In rural southwest Mississippi, everyone knows how important it is to notify a rancher when his cattle have gotten out of their pasture, and to help him round them up if we can. What better way could we express our concern for our neighbors, and for the animals under their care?

But even city dwellers can learn a lot from these verses. For here we find the responsibility not only to recognize our neighbors’ right to their property, but to take active steps to help them protect and preserve it. If it is in our power to restore something to its owner, or to help him take care of it, then we should, regardless of the cost or inconvenience to ourselves. After all, if we are to love our neighbors just as much and in the same way that we love ourselves, doesn’t that mean we should care for their things in the same way we would want them to care for ours?

But Moses goes a step further. He insists that we should be careful, helpful, conscientious stewards even of the things that belong to our enemies. He says we should go out of our way to help even those people who hate us. In this way, he anticipates Jesus’ staggering command delivered in the Sermon on the Mount: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor, and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:43-44).

Moses and Jesus thus remind us that there are no meaningful limitations on the commandment to love one another. And of course, Jesus showed a world full of sinners exactly that kind of love on the Cross, paying the highest possible price to save and protect, not just our animals, but our eternal souls.

So, if Jesus could go to that extreme to help those who remain in active rebellion against Him, surely we can take our neighbors’ dogs home to them or close their gates – even if those neighbors may have gotten on our last nerve. For could anything they have done to us be worse than our sin which cost Jesus His life?

Exodus 23:4-5 (NASB)

4 “If you meet your enemy’s ox or his donkey wandering away, you shall surely return it to him.
5 “If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying helpless under its load, you shall refrain from leaving it to him, you shall surely release it with him.