The synoptic gospels (the ones not written by the apostle John) each record Jesus’ teaching about what is commonly called The Great Commandment. This four part instruction from the Lord forms a summary of the Ten Commandments given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai (cf. Exodus 20).
Matthew and Mark each give Jesus’ response to a question by one of the scribes regarding which is the greatest commandment:
“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
Matthew 22:36-40 ESV
And 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?” Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And 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.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:28-31).
Luke records the lawyer’s question this way, “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” to which Jesus responds …
“And he answered, ’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.’”
Luke 10:27 ESV
Jesus refers the religious leaders of his day to their most basic teaching—the Shema, a passage which every Israelite knew by heart. The Shema was committed to memory and recited daily during morning prayers. It was taken directly from Deuteronomy 6:4-5, “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.”
But Jesus added a bit of a twist to their understanding of the law of Moses by linking this commandment with the instruction to love your neighbor as yourself.
In Jesus’ eyes the two-fold command to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and to love your neighbor as yourself encapsulate the entire teachings of the Old Testament Pentateuch—the first five books of the Bible often called “The Law of Moses”—and the writings of all the Old Testament Prophets. Jesus’ statements, “On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 22:40) and “There is no other commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:31) highlight just how important it is for us to understand, believe, and apply the great commandment.
Over the next four (4) weeks, we will dive into each element of Jesus’ instruction in greater detail. This week we’re going to focus on two words: love and heart.
LOVING GOD AND OTHERS
Within the greatest commandment are two imperatives to love the Lord God and to love your neighbor. Love is the core of the instruction.
But what does it mean to love? We use that word rather loosely in our day. We say we love our spouse and children, but also say we love our local baseball team and mint chocolate chip ice cream. Has the word lost some of its meaning? I think so.
In our church on Maui, we spent a fair amount of time developing what we called viral definitions of certain important biblical words and concepts. Love was one we wanted every believer to understand and be able to communicate effectively. We defined love as “the ongoing, sacrificial pursuit of God’s best for another person, including God himself.” For more on this view of love, I refer you to Del Tackett’s excellent teaching from The Engagement Project (see www.deltackett.com).
Love is a choice stemming from knowledge and extending to action. God’s kind of love is ongoing, never ending, never wavering, never doubting, believing the best and working diligently to see it come to fruition. God’s kind of love is also sacrificial. It costs something. It’s not easy but it understands the value of the person it loves and will pay the price to make sure the very best is extended. God’s kind of love is grounded in truth, it doesn’t pretend, or excuse or live in false reality. But it overcomes the challenges that truth often presents and finds a way to communicate just how good is God’s truth and grace. The Apostle Paul writes on love extensively in 1 Corinthians 13. I suggest you take a couple of minutes to read that short chapter right now.
So, the greatest commandment is a commandment to love, to want, and to pursue God’s best. And the first part pertains to God himself. Do we really want God’s best for us in terms of our relationship with him? If so, we will have to understand what it means to love him with four aspects of our human self: heart, soul, mind and strength.
LOVING GOD WITH OUR HEARTS
I remember as a young boy, hearing the good news about Jesus in Sunday school and the teacher asking us if we wanted to ask Jesus into our hearts. To be honest, it was more than a little confusing. I understood enough anatomy to know that my heart was the muscle that pumped oxygen enriched blood through my body. I struggled to grasp how Jesus could fit in there and just what my heart had to do with my beliefs. I knew the teacher was speaking figuratively, but it wasn’t explained very well and for many of my fellow Sunday schoolers it didn’t make much of a difference.
It wasn’t until much later that someone took the time to explain what the Bible meant by heart. It’s an important word since it occurs over 600 times in the Old Testament and more than 200 in the New Testament. It’s also critical to discerning what Jesus meant when he gave the great commandment.
The New Testament word heart, kardia (Greek), is never used for the physical organ of our bodies. An overall synthesis of the biblical text produces a much different paradigm. The Bible describes the heart as the center of our physical life, the prime focus of God’s saving work, and the target of Satan’s efforts to keep us from God.
In Scripture, we learn that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick and difficult to understand (Jeremiah 17:9). In Mark, Jesus tells us that it is from within us, that is, from our hearts, that evil thoughts come, including sexual immorality, the desire to steal, and commit adultery. Our hearts are the source of covetousness, lying, slander, and pride, among other other evil things which stain our character (Mark 7:21-23).
Many Christian authors have written about the heart. Being the wellspring of our actions it deserves our deepest attention. Perhaps no non-biblical author has written more succinctly on the subject than Dallas Willard. The transformation of the heart is essential to his classic books, The Divine Conspiracy and Renovation of the Heart.
For Dallas the heart refers to “its position in the human being, as the center or core to which every other component of the self owes its proper functioning.”1 He describes the heart as “…the executive center of a human life. The heart is where decisions and choices are made for the whole person. That is its function.”2
As the CEO of self, our hearts, which determine our outlook, choices and actions, need to be transformed by the gospel of the kingdom and the power of the Holy Spirit. The good news is that what has been broken by sin and guided by a fallen world, can be radically renewed by grace, faith, and spiritual disciplines.
One of the greatest joys we can experience comes from knowing that we can, in fact, come to a place where we truly do love (persistently and sacrificially pursue the best for) the Lord our God with all our hearts (choice and actions). Of the principle elements of the self, identified by Jesus in the great commandment, the place we begin is with the heart.
Stay tuned for upcoming columns this month on how to love God with all of your soul, mind, and body.
[1] Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart: Putting On The Character of Christ (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress), 2002, p.29
[2] Ibid, p.30
This post originally appeared at: The Greatest Commandment, Part 1: With All Your Heart — The Bonhoeffer Project