Ihr, die ihr euch von Christo nennet in G minor, BWV 164

Bach wrote the cantata in his third year in Leipzig for the Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity. He used a cantata text written by Salomon Franck in Weimar, published in Evangelisches Andachts-Opffer in 1715, as he had done already in Tue Rechnung! Donnerwort, BWV 168, four weeks before. The prescribed readings for the Sunday were from the Epistle to the Galatians, Paul's teaching on law and promise (Galatians 3:15–22), and from the Gospel of Luke, the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:23–37). The love of one's neighbour is the dominant theme of this cantata, whereas in the two preceding years the cantata texts of Du sollt Gott, deinen Herren, lieben, BWV 77, and Allein zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ, BWV 33, had stressed the equality of loving God and neighbour. The closing chorale is the fifth (and last) verse of Elisabeth Cruciger's hymn "Herr Christ, der einig Gotts Sohn" (1524).