A Fresh Perspective

The question of the scribe is not unusual at all. It is the kind of question typical of the kind of things that the teachers of the law discussed and debated in those days. They had come to a consensus that there were 613 commands in the Torah (the law), so naturally they would try to find some way to summarize them or get to the essence and core of the law. Here the scribe is inquiring as to which of the commands is the chief command, the most important command that takes priority over all the others. It’s a legitimate question. In response Jesus first references the opening words of the Shema, known as such by the first word of the Hebrew text of Deut. 6:4. It is a call to complete devotion to Yahweh – to love God completely with one’s total being. That Jesus appeals to this commandment would have been a surprise to no one. It was recited by faithful Jews daily. Now, what would have been a surprise is what Jesus says next. Jesus refers to a second command found in Lev. 19:18 – ...

These two commands on which hang all the law and the prophets are inseparably connected. In fact, to love one’s neighbor as one’s self is to love God, because God is in the neighbor. We are all God’s offspring. We all bear God’s image, no matter how imperfect or marred that image in us is, and we all are alive because God’s Spirit gives us life. Imagine how it grieves God when God suffers God’s children hating and devouring one another. The writer of 1 John puts it this way, “Those who say, ‘I love God,’ and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.” So we cannot sever these two commands. They go hand-in-hand. The power of love is the power of God. It is the power of the Holy Spirit. And there is no greater transforming power in the universe. I love that scene in the mov...

Paul gives a number of admonitions all under the heading, “Let love be genuine.” Everything that follows from that opening statement is a description of what genuine love looks like. In the second paragragh beginning in v.14 Paul focuses on how we should respond to violence, echoing the teaching of Jesus about loving our enemies. Jesus’ teaching on the subject can be found in Matthew 5 and its parallel version in Luke 6. Paul, of course, is not quoting either Matthew or Luke, because Matthew and Luke were not written until two or three decades after Paul wrote his letters. Other than maybe the book of James, Paul’s letters are the earliest New Testament documents we have, most likely written in the 50’s of the C.E. So Paul would not have had access to the written Gospels. However, he would have had access to the teachings of Jesus and the stories about Jesus that had been circulating in the oral tradition, that is, teachings and stories that were being told and retold and passed on by...

This teaching on love gets to the heart and soul of God’s will for humanity. Everything else is secondary. I wonder how so many Christians over the years have missed this. I wonder how I did for a significant part of my life and ministry. Matthew’s version of the teaching on love says, “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” In other words, these two commandments – to love God with the totality of our being and to love our neighbor as ourselves – constitute the goal and fulfillment of healthy religion and what God longs to see in human relationships and society. Jesus is saying that everything that was good about the Torah and the writings of the classical Hebrew prophets pointed to this ultimate goal, namely, to teach us how to love. (That doesn’t mean, by the way, that everything in the law and the prophets teaches us how to love. Not everything in those writings are helpful in this regard. To assume they are is the fallacy of biblical inerrancy. What Je...

Jesus says that the heart of true faith and religion is to love God with the totality of one’s being and to love one’s neighbor as one’s self (Mark 12:28-34). Jesus clearly models and embodies what this kind of love looks like. This is why he is drawn to the poor, the marginalized, and the disadvantaged. This is why he constantly breaks down barriers and boundaries that exclude people from God’s acceptance and grace. This is why he brings to bear on his own religious tradition a rigorous prophetic critique, even though it leads to his death. Mark’s version of Jesus’ response to the question of which commandment is the most important emphasizes that love of God and love of neighbor is “more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices” (12:33). Burnt offerings and sacrifices were a vital part of temple worship. But according to Jesus, there is something far more important. Burnt offerings and sacrifices were a vital part of temple religion. But there was something ...