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The Scribes: Which is the First Commandment of all ?
This is one of my favourite passages of Scripture where a Scribe questions Jesus concerning what is the greatest commandment of all? We may well be familiar with His answer but may not have looked closely at Matthew, Mark and Luke's accounts of WHAT IT MEANS TO LOVE GOD AND OUR NEIGHBOUR!
'Jesus said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as you love yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.' (Matt 22v37-40)
Two commandments are listed here where the law and the prophets are said to hang on. In the Decalogue (10 commandments in Ex 20 & Deut 5) the first four of the ten commandments emphasise loving God and the last six loving your neighbour. To love God and your neighbour is therefore obviously linked with obeying His commandments!
Notice also that the two commandments Jesus gives in this passage are not new ones.
Deut 6v5 reads 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.' We are to love God with the totality of our being. In Greek thought the heart, soul and strength are entirely separate entities whereas in the Hebrew they are distinct yet inextricably linked. In other words we are called to love God with all our energies and faculties. We should not limit our worship towards Him simply in terms of our Spirit, and leave our mind, emotions and strength out of the equation. The careful reader might notice that Matthew mentions heart, soul and mind while Deuteronomy lists heart soul and strength. That is why it is necessary to also read Mark and Luke's account of the same!
Here's a few interesting questions!! How do we love God ? Do we just love Him? How do we know that we are loving Him?
Let's not pontificate or guess concerning this! What did Jesus say?
'If you love Me, keep my commandments.' (John 14v15)
'He who has my commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father and I will love Him and manifest Myself to Him.' (John 14v21)
The second commandment is not a new one either! Lev 19v18 reads 'but you shall love your neighbour as you love yourself: I am the LORD.' Okay point taken but how do we love our neighbour?
John had something very clear to say about the above point...
'By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.' (1 John 5v2-3)
You may well want to draw a distinction between our neighbour and the children of God and I certainly would not object to that. However when we get to Luke I shall try and explain who our neighbour actually is!
Lets look at Mark's account firstly though.
'Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is: Hear O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one. And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength. This is the first commandment. And the second is like it, is this: You shall love your neighbour as yourself. There is no greater commandment than these.' (Mark 12v29-31)
Interestingly Jesus quotes Deut 6v4 'Hear O Israel the LORD our God, the LORD is one' immediately before saying 'You shall love the Lord your God..(Deut 6v5) So even though Matthew does not include Deut 6v4 they are obviously quoting from the exact same passage and Chapter and verse divisions were not inserted until centuries after the Canon's of Scripture were established.
Deut 6v4 has special significance in the Hebrew...
Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloyhenu Adonai Echad. The word Echad means one in terms of unity e.g one bundle of sticks or one bunch of grapes as the Jewish commentator David Stern would verify and also confirms that God is plural yet unified!
Also Mark records that we should love God with our heart, soul, mind and strength, whilst Matthew listed heart, soul and mind.
Finally Luke writes about the question Jesus asks the Lawyer (expert in the law)
'So he answered and said, You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbour as yourself. And He said to him, You have answered rightly; do this and you will live. But he wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus, And who is my neighbour?' (Luke 10v27-29)
Who is my neighbour?
Jesus then told the lawyer about the priest and the Levite who walked past the wounded man who was left half dead and it was the Samaritan that took good care of him and was willing to cover his costs. Jesus told him to go and do likewise and so should we. It goes back to Cain and Abel. Where is Abel your brother? I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper? If we are still not sure of who our neighbour is Mathew 25 is quite clear that when we feed the hungry, clothe the naked and visit the sick in prison we are doing that for His glory also.
The conclusion of the matter.. What is love?
'In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.' (1 John 4v10)
'Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends.' (John 15v13)
Amen! |
