The Law is the Law – Or Is It?
The Greatest Commandments
Deuteronomy 6:4-9, 10:12-13, 11:13-15, 13:1-4, 30:6, Joshua 22:5-6, The First and Greatest Commandment: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." ( 8/13/18)
Two or three times a year, some reader will write and say, "My pastor just preached on this scripture!" To save 50 readers from St. John’s the trouble of writing to me, I’ll just say it for us all: "My pastor just preached on this scripture!" Neither Pastor Pam nor I knew what the other was doing this week.
Deuteronomy 6:4 is called the "Shema" (pronounced "shma"), because in Hebrew it begins, "Shema Israel" – "Hear, Israel!" The central doctrine of Judaism is that there is only one God, in contrast to the beliefs of all the pagan nations surrounding the Israelites. The Shema is recited at least twice a day as part of the prayer services of all observant Jews.
That’s nice, but what are we supposed to do about it? Moses goes on to tell us: "You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might." There’s only one God, and that’s the one we need to devote our all to.
Matthew 22:23-32; Mark 12:28-30, The First and Greatest Commandment: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." (8/14/18)
The Sadducees were a sect of Jews drawn mostly from priestly or wealthy families. They rejected the prophets, the writings, and the oral traditions that were accepted as scriptural by the scribes, Pharisees, and most rabbis. This means that they only accepted the first five books of the Bible as we know it today, Genesis through Deuteronomy. One day, in an effort to discredit Jesus with everyone, they asked him about Deuteronomy 25:5-6, which requires the brother of a married man who dies without children to marry the widow and raise a son for the deceased brother. Their argument tried to produce a paradox: "Whose wife would a women be after this so-called ‘resurrection,’ if she married
seven brothers?" Jesus defeats them in the debate using a book they
do accept – but apparently haven’t read for themselves – by quoting from Exodus 3:6.
Hearing his excellent arguments, a scribe asks him, possibly just for information and not to trap him, "What is the greatest commandment?" Remember that there were hundreds of commandments, as we’ve seen earlier in this study. Jesus answers that the greatest commandment is to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.
Leviticus 19:13-18, The Second is Like Unto It: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." (8/15/18)
Back when I was in grad school, we paleontology grad students somehow got into a discussion of why some foods are kosher and others are not. Our Jewish fellow student finally said that the only reason for refraining from some foods is that "God said so." We’ve seen over the years in this study that that is the reason for quite a few of the rules.
God said to love your neighbor and gave some specific examples. Loving your neighbor doesn’t mean having a warm fuzzy feeling toward him; it means to treat him right. The only reason given is that "I am the LORD." Loving our neighbor doesn’t depend on the neighbor; it depends on our status as people belonging to God.
Matthew 22:39-40, 19:18-19; Mark 12:31-34; James 2:8-13; Romans 13:8-10, The Second is Like Unto It: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." (8/16/18)
Now, you know that I tell you over and over again, "Love God; love your neighbor." If you love God and your neighbor, you will not have to worry about breaking any of the commandments. This idea is not original with me. As we’ve seen, these commandments go back to the Law of Moses. They were laid down again by Jesus and repeated by James and Paul. No doubt you’ll hear them again from me sometime.
Luke 10:27-37, The Second is Like Unto It: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." (8/17/18)
A few months back, Pastor John pointed out that Jesus told the Parable of the Good Samaritan in response to the question, "What shall I do to inherit eternal life?" I had never noticed that! Obviously Jesus is
serious about the importance of loving your neighbor!
Well naturally, that raises the question, "Who is my neighbor?" (The implication is that I certainly wouldn’t want to love anybody that I’m not
required to love!) Jesus answers that your neighbor is anybody you happen to run across who needs some love, and I doubt that that leaves anybody out.
This is the end of our study of the Law in the Old and New Testaments. It took us a long time, and we learned that there are way more commandments than we can remember. Fortunately, this is all we really have to remember:
Love God; love your neighbor.
More on the Law
Jesus on the Law, Nazirites, Dietary Law
Signs & Symbols, Civil Law, and Mixtures
Times and Seasons
Sacrifices and Offerings, Priests, and Firstborn
The Ten Commandments, 1 - 3
The Ten Commandments, 4 - 10
The Greatest Commandments
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