The Greatest

Hello everyone.

I am continuing my study of Matthew.  I saw this recently in Matthew 22.  An expert in the law asked Jesus, "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment of the Law?" (22:36).  We are all familiar with the reply.  Jesus answered: "'Love the Lord your God with all you heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest command.  And the second is like it:  'Love your neighbor as yourself."  All the Law and the Prophets hand on these two commandments." (22:37-40)  I want to focus on the last part of this statement, that all of the Law and Prophets hang on those two commands.

OK, first we can obviously see that both of the these two commands are about love.  The first one is about our love for God, and the second is about our love for other people.  These two things are inseparable.  But what Jesus is telling us here is not love love is important, but that it is absolutely necessary.  Imagine love were a nail that has been driven into a wall. If all of the Law and the Prophets, (not part,but all) hang on that nail, what happens if you pull the nail out.  The Law and the Prophets fall, don't they?  Without love, true Christianity falls apart.

Paul echoes this thought in I Cor. 13:1-3, "If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing."  Without love, we are at best, nothing, and more likely, some annoying noisemaker, whose sound slowly diminishes into nothing.  It is sad that in our modern world, so many people who claim to be Christians, are such hate rather than love. Instead, we are called to love people the way we love ourselves.

In my experience, loving people can be hard.  I mean, some people are easy to love, but many other people are not. But the call of Jesus and true Christianity is to love them any way. Imagine how different the world would be if everyone followed these two greatest commands.

Tom