The Greatest Commandment: Love in Action

You're listening to the Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk

about the Bible in fun, in practical ways. Hey, everybody, welcome

to the Bible Guys. He is Jeff and I'm his companion, Chris,

my faithful companion. Yes, hey, y like a dog, Yes,

so Chris. Today we are talking about the Greatest Commandment, which is this

is one of my favorite passages. Yes, it really summarizes what God's expectations

for us as humans are. The there's a lot of verses in the Bible.

I don't know if you knew that. Yeah, didn't know that,

So so it's hard to go, Hey, what exactly does he want?

So Jesus goes ahead and solves that today. But before that, before we

get into that, we're going to do with this or that, this or

that? Yes, would you rather? It's the jingle for this or this

or that? How about that? Yeah? The little sound, little sound?

This is Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday? So which would you rather do?

Okay? Okay, sorry, So we're gonna read a question and then

you and I are going to pick this or that? Yes, you ready?

Which one would you rather do? Yeah? I'll do the first one,

would you rather kill a lion with your bare hands or be swallowed by

a giant fish and be spit back out? Oh? So this is this

is actually referring to two Old Testament stories. Okay, y, yeah,

so we get Samson killing a lion with his bare hands and then Jonah who

gets swallow by fish and gets spit back out. That's correct. So what

would you rather do? Well, goods, gracious, kill a lion.

I'd rather kill a lion. Yeah, yeah, but that that assumes that

I'm Samson though, right, No, it's it's acting you specifically, chris

Ball. Chris Ball. Would Chris Ball rather kill a lion with your bands

or be swallowed by a giant fish bit back out? Well, I'd still

pick the lion. Yeah yeah, And because it already says we killed it.

So if it said, would you rather fight a lion with your bare

hands and or try to kill a lion may or may not die, that's

right. Whereas being swallowed by a fish and getting spit back out. So

because it does the future, we know there's a victory in there, right,

that's right, that's right. Yeah, So I guess I'd rather do

that. Fight the lion, and honestly it makes way better story and only

that, but like, yeah right, hey, hey, once upon a

time I get small by fish and they can spit out with vomit on the

shore. No, here's the reason why. I also because I am afraid

of drowning. Really yeah, sort of. Yeah, I think most people

are. Yeah, so I mean the idea of being in a fish's belly

and the fish is underwater. Yeah, there's a thing called I saw that

Pinocchio cartoon. He's just sitting in the little fire. It's fine, Yeah,

he's fine. He builds it, builds a fire. Fine, of

course, not to mention that. Not to mention it. He didn't need

oxygen, Jeff, because he was Are you saying he wasn't a real boy

at the time he was? Would? Okay? So okay, next one,

would you rather have two bears as bodyguards or have the ability to control

the weather? What? They don't even go together? That's a tough one.

What would you rather have two bears guard bodyguards control the weather? No?

These are just random you're trying to make sense of the unsensible. Well,

I mean I was thinking Brother Bear and Storm from X Men. Okay,

So which would you rather be or half? I would honestly, I'd

rather control the weather. Me too, Yeah, why would you not want

that? Ability? Control the weather? Two bears as bodyguards is cool though,

I mean talking about an entrance. Yeah, married in a hurricane?

You know I'm talking about Nope, are you telling this story or am I?

Come on, we don't talk about brous Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,

yeah, there you go. I've seen that like twice so well,

you know we've we've only watched it a million time. And she controls the

weather. Yeah, and that song is work a pizza or something, by

the way it gets in your head. Yeah, okay. Would you rather

heal someone who is blind or have the ability to multiply food? Oh?

It says someone meaning only one time? I guess right. But having the

ability to multiply food seems perpetual to me, right, because it says I

think you're reading a lot into that. Hey, I'm literal. This is

a question that I need to consider it. Yeah, okay, it's asking

it's significant. Yes, it says heal someone meaning a one time miracle or

perpetual miracles? What every person you run into this blind is someone? No?

Yes, they are no they are someone. No, it says,

would you rather heal the person who is? Heal someone? It doesn't say

heal a person who is blind? Yes, it does. Every person is

exactly every person you meet is someone. No, it would be someone's No.

I think it's the other way, But go ahead. It's what would

you choose? I would choose perpetual miracles? Would I would feed? I

would solve the world hunger problem? Yeah, yeah, that's what I would

do. I would heal somebody who's blind, and then every one I came

up, Then you're done. Every summer, one time someone blind, then

you're done. All right, Well, way to go, wait to settle

for the one miracle. Jeff, that's not what I said. That's not

what it is you're saying. You you are imposing a meaning on that note.

It's not meant. It reads go ahead. Number four? Would you

wraps? By the way, that's so funny. We're going to fight about

this. You would you rather have the ability perpetual to walk on water or

have the ability to teleport? See that's proof that the previous question is a

one time miracle. It's not. Yeah, because she would have said she

would have said the ability to heal somebody blind. So okay, let's let's

let's move on. Would you rather have the ability to walk on water,

which is cool, or the ability to teleport? I already know this answer.

Teleport, of course, that's a no brainer. Yeah, teleport.

I mean, can you imagine you've already you've already declared that like five times

on this show. No, it was just last week, last week.

Well, no, you've talked about teleportation before. Oh, in the past,

not having a fly anywhere? Remember, Yeah, yeah, yeah,

that's right, all right. Would you rather experience a plug of frogs or

a plug of flies? Oh? Now, this one's an interesting one because

this is not fun at all. No, this is gross. The other

the other ones were fun. Yeah, I would choose frogs. Yes,

I would definitely choose frogs, although I wonder how frogs can get as irritating

as flies, what walking and stepping on frogs. But you'd have to get

like a shovel, a shovel. Sure, you can shovel frogs, just

like you can't snow. We were driving through when I lived in Southeast Texas.

We lived right on the border. You never even questioned that. I

claimed that you can shovel frogs. Yeah you can. You can't. I

was gonna I was gonna say you can. So so, uh. We

lived in the swamp, that's where we lived. So we were right on

the border Louisiana and Texas and right up on the Gulf of Mexico. So

it's just all swamp and marsh and bayous and stuff. And in the spring,

we were driving, we drove over the Sabine Pass area and into Louisiana

and the road was just covered in frogs, just covered like the whole road

was jumping and so you just leave the skid marks all the way down the

road. It was. It was really gross, but it was it was

bad enough you could have shoveled them. Wow. Yeah wow. But I

would still choose frogs over flies. Yeah me too. Yeah. Flies can

get really irritating. It make it impossible to sleep, It makes it impossible

to live. Yes, it'd be terrible. So that's our time on that

segment. We need to move on. I'm glad because that's a gross one.

Matthew twenty two The Greatest Commandments. Yeah, this one only has just

a few verses, so we could have talked for five or six more minutes

about frogs and flies, it still be meaningful. Okay, So this is

Jesus is questioned by the religiously about the greatest commandment. Here's what it says.

In Matthew chapter twenty two, verse thirty four, it says, but

when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees with his reply, they

met together to question him again. One of them, an expert in religious

law, tried to trap him with this question, teacher, which is the

most important commandment in the law of Moses? And Jesus replied, you must

love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and

all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is

equally important, love your neighbor as yourself. The entire law and all the

demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments. And then in Mark

chapter twelve, it recounts the same story. Verse twenty eight. It says

one of the teachers of religious law was standing there listening to the debate,

and he realized that Jesus had answered well, So he asked, of all

the commandments, which is the most important. Jesus replied the most important commandment

is this. Listen, o Israel. The Lord our God is the one

and only Lord. You must love the Lord your God with all your heart,

all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength. The

second is equally important, love your name as yourself. No other commandment is

greater than these. The teacher of religious law replied, Well, said,

teacher, you've spoken the truth by saying that there's only one God and no

other. And I know it's important to love him with all my heart and

with all my understanding and all my strength, and to love my neighbor as

myself. This is more important to offer than to offer all the burnt offerings

and sacrifices required in the law. Realizing how much the man understood, Jesus

said to him, you are not far from the Kingdom of God. And

after that, no one dared ask him any more questions. There's the no

one dared comment again. So the other one was none of the sadducees dared

ask him any more questions, and now none of the Pharisees dared ask him

any more questions. Right, that's what happened there. Yep. Yeah,

So when it says one of the teachers of the religious law and Mark.

And then at the beginning of Matthew twenty two, it says, but when

the pharisees heard that he had silence the saducees with his reply, they met

together the question and then it says one of them an expert in religious law.

So this is this is both of them are pharisees. That's what they're

referring to. That's correct, Yeah, yeah, yeah, so one of

them is kind of a lawyer, pharisee guy. Yeah, and uh and

by the way, uh, let me start off with this. There's a

lot of things to talk about. But the first one is is that I

would say the majority of people. I'm making this assumption, but I think

this is a safe assumption. I would say the majority of people, based

on my life experience, seem to think that these are these are two greatest

commandments, and they're they're listed in order of importance. They would say,

oh, the greatest commandment is love God, and then the second most important

commandment is to love one another as yourself, love your neighbors yourself. But

in both of these references, it says the second is equally important, equally

congruent, meaning it is exactly the same. In other words, the second

commandment isn't second in order of importance, it's secuit second sequentially. Right,

So he's saying that these are these are two equal commandments, which, by

the way, yeah, I think there's other trends. They only pushed on

that one to lit but there's other translations that say is life unto it?

Right, So so we might be over emphasizing the word equally here as as

opposed to what he's implying is their flip sides of the same coin. You

can't separate one from the other. Right, But but I can love people

and that's not the same as loving God. Well I know that for sure,

right, So so that's why he puts it in order. He does

say the second, yeap, second comes after first? Well, second sequentially

you can't. You can't blurt out two things at one time, right,

But both times he says it that way, I'm going to give you the

most important one, love God, and the second is this way. Yeah,

I would, I would put him sequentially. I think I think the

flip sides coin, you can't separate one, Yeah, I like I like

that phrase, you can't separate one or the other. Yeah, which is

what John tells us. Right, you can't claim to love God and hate

your brother, right, right, exactly right, right, which is why

I like that going together. And by the way, uh so, I

was I gonna say, I lost my I'm sorry, no, no,

I lost my thought. But I was gonna say, is oh, I'm

talking about the Law of Moses. So the Law of Moses. When he

says, which is the greatest commandment in the Law of Moses. A lot

of other misconceptions is that people think, perhaps that he's trying to summarize the

ten Commandments, but he's not. Right, he's summarizing all the law.

Yeah. So there's six hundred and thirteen precepts that were given in the Book

of Exodus, and so six hundred and thirteen laws. So when he talks

about the Law of Moses, that's what they're talking about. Did you know

that two hundred and forty eight of them were thou shouts and three hundred and

sixty five of them were Thou shout knots, which makes up six hundred and

thirteen precepts. And so by the way, that means there's more Thou shalt

knots than there, thou shouts, So yeah, so that really what he's

doing is is he's saying, these two commandments, summarize all six hundred and

thirteen precepts. And he says later on right here, he says, all

the law and the prophets hang on these two things. So think about every

single piece of scripture that they memorized. Think about how much scripture they have

memorized right now, So the people asking him those questions, you know,

it was customary back then for Jewish boys by the age of twelve to memorize

the entire Book of Moses, so you know, the Pentituk or the first

five books of Moses, right, the first five books of the Bible.

Can you imagine being twelve years old and being a good Jewish boy, being

raised that way and having memorized the Book of Leviticus, Yeah, all of

Genesis, all of Exodus, all of Numbers, all of Leviticus, all

of Deuteronomy. Can you imagine memorizing the Book of Numbers. Yeah, yeah,

Holy Christmas, that's a lot. That's amazing. And so what he's

saying is he's saying, everything you have memorized, it all hangs on these

two statements. That's amazing. So he quotes here Deuteronomy six' five love

God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And then

he quotes Leviticus nineteen eighteen, love your neighbor like you love yourself. Right,

so he's quoting script. Sure to answer, but this was a common

thing. You know, those of you that are a little bit of history

students, you know that the Romans had the forum, and the forum was

a place where all the smart people would sit around and just debate things.

They'd talk and they would explore things. Or the Greeks had the Areopagus near

the Parthenon there in Athens, and you know Socrates and Plato and Aristotle all

dear in their different ages. They would sit around and they would talk with

the other smart people, and they would challenge big ideas and they would think

big thoughts. Right, they didn't have television, they weren't playing around,

they weren't trying to smash fruit on their phones, right, all this dumb

stuff. So instead they use their brains, the smart ones, and they

would sit and just challenge thought, not in an angry way, but in

an open, fair debate. Right, that's what they would do. And

so the Pharisees. A big part of what the Pharisees did was they would

take the six hundred and thirteen laws and they would go, Okay, which

one's more important? And then they would just sit down and debate. You

know, when a donkey falls in a ditch and you see your neighbor,

you should help your neighbor pull out the donkey, right, versus the sacrifices

on this festival day, you should bring two doves in a goat, right,

and which one's more important? And they would they would weigh those things,

and it was literally the would you rather that we just did a minute

ago? Only they would do it over real heavy things, big things,

which is a bigger deal to God. And so this is a customary thing.

And by the way, it's interesting because he's a lawyer. Among the

Pharisees, he would have been extremely skilled at this. And so to come

rolling in on Jesus with the thing that he has spent his entire life doing

and has never heard Jesus do. Right, there's a moment where he's thinking

he's going to get the upper hand on Jesus, and Jesus comes and blows

everybody away. And this guy's delighted by his answer, right, and I

love that that Jesus. Jesus answer wins this guy over and none of that.

But he's so delighted that he says, uh, I know it is

important, and he gives spoken the truth. He's spoken the truth, and

then he adds to it, he has his own thought. He said,

this is more important than to offer all the burn offerings and sacrifices required.

But in the law, So think about how important that is. Right,

So he's he's referring to something similar to what where is it written where David

said, you don't desire my sacrifice, you don't desire my burn offerings?

But in Psalm fifty one right where he's and he says, uh, it's

more important. Uh. What does he say is more important than sacrifice?

What is it the verse? Something is more important than sacrifice. I don't

know. I'm not trying to quote it. Dagma, give me a second,

I'll get it. Remember, Yeah, yeah, But that's that's the

direction he's going here. There's other places in the minor prophets where God says

I would rather obedience give me. Obedience is better than sacience, better sacrifice,

meaning he wants your heart. Yeah, so that's in Uh, that

would be in the stories of David and Saul. Yeah, right, when

Samuel is fronting Saul king Saul and obedience is better than sacrifice. That would

be probably first, first or second Samuel. So the this phrase comes up

often where God goes, I would rather have your broken in contrite heart than

all the sacrifices, or Malachi talks about it. Different places talk about this,

this idea and so this this young leader, this this ruler. It

doesn't say he's young, but is amazed that Jesus explanation, love God with

all of you are all your mind, soul, body, and strength.

Is that what it says? It says, well, actually, with with

your heart, soul, mind and strength. So Matthew doesn't say strength,

and Mark adds the word strength, which, by the way, I've always

thought that because uh, you know, different versions they love Lord your God

with all your heart's soul in mind, and I never know whether I should

add the word strength. But I'm like, I know it's in there somewhere,

right, it's Mark, and this is actually but I know I've read

it right, And it's because Matthew for some reason doesn't include the word strength.

So it turns out that the Bible doesn't include every word Jesus said.

As a matter of fact, John ends with by saying, the world could

not contain the books if we tried to write everything that Jesus said and did.

Right, So you know, uh, what's not happening here is they're

not disagreeing. Mark just adds strength, which is appropriate. It makes sense.

So the the idea here, love God with all your heart. You

know. There there, that's the emotional side. That's that's where are you

are? Your heart right? Really, your your intelligence, your intellect,

all that stuff, all your soul. That that's the living portion of you.

We got a spirit. We have to worship him in spirit. Your

mind, that's your your intellect, your ability to reason working through those things.

And then your strength is is your body, how you live your life,

what you do, your abilities right, your accomplishments, your ability to

to the love your neighbor as yourself is a pretty easy one. Yeah,

well it's not easy. It's simple. It's simple. It's not easy,

which, by the way, I've always loved I had a good friend Jack,

who was a psychologist, and one of his famous sayings is he would

say, is he said, simple is not a synonym for easy, right,

So it may be simple, but it's not easy to do so,

and I think that overall, you know, this actually speaks into God's will

for our lives. So you know, for instance, we've mentioned this before.

But like sometimes God's will can be lateral. It could be like,

oh, does God want me to, you know, choose this city to

live in or this city to live in, and you pray and pray and

pray, and it's possible for God to say to you directly, I give

you a direct answer. You know, in your spirit, it's definitely clear

that this is choice a you know, but then sometimes you pray, pray,

pray, pray, and it's like it just seems like you don't have

a clear answer to where I would just say, God is giving you choice.

God's given you the green line of both things. And so therefore God's

will isn't determined by your city. God's will is determined by whether or not

you live. You're loving the Lord your God with all your heart, soul,

mind, and strength, and so you're in God's will in the city

doing that, or you're in God's will in this city doing that because this

is God's will for you. The greatest commandment is you know, is that

way? Right? So it's not terribly complex, right, right, but

yeah, you're right, it's not easy. So then making God your priority

and then making God's priority your priority. Right, so you make him your

priority. And then what is his priority his priority as people. So then

we make people our priority. When we do those two things, it fulfills

the law. This is you know, back when we were in school,

they had Cliff's Notes, Like if you had to write a book report,

you go out by cliff Notes. And I'm very familiar with cliffs Yeah,

and it would be an abbreviated version of the book. You can blow through

it in a few minutes and get the whole idea of the book right at

book report. You know, we use those before the internet. So now

on the internet, coulds just look up, hey, what's a good book

report? Now it's chat GPT that will write the book report for right.

Right. I was going to say, there are still Cliff's Notes on the

internet. Yeah, yeah, I discovered that in college. That was a

while ago, right, But so it's funny the basically that's what Jesus saying,

you want to summary, so loving God with all your soul, mind

and strength. That covers the first four or five commandments in the Ten Commandments,

right right, and then love people like you, love yourself, don't

steal, don't lie, don't kill, don't write, don't covet all those

things that that's the other side of that, and so really there are flip

sides of the same thing. So if you take the Ten Commandments, as

you know, cliff notes for the law, and then these two verses that

Jesus quotes out of dude, round me and livity, because really are Cliff's

notes for the ten Commandments, which are cliff notes for the whole law.

Right God, First, people are important to God, so they should be

important to you. You got to live right with them, right, And

that's the really what Jesus is trying to say. It really does simplify our

decision making. Is this decision honoring God? Is this decision going to benefit

others or hurt others? Right? That's it. That's awesome. Well,

that's a great place to end, and that is our time. So we

will see you next time on the Bible. Guys,