A scribe asked Jesus which commandment was the most important? Jesus answered, “The most important is “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: You shall love your neighbour as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these” Mark 12,29-31.
The scribes distinguished 613 commands in the Old Testament law, which in principle were equally binding. There were attempts to summarise the whole Law, to make life easier. A famous attempt was by the great Rabbi Hillel – d. ca. 10 A.D., and a near contemporary of Jesus. He was once challenged by a Gentile (a non-Jew): Make me a proselyte (a Gentile converting to Judaism) on condition that you teach me the whole Law while I stand on one foot. Hillel replied: “What you hate for yourself, do not do to your neighbour: this is the whole Law, the rest is commentary. Go and learn.”
In the verses from Mark quoted above, Jesus cites Deuteronomy 6,4-9 (the opening of the Shema), and Leviticus 19,18.
Hear O Israel: “The Lord our God, the Lord is one!”
Remember the first commandment in Exodus 20,3: You shall have no other God before me. The explanation of the first commandment that follows describes graven images. Since it is our fallen nature to create for ourselves idols, no-gods, to replace the one true God (see Romans 1,18-32), it is well that we remember as we come to him, that He alone is worthy all our worship.
“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.”
Heart, soul, mind and strength are not different parts of man, but different ways of thinking of the whole man in his relation to God. It is the whole man that is loved by God, and it is the devotion of the whole man which is claimed by God for himself!
“You shall love your neighbour as yourself”
Jesus gave a lawyer a great answer of course to the question: Who is my neighbour? (See Luke 10,25-30). I think that Jesus is saying here that love for God must express itself in love for neighbour, or we are on an ego-trip – claiming we love God, but truly only loving ourselves. This of course is in line with 1 John 4,20 (but it is really worth reading from v. 10).
I have committed this scripture to memory and use it when I worship God, and as a reminder of what is most important as I confess to being a Christian!
See also Romans 13,8-10 and Galatians 5,14 and James 2,8
