The Brother Cousins

Author: Jeffrey Wells

Have you ever wondered what the most important command from God is? What do you think it is? I want you to try to clear your mind of what you may know about Jesus’ answer to this question, and think about your understanding of the Bible as a whole, what would you think the greatest commandment is? Would it be one of the 10 commandments? To keep the Sabbath holy? To have no other god before the Almighty God? To sacrifice animals to God? What about in the New Testament? To be baptized? To assemble on Sundays? To partake of the Lord’s Supper?

Now I want you to consider Jesus’ response when He was asked that question:

²⁸ Then one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, perceiving that He had answered them well, asked Him, “Which is the first commandment of all?”²⁹ Jesus answered him, “The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. ³⁰ 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. ³¹ And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”³² So the scribe said to Him, “Well said, Teacher. You have spoken the truth, for there is one God, and there is no other but He. ³³ And to love Him with all the heart, with all the understanding, with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself, is more than all the whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.”³⁴ Now when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, He said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”

(Mark 12:28-34 NKJV)

This question was meant to be a difficult question to test Jesus and show others that Jesus was not as wise as people thought Him to be. The Pharisees wanted to discredit Him to neutralize Him as a threat to their religious assumed authority and influence.

Based on historical information I found, the Pharisees debated the importance of one command in comparison to others often. As a result they had developed a rhetoric of some commands being weightier than others and the thought process that if someone could obey the weightier matters of the law, then that made you more righteous before God than if you only obeyed the less weighty matters.

This shows a shallow and sterile understanding of God and the law. These thoughts caused them to miss their own sinfulness and miss the fact they needed a Savior. It also made them miss the central theme of the Scriptures (the law and the prophets) which they knew and followed. Simply put, their legalism made them miss the purpose of the law and what it meant to be the people of God.

So what was Jesus’ answer when they asked Him this difficult question? Jesus frames His answer by quoting Deuteronomy 6:3-5. This reference carried the context of God’s divine nature, that He was the only true God, and that Israel had a special covenant with Him.

The actual answer is profound. To love your God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength. This is a very personal command. It specifically says, “your God”. He defines the mode or action of the command, He uses the Greek word agapaō (love), which is an ever-enduring love that does not fail. It is a love that chooses the best interest of others, over self. This will be talked about in more detail next week. Finally, He defines the parameters, with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

<Insert what this means?> The heart refers to the central theme of a person, it everything about who we are and what we do. If we love God with all of our heart, everything we do will flow out because we love God. The soul refers to our life. Sometimes the term soul is used to refer to the physical life. This would indicate that you love God with all of your physical life. It means a total commitment of your life to loving God. The mind refers to our ideas, perspectives, viewpoints, opinions—the way we view and understand life. To love God with all of our minds would mean to make our thought processes and ideas align with the central theme of loving God. We are not to lean on our own understanding but, but rather trust in God to lead your understanding. Finally, the strength refers to our abilities, talents, gifts, and efforts. All of these are to be devoted completely to God for His glory. When you put all of these together, there is nothing left of our entire being that is not devoted to loving God. I believe this is the point. To love God with absolutely everything we have and who we are, holding nothing back.

Although Jesus was only asked about the greatest command, He also includes in His answer the second greatest command—”to love your neighbor as yourself”. We need to realize that this is a radical command. This cuts to the heart of most people’s biggest problem, exposes it, and gives us a solution to it. The other aspect of this is that to truly be able to fulfill this command, it is implied that we are fulfilling the greatest command. In fact, following the greatest command should actually make it easier to follow the second command.  This command cuts to the heart of most people’s biggest problem, pride and ego-centrism. We love ourselves and have an inborn, deep love for ourselves. This is why we make sure that our “selves” are taken care of, why we pursue happiness, why we want satisfaction in our lives. It is why want a place to live, food, for friends to like you and spend time with you. This is all self-love.

Please notice that Jesus does not command that we love ourselves. That is assumed that it is already happening. We love ourselves. We have an inborn, deep love for ourselves. We want what is best for us and use any means necessary to make sure our “selves” are fulfilled or taken care of. The radical command from Jesus, is to love your neighbor just like you love yourself. What you are willing to do for yourself to make that happen, be willing to do for your neighbor. This means the same energy, same passion, creativity, persistence, that you would for yourself. 

With this command, Jesus is essentially telling us to transform ourselves from self-seeking people to self-giving people. That is self-threatening and almost overwhelming when you think about it. At first thought it would seem that if we are going to take Jesus’ command seriously then we would be loving our neighbors INSTEAD of ourselves because all of our energy will be put towards them. The fear then is that if we truly follow Jesus in this way, and really devote ourselves to this then “ME” will never get my chance because all of my passion, creativity, etc will be go towards my neighbor. It is a daunting command that almost seems impossible. I believe that is exactly the threat Jesus wants us to feel so we will understand why the first commandment is the GREATEST commandment.

The first command is not the greatest because following it makes us more righteous, but because it helps us in following all of the others. Our obedience to the second command hinges on the our ability to follow the first. If we truly follow the first command, then it takes away the threat of letting the second steal your own happiness. If we truly love God with everything we are and have, including our understanding, then God’s Word will shape our minds and actions to match His. If our happiness (a state of mind) is based in following God, when we follow Him by loving others as we love ourselves, our happiness will be present.

I can understand the question needing clarification, if all of our love is aimed at God, does that mean we won’t have any left? No, on the contrary, our love will be able to grow and include our neighbor in the same way. It is similar to the way our love grows each time we have a new child. You do not have to take some of your love from the first child and give it to the second, or third. Your ability to love grows. What you will find is that this is not a self-cancelling love but a fulfilling and transforming love that continues to grow and flow from our love for God. This allows us to love God, love your selves, and love our neighbors just like we love ourselves.

The final part of this text I would like to examine is the idea presented in Mark 12:31 and Matthew 22:40. The first says, “There is NO other commandments great than these.” The latter says, “On these two commandments hang all of the law and prophets”. Jesus didn’t have to include these statements; so why did He and what did He mean? I believe Jesus id putting as much emphasis on these two commands as possible and likely wants us to stop and reflect on why they are so important.

Whether right or not, I want to try and describe the vision in my head when I read this:

We have the entirety (from the beginning until now) of God’s dealing with man recorded in scripture. This story describes God’s interaction man through the ages, His plan for and with man. Now envision this entire story in a scroll. This scroll is here with us and connected to it is a chain and the scroll is suspended from it. Envision that the other ends of the chain are connected to the eternal throne of God. One chain is labeled “You shall love your God with all of your…”. The other chain is labeled, “Love your neighbor as yourself”. Now imagine Jesus watching at you try to figure all of this out and He whispers in your ear, “The whole scroll, the whole Law and the Prophets, the whole history of redemption and all my Father’s plans and acts hang on these two great purposes of God—that He be loved by his people, and that His people love each other.” And we are left to draw the conclusion, that this love is the origin and the goal of the entire Law and the Prophets.

This is my understanding of why these commands are so important. These very principles give us the intention of God’s entire communication and interaction with man.

As we transition to our thinking about application of these great commands, I want to consider what is said after Jesus’s answer in Mark 12.

And the scribe said unto him, Well, Master, thou hast said the truth: for there is one God; and there is none other but he: And to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbour as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices

(Mark 12:32-33 NKJV)

Think about this, the person who was sent to ask this question, agrees with Jesus. He said, you speak the truth and in fact says that these two commands are more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. The is huge coming from someone who is part of a group who places great emphasis on sacrificing burnt offerings.

Then Jesus said,

“Thou art not far from the kingdom of God.”

(Mark 12:34 NKJV)

Jesus reveals that because this man understood that these two commands are superior to the sacrificial proceedings and burnt offerings, he is close to the Kingdom of God. There are multiple instances written in the New Testament of the Bible which indicate that the Kingdom of God on earth is the Church of Jesus Christ. For the sake of brevity, I will assume we share that understanding. Jesus essentially tells this man, that if he understands the law and prophets to that extent, he is very close to understanding the big picture which leads to the Church after Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection. If the entire law and prophets hang from these principles, it is likely the Church continues on with that purpose and from those motives. The Church is a continuation of the entire story line which hangs from these commands. I conclude that if we are to live in the Kingdom we need to 1) have a good understanding of these commands and their importance, and 2) be able to live by them. Otherwise, we don’t have a good understanding of what it looks like to live in the Kingdom of God.

Finally, I want to introduce a concept for you to consider. This concept is a lens to look through. What do you think would happen if we were to look at every command in the Bible and every interaction with others through the lens of loving God and loving your neighbor? Would it change your understanding of scriptural commands? Would it change the way you interact with others? It has mine. This is now a filter I use to understand principles within the Bible and interaction with others. It has helped me improve my understanding of what is most important in terms of my obedience to God. It has become clear, in my mind, that if the way you interpret a command from God, makes it so that you cannot love others—you are missing the point. If the way you interpret a command keeps you from seeing God’s love for mankind—you are missing the point. Our interaction and relationship with God hinge on love. He showed us what true love is and does. Now we love Him in return with all of our being. Then that love for Him helps change the way that we love others.

This lens concept has helped me navigate through the pandemic. In the struggles I have had with certain commands and in the struggles I have had with my neighbors. I hope it helps you as we move forward together learning how to love. Next week another author will write about the definition of love and the implications for our behavior.