THE
GREATEST COMMANDMENT
28And one of the
scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he
answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of
all?” 29Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our
God, the Lord is one. 30And 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.’ 31The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
There is no other commandment greater than these.” 32And the scribe said to
him, “You are right, Teacher. You have truly said that he is one, and there is
no other besides him. 33And to love him with all the heart and with all the
understanding and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself,
is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” 34And when Jesus
saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom
of God.” And after that no one dared to ask him any more questions.
MARK
12:28-34
COMMENTARY
That day, a
Scribe, a man who dedicated his life to copy the Tanakh by hand, again and
again, and who as a consequence had a deep patience, devotion and knowledge of
the Torah, having witnessed the knowledge of Lord Jesus and deep wisdom, came
to ask Him a philosophical rather than a theological question:
“Which
Commandment is the Greatest”?
That was a
simple question, a single question. Which of the 613 precepts Moses left in the
Torah, was the greatest in importance?
But being a
simple question, it had not an easy answer.
All commandments
in the Torah were compulsory, and all had divine sanction. All of them were
equally important, if we try to please God by doing his will. The issue, was to
be able to analyze and select one of them, who was supposed to be the most
important one, maybe because it dealt with the core of God-Man relationship,
from where all other commandments departed. So, our Lord Jesus answered the
honest question of the Scribe, and said that:
“The Lord, your
GOD is ONE; and You shall love God with all our heart, soul, mind and
strength”
Quoting
Deuteronomy 6:4-5; saying that that was the ‘most important’ of all the
commandments.
We need to
notice that neither Lord Jesus, or the Scribe quoted the Torah command
textually.
Jesus adds the
term ‘Διανοίας’ (Mind), to the terms used in Deuteronomy: “Heart, Soul and Strength”.
The Scribe
however, quoted Deuteronomy 6:4-5, but not exactly as it is textually expressed
in the Torah. He exchanged the word ‘Διανοίας’ (Mind), for ‘Συνέσεως’ (Intellect),
but still, with similar three faculties instead of four as Jesus said it. But
none of them quotes textually Deuteronomy 6:5; neither in the original Hebrew
version, or the Septuagint version, which reads to love God “with all your
mind, soul and strength”.
This proves that
translations do not matter to God, regardless of the zeal the Scribes had for
copying the Torah word by word.
The important
part of Scripture is the message, not the translation.
GOD is Spirit,
and He speaks in concepts. That is why He speaks through symbolism, parables
and examples, in order to transmit concepts, not words.
Of course, God
also uses words, but behind the obvious meaning of the words, is the message or
concept to be transmitted. In this case, the words vary from Jesus, to Scribe
to text, but the meaning is obvious in all its forms:
“GOD IS ONE, and
we must love Him with our faculties and strength.”
That was the
message, not other, in any way it was expressed. In this occasion, in three
different manners. The Scribes and Copyist, took care in the words they used,
because they feared they meaning would change is they misunderstood a word. But
it was not the value of the word itself that was important, even though they
fell into legalism themselves, through corruption, later in history.
BUT JESUS did
not stop there.
He also added
another commandment, Leviticus 19:18, that commands everyone to “Love your
neighbor as yourself”.
With this, our
Lord JESUS wanted to leave clear the point that the Scribe captured: That those
two commands, enclosed the purpose of the whole Torah.
All Laws GOD
gave to Moses for Israel, were also given in principle to the whole human race,
since it was us, humanity, that God wanted to redeem and show us the righteous
path. So, all these commands were born from the two eternal principles that
gave birth to the whole Mosaic Law in principle. Our love for God, and the love
for our neighbor.
BUT we must
understand that lord JESUS said that these were the two main commandments, but
not the only ones.
It is said that
Augustine of Hippo, said “Love and do what you want”.
But this could
lead us to the wrong path.
By ‘loving’
without any further guidance, men commit fornication with women they love. They
commit adultery, divorces, homicides, child abandonment, genocides, wars and
other evil acts. Why? Because they love a woman, another partner apart from
their own, they love a someone more than their own children, or claim revenge
for abused loved ones, or even for the honor of the country they love.
We need more
than just ‘Love’ to act correctly. We need God’s express guidance.
Jesus never said
that to acknowledge God as Supreme and love one another was all we needed.
Simply said that these were the greatest commands, but never the only ones.
The love and
submission due to GOD as the Supreme Entity, and the love for one another, are
the basis of all our existence. We must worship and live under our Creator, and
live a life of love for other people. BUT, also part of loving God is doing his
will, and part of loving one another, is to perform the will of God towards
others, the way He wants it.
Without major
explanation, the Scribed admitted the wisdom of the Lord. And because of this,
he left evident that he was a righteous person, and so our Lord Jesus said that
he was ‘not far from the kingdom of God’.
All this
righteous Jewish man needed to do now, was to accept Jesus as his Messiah, Lord
and Redeemer; and that way, ‘enter the Kingdom of God’.
Omar Flores.
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