What is the Greatest Commandment? Matthew 22:34-46
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Intro
Intro
Today is the Superbowl
It has become a day more about gathering than the event itself
Think about it
What are we going to eat?
How entertaining are the commercials
Who’s performing at halftime?
We don’t just gather for the game, we gather to be with others
Tuesday is Valentines day
Let this serve as a public service announcement
It is estimated that people will spend $29 billion
That is why Hallmark can have it own channel of cheesy movies
Someone has said that love may not make the world go around but it makes the trip worthwhile.
Someone has said that love may not make the world go around but it makes the trip worthwhile.
In whatever age or with whatever group of people, it has been the almost universal belief that love is the greatest thing in life
God’s Word concurs that love is the greatest virtue, but the love which it elevates as supreme is of a much deeper and more substantive kind than that which the world understands and admires.
Today we are going to talk about the greatest commandment in the Bible
Jesus actually shares the top two commandments
Jesus takes the 10 commandments and compresses them down to two
Love God and Love Others
Jesus declared that agapē love is the supreme divine requirement of men, both in regard to Himself and in regard to other men.
Read Matthew 22:34-40
Read Matthew 22:34-40
Transition
The law was very important to the Pharisees
Over the years, the rabbis had supposedly determined that, just as there were 613 separate letters in the Hebrew text of the Decalogue, or Ten Commandments
In the book of Numbers, there were also 613 separate laws in the Pentateuch, the five books of Moses.
Letterism, as it is sometimes called, was extremely popular and was considered to be a valuable exegetical tool for interpreting Scripture.
The rabbis had divided those 613 laws into affirmative and negative groups
There were 248 affirmative laws, one for every part of the human body, as they supposed
There were also 365 negative laws, one for each day of the year.
The rabbis and scribes spent countless hours proudly debating the merits of their particular divisions and the ranking of laws
Jesus’ teaching of Scripture was so utterly contrary to theirs the Pharisees were convinced that He must be teaching a message He considered to be greater than that of Moses.
They assumed that His naming the one great commandment in the Law would be sufficient enough to condemn Him.
Instead Jesus silences them for good by upholding the law and condensing it into two nuggets
I. The Greatest Commandment vs. 34-40
I. The Greatest Commandment vs. 34-40
What is the greatest commandment?
It is to love the Lord God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength
vs. 36-38 Love the Lord
vs. 36-38 Love the Lord
When the Pharisees heard about Jesus silencing the Sadducees, they decided to have another try themselves at entrapping Him, this time directly by one of their own number rather than through their less capable disciples
The particular one of them that they chose to confront Jesus was a lawyer.
The man was a scribe but was called a lawyer by Matthew to indicate his unusual expertise in the Mosaic law
This lawyer, however, also seems to have been a cut above his fellow religious leaders in honesty and humility
In his addressing Jesus as Teacher, the lawyer was probably not being scornful, as the previous questioners had been
he seems to have had respect for Jesus and may have felt somewhat guilty
Jesus responds w/o hesitation
His answer is in accordance with the law and tradition
Jesus quotes the Shema
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
Shema is Hebrew for hear
It’s named because it begins with Hear, O Israel
Jews would copy the Shema on small pieces of parchment and place them in phylacteries to wear on the forehead or left arms
They would also place them in Mezuzahs and attach them to doorposts
Agape Love
Agape Love
Aheb, the Hebrew word for love used in Deuteronomy 6:5, refers primarily to an act of mind and will, the determined care for the welfare of something or someone
It is the Hebrew equivalent of the Greek agapaō in the New Testament, the verb of intelligent, purposeful, and committed love that is an act of the will
Agape love is a higher form of love
Phileo is the brotherly love we feel for friends and family
Eros is the relationship love we feel for our spouse
Agape is the unconditional, self-sacrificing love that puts the other person first
We are first to Love God like that, then love our neighbor
The order is important
To love the Lord with all one’s heart, … soul, and … mind does not express separate and technical definitions of each element of human nature or a compartmentalizing of love into three or four categories, but rather connotes comprehensiveness.
We are to love the Lord our God with every part of our being
To the Hebrew heart referred to the core of one’s personal being
Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.
The term soul is closest to what we would call emotion
Mind corresponds to what is usually translated “might” in Deuteronomy 6:5.
The Hebrew term had a broad connotation and carried the general idea of moving ahead with energy and strength.
Mind is used here in the sense of intellectual, willful vigor and determination, carrying both the meaning of mental endeavor and of strength.
Genuine love of the Lord is intelligent, feeling, willing, and serving
The Ten Commandments themselves make clear that love for and obedience to God are inseparable.
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
Why do we love the Lord?
Because He first loved us
When we were still sinners God loved us
Our love for him is in response to what He has done for us
God needs to be the object of our affection
Love does not look at itself—it is absorbed in the object of its love.
David Martyn Lloyd-Jones
There isn’t a part of our life where we hold back that love
The person who truly loves the Lord with all his heart and soul and mind is the person who trusts Him and obeys Him.
That person demonstrates his love by
meditating on God’s glory
trusting in God’s divine power
seeking fellowship with God
loving what God loves
loving whom God loves
vs. 39-40 Love Your Neighbor
vs. 39-40 Love Your Neighbor
After stating the first and greatest commandment, Jesus did the Pharisees one better and added the second as well: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
The Pharisees had no genuine love for God, neither did they have genuine love even for their Jewish neighbor
The word neighbor in the OT meant any fellow Israelite or member of the covenant
Jesus increases that to include anyone you come in contact with
You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.
Genuine love for one’s neighbor is of the same kind as genuine love for God.
It is by choice purposeful, intentional, and active, not merely sentimental and emotional
For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Contrary to some contemporary interpretations of this passage, Jesus was not commanding that a person love himself but assumed he already does love himself.
You express that love by being patient and kind
The best part of this love is that you don’t have to manufacture it
and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
The Holy Spirit pours this love into our hearts
If you aren’t feeling too loving you can ask the Spirit to refill your heart
By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.
But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?
II. The Son of David vs. 41-46
II. The Son of David vs. 41-46
vs. 41-42
vs. 43-44
vs. 45-46
Closing: Communion