the Joh_13:22 The disciples began looking at one another, completely mystified about whom he was speaking.
Act_2:12 All of them continued to be stunned and puzzled, and they kept asking one another, “What can this mean?”
Act_28:25 They disagreed with one another as they were leaving, so Paul added this statement: “The Holy Spirit was so right when he spoke to your ancestors through the prophet Isaiah!
Act_28:4 When the people who lived there saw the snake hanging from his hand, they told one another, “This man must be a murderer! He may have escaped from the sea, but Justice won’t let him live.”
Here are the words that either those of the world or the kingdom can use:
Saying Discussing
Asked Told
Arguing Looking at
Disagreed with
There are sixty-nine verses in all, and I noticed that while there only twelve verses describing how the ungodly treat one another, there are thirty-nine that tell Jesus’ disciples how to treat one another.
What this tells me is that God sets the example for us to follow – focus on the light as the apostle Paul described it in Phil 4:8:
“Finally, brothers; Keep thinking about whatever things are true, serious, righteous, chaste, lovable, well-spoken of, virtuous, and praiseworthy.”
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