The Greatest Commandment
34 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35 One of them, an expert in the law,tested him with this question: 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b] 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
Whose Son Is the Messiah?
41 While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, 42 “What do you think about the Messiah? Whose son is he?”
“The son of David,” they replied.
43 He said to them, “How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him ‘Lord’? For he says,
44 “‘The Lord said to my Lord:
“Sit at my right hand
until I put your enemies
under your feet.”’[c]
“Sit at my right hand
until I put your enemies
under your feet.”’[c]
45 If then David calls him ‘Lord,’ how can he be his son?” 46 No one could say a word in reply, and from that day on no one dared to ask him any more questions.
I love the first section of this passage. Really, what does it all boil down to? At the heart of all the "do this"es and "don't do that"s, the core of every other commandment or rule or whatever you want to call it, the mission and purpose and goal of a Christian's life is to LOVE - first and foremost God with everything we have. In The Great Commandment, John MacArthur says this:
The word heart basically in the Hebrew understanding is the core of a person's identity. You rememberProverbs 4:23, "Guard your heart with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life." Everything comes out of the heart. I see the heart in the Hebrew understanding is the intellect, which produces the thoughts, produces the words, produces the actions. It's as a man thinks in his heart that he is. And so it's the intellectual part that's most often stressed, although, as I say, the words sometimes used of other aspects of human nature.
And then the word soul, it seems to me that when it's isolated can refer best to emotion. For example in Matthew 26:38 it says, "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful." And maybe the emphasis could be on the emotional part. And mind, let me talk about that for a moment because mind here replaces might in Deuteronomy 6. And I don't think the Lord is out of line, I don't think He's misquoting. I think mind is another way to say might. Might is a very broad word but it seems as though might has to do with intention and will. It has to do with moving ahead with energy and I see that with mind. I see mind in the same sense, mind having to do with purpose or with intention or with will. For example, we say he had a mind to do this or he had a mind to do that. And then as I said Mark adds the word strength, which is all of our physical capacities.
And so you can see here that in an overlapping sense there are four channels for love to be perfectly balanced. It's an intelligent love, it's a feeling love, it's a willing love, and it's a serving love. It carried itself right out to how we act in our physical strength. So our intellectual part, our emotional part, our volitional part, our physical part all comes together to love God, to love God with a total being, all that we are.
And would you notice that these things are not pushed together. It doesn't say love the Lord they God with all thy heart, soul, and mind. It doesn't say that. It's not that they're pushed together, it's that they're spread apart. It says literally that you are to love the Lord your God with your whole heart, and with your whole soul, and with your whole mind. It's as if He wants to push them to as wide a possible level as He can. To really love God, that's the great commandment. (emphasis mine)
The second commandment follows the same track. It's of the same nature and of the same character. "Thou shalt love they neighbor as thyself." That ties right in with it. This flows from love for God, when you love God right you love people right.
What does that mean? It means that love is again the love of purpose, the love of intention, the love of will, the love of action. In other words I take care of somebody else the same way I take care of me.
And the second is to love our neighbour as ourself. Not just the ones who are nice to us, not just the ones who are easy to love, but ALL our neighbours. And not just when we are in a good mood, or are "feeling it", so to speak, but all the time. This is not always so easy to put into practice.
But how else do we show the world around us that we are different? Human beings in general, Muslims, Buddhists, atheists... everyone is designed to love. Everyone is capable of showing great love, compassion, and kindness. We've seen it many times. Not everyone who helped others out of the World Trade Center on 9/11 was a Christian. Not everyone who saved Jews from the Nazis were Christians. Firefighters and police officers save the lives of people. Health care providers show caring and compassion for the sick and injured. Many of them are not Christians. There are thousands of examples all over the world every day of human beings who are not Christians showing love to their neighbours. How do we show that we are different?
The biggest thing I've seen make an impact on non-Christians is when a Christian is willing and able to forgive. If we really love our neighbour, we must forgive him or her. Forgiveness doesn't mean there are no consequences, or that the person who wronged us isn't to be held responsible. Forgiveness means not harboring ill will, not trying to get revenge, not allowing bitterness and anger to poison us. As we learn to love God with everything we have, we have greater and greater ability to really love everyone around us, and to forgive things that those who do not know God find unforgivable.
1 comment:
I love the fact that if you lived your life with the goal of fulfilling those two commandments, you would naturally fulfill all the other commands in the Bible at the same time.
If we truly love God, we will draw near to Him through reading/studying/memorizing/meditating on His Word, we will obey Him, we will worship Him, we will become more like Him, etc.
If we truly love each other, we will be merciful, forgiving, humble, etc.
Beautiful.
One thing that's interesting is that RVL has a completely different take on this passage. He says that all great rabbis interpreted the Torah in light of which commandments they considered to be the greatest. And so it was very common to ask a rabbi which command was the greatest, because then they would know what "type" of rabbi he was.
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