“What’s the greatest commandment?” the scribe asked Jesus. If we can live out our love in ways similar to his ways, then I think we are on the right track. How did he love God? How did he love people? We will know if we read the Gospels. How do we love God? How do we best love people? What do we need to do to express this love? Does love for God include going to church, reading Scripture, sitting in nature, etc.? Does love for people include meeting their needs, being their friend, holding them accountable, encouraging personal responsibility, etc.?Īs usual, I find that the best answer to these more complicated questions is to look at the life of Jesus.
Some would say this is too simple, or they might ask what it means. I’m not the first or the last to summarize the “greatest commandments” in this simple phrase: Love God and love people.
The scribe was basically asking Jesus to help him condense the overwhelming volume of instruction into something humanly possible.Īnd Jesus did just that. It makes sense, then, that someone would go up to Jesus and ask, “Which commandment is the first of all?” (v. Religious leaders added more and more explanations and expansions and clarifications to God’s words until it became nearly impossible to keep them all. And the original Ten Commandments God dictated to Moses weren’t clear enough for them.
For centuries before he lived and taught among human beings as a human being himself, worshipers of God had struggled to keep God’s commands. It’s like saying, “Case closed.”Īt the dawn of the Christian faith, people were trying to figure out exactly what it meant to follow Jesus. As one performer finished his rap or comedy sketch or speech, he’d drop the microphone as if to say, “You can’t top that.” Now the term is common enough that we may say “mic drop” after giving or hearing what we think is a particularly powerful and effective message. According to my findings after a Google search, the term “mic drop” originated in the 1980s when entertainers would try to better each other.
0 kommentar(er)
