Week 6: Day 3

Intro: Hello, everyone and welcome back to orbit. My name is Josh, and we've got an amazing passage today, we're looking at what is titled in my Bible as the greatest commandment. So you're sure it's going to be a corker! We're looking at Mark chapter 12. And I'll be reading from 28 through to 34.

Bible: One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”

“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 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: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

“Well said, teacher,” the man replied. “You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbour as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”

When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And from then on no one dared ask him any more questions.

Thoughts: The greatest commandment, what a way to begin! There are lots of commandments in the Bible. The Old Testament is full of different laws, different commandments, different traditions and things you have to do to cleanse yourself, to cleanse your family. There's a lot. And these are the ones Jesus singles out as the most important. Here, Jesus, as in many times, is quoting from the Old Testament Scripture. Jesus knows His scripture so well. The first bit where he says, “Hear, O Israel, the LORD your God is One” is from Deuteronomy chapter 6. And it's what not to what you would think is the most important commandment, it follows the 10 commandments – it's directly after the 10 commandments. And it's just a small part of that: love your God.

The second part is even more obscure: love your neighbour as yourself comes from Leviticus 19:18. And it's in a section that is titled “various laws”. So to your average Jewish man at the time of Jesus, your average scripture studier, these aren't exactly the ones you would pick out straightaway. Jesus has delved in deep to come up with these answers. Jesus has captured the essence of the 10 commandments perfectly though: love God and love your neighbour. If you go through all 10 commandments, these are the repeated themes that you see.

Now let's focus in on the teacher of the law himself. He has come to Jesus with a genuine question. Lots of the teachers that law at the time were trying to trap Jesus, they would ask him questions like: should we pay tax to Caesar? Was John the Baptist sent by God? And Jesus always answered these questions in a similar way, if you'd asked him of another question, designed to trap the teachers themselves; or he deflected because he knew that whatever answer he gave will be used against him.

This is a very different situation. And because of the genuineness of the question, Jesus gives a proper, genuine answer. But not only that, he then goes on to continue talking to the teacher who goes well said, “you are right”. It's funny telling Jesus “Oh, yeah, you're right”. But the teacher of the law then on goes to say these two commandments are more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices. That is such a key statement. For all Christians, Jesus is seen as the bringer-in of the new covenant, a change from the old covenant. A covenant is a promise, a promise that God made with man, he made it with Abraham in the Old Testament. And that covenant came with a series of rules and guidelines that had to be followed. Jesus is the shift-away from that old covenant. You don't need to make burnt offerings and sacrifices anymore because Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice. And this man absolutely hits that nail on the head.

Also, what Jesus then says to him is amazing. You are not far from the kingdom of God, that kingdom of God we get to hear about a fair bit throughout the gospel of Mark and the other gospels as well. Jesus is the bringer in of the Kingdom of God. He brings God's kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. And this man is not far from it. He's got it. He's got the idea. Now all he needed to do was wait for Jesus to sacrifice himself. The other bit about this passage is the ways we can love God. Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. These aren't just adjectives that Jesus is putting in to make it seem longer. These are all very different and unique.

I want you to think about how you love God. Different people have different ways. Some people love God with their mind. They love reading. They love pouring over religious texts. They love hearing what other people have to say about God. Some people can love God through their strength, you can find ways to glorify God, in your sport, in physical exercise. Other people love to just put on a worship, track and sit back and just pour their soul out to God. There are so many different ways that we can show our love to God.

Prayer: So I'm going to pray now I'm going to pray that over all of us: Dear Lord Jesus, help us to love you and help our neighbour with all of our heart, all of our soul, all of our mind and all of our strength. Also, help us towards the Kingdom of God. Help us in the journey, help us in our understanding of your kingdom, and help us to achieve it. Amen.

Challenge: Now, as you go out, identify in your life, where are the parts of you like you maybe don't love God as much as you can, maybe you don't love him with all your soul? Maybe that's an area you can improve in. Or maybe you wish all your strength went towards loving God and think in those particular areas in your life, where you can improve and where you can love God more. Thank you very much. I'll see you next time.