The Greatest of All Commands
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King, Martin Luther, Jr. (1929–1968). His historic speech “I Have a Dream,” delivered in 1963, perhaps best epitomizes African American Baptist minister and civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s quest for racial integration achieved through nonviolent confrontation. His theological training was at Crozer Seminary, where King graduated in 1951. Four years later he earned a Ph.D. from Boston University. His first church was in Montgomery, Alabama, where he led a highly visible bus boycott that made him a national figure. King became the president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and as such led prayer vigils, boycotts and protests of various kinds, including marches on Washington, D.C. The two crowning legislative achievements of his life were the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act passed one year later. King was assassinated in April 1968 as he supported a refuse workers’ strike in Memphis, Tennessee.
MLK was a preacher first and a activist second.
We look at this man that accomplished great things in his life led hug civil movements .
And shape the states and in some case the world as we know it today.
“Sometimes when we hallow a man we hollow them.”
We don’t make them real, we make them beyond human. And we believe they possessed characteristic that are beyond each of our scoops.
We see the streets named after MLk we see the monuments .
28 Then one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, perceiving that He had answered them well, asked Him, “Which is the first commandment of all?”
Theses verses comes on the heels of the Sadducees trying to debate Jesus.
We realize that Jesus ministry was non-stop challenge and debate.
But Typically when Jesus was being challenged there would be groups of being to discredit Who He was.
But this scribe came by himself. He witnessed how Jesus handled the questions from the Sadducees. That he handled the debate well. So he asked Jesus a question. “Which is the first commandment of all?”
He’s not asking which of the commandment are the greatest. He is saying which commandment is overarching
which commandment supersedes everything and is incumbent on all humanity non Jewish people included.
Which commandment has broader implications, and effects.
Which commandments are the core.
Jesus had Gen. - Mal. The full Torah to pick from.
Rabbinic tradition counted 613 commandments in the Torah, 365 prohibitions, and 248 positive commands.
Prohibitions - are things God tells you not to do. Sin of Omissions
Positive commands- are things that God told you to do . Sin of Commissions
29 Jesus answered him, “The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
Our covenant keeping God
30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment.
Jesus recites the Shema found in Deut. 6:4-5 This is the central confession of Israels faith. This is a central creed for the Jewish people .
This was recited morning and evening by very pious Jews.
4 times “all” is mentioned - Love The Lord God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, all your strength.
All means the “whole of”
The kind of relationship God wants from us is personal, wholehearted and comprehensive.
God lays rightful claim to every facet of human personality: heart (= emotions), soul (= spirit), mind (= intelligence), and strength (= will)
When its referring to the mind its referring to our understanding.
The Sadducees they had mere content but they lacked understanding.
24 Jesus answered and said to them, “Are you not therefore mistaken, because you do not know the Scriptures nor the power of God?
25 For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.
26 But concerning the dead, that they rise, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the burning bush passage, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’?
27 He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living. You are therefore greatly mistaken.”
Jesus quotes Ex. 3:6. which falls with the Torah which the Sadducees accept. They only accepted the first five books of the Bible.
31 And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
the second command is inseparable from the first.
Neighbor isn’t talking about just the body of Christ but its referring all of mankind.
19 We love Him because He first loved us.
20 If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?
21 And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also.
If everyone believed or thought this way there would be no prejudice.
"I know that love is ultimately the only answer to mankind's problems."
"Hate is too great a burden to bear. I have decided to love." Martin Luther King Jr.
32 So the scribe said to Him, “Well said, Teacher. You have spoken the truth, for there is one God, and there is no other but He.
33 And to love Him with all the heart, with all the understanding, with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself, is more than all the whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
34 Now when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, He said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” But after that no one dared question Him.