|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
One of the teachers of religious law was standing there listening to the debate. He realized that Jesus had answered well, so he asked, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” (Mark 12:28, NLT)
At the time of Jesus, scholastic consensus held that the Law and the Prophets (the Jewish term for our Old Testament) contained 613 commandments. In Mark 12, Jesus was being asked by a religious teacher to name the most important.
It was a setup, as the Jewish rabbis debated this question endlessly. According to the answer Jesus gave, He would be labeled as a Pharisee, Sadducee, Zealot, or a member of one of the many other Jewish sects of the time.
Jesus said…
The most important commandment is this: ‘Listen, O Israel! The Lord our God is the one and only Lord. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’ The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ No other commandment is greater than these” (Mark 12:29-31).
Jesus didn’t pick a law about keeping the Sabbath, defending the nation against pagans, keeping marriage pure, or even one of the Ten Commandments. Instead, He answered by pulling two commandments from differing Old Testament passages — “love the Lord” from Deuteronomy 6:5 and “love your neighbor” from Leviticus 19:18.
It’s difficult to argue with love, and the scholar attempting to ensnare Jesus said, “Well said, Teacher, you have spoken the truth…” (Mark 12:32). A couple of notes:
- Jesus displayed His omniscient (knows everything) understanding of Scripture by instantaneously pulling two commands from 613.
- If that teacher of the law gets to heaven, I will chuckle when I meet him and say, “So here’s the scholar who told God, ‘Well said,’ or ‘Good answer.’”
Let’s understand the theological importance of the “love God” and “love your neighbor” summary of the entire law. Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount that He did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it (Matthew 5:17), so if He summarizes the Old Testament, He also summarizes the New Testament.
The ultimate purpose of all teaching in both the Old and New Testaments is to love God and others. I have often said the purpose of Christianity is “integrity relationships” — between man and God, man and others, and man and self…
Which makes sense, as we are made in the image of God, or as the ultimate relationship of Father, Son, and Spirit, we are created for relationships. And since it’s our nature to be relational, we will be content and fulfilled according to the quality of those relationships. If our relationships are good, we will be happy; if they are bad, we will be miserable.
There’s great theology in the Bible about ethics, rules by which to live, teaching on the end times, and the philosophy that undergirds Western society — but none of it exists as the ultimate purpose of Christianity. We can be Baptists, Christian nationalists, liberals, Lutherans, and Charismatics — but if we don’t love, as Paul, echoing Jesus, writes…
If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing (1 Corinthians 13:2).
Amen!
Amen!