2nd greatest commandment

Love your neighbor as yourself

Today we will be in the book of Matthew Chapter 22. We have been studying a lot on how to love YHWH. We fully acknowledge his Torah as the written source for information on how to do that. We also acknowledge the first and most important law is to Love YHWH our Elohim with all our heart, soul and strength. Today we are going to look at the second commandment. To start with let us read verses 34 - 40 of and see this discussion present by The Messiah Yeshua. We will be looking at some implied points out of these verses.

34 But the Pharisees, having heard that He had silenced the Sadducees, were gathered together,

35 and one of them, one learned in the Torah, did question, trying Him, and saying,

36 “Teacher, which is the great command in the Torah?”

37 And יהושׁע said to him, “ ‘You shall love יהוה your Elohim with all your heart, and with all your being, and with all your mind.’

38 “This is the first and great command.

39 “And the second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’

40 “On these two commands hang all the Torah and the Prophets.”

I think in our present time there are many teachings and discussions around these verses. A lot of interest is in them from many different denominations and doctrines. Part of the reason is because every Mitzvot or commandment in the Torah connects to one of these. We either have a Mitzvot or commandment because it is how we love YHWH or because it is how we love others.

Yeshua is of course quoting 2 sections out of the Torah. We are all familiar with the Shema. This is found beginning in Devarim or specifically he quotes verse 5. The second commandment is also in the Torah it is . So when Yeshua is speaking here he seems to be making very specific and direct points. This is not an abstract or metaphor he is quoting Torah to experts of the Torah as they are trying to ask him trick questions.

The method of the Pharisees questions is also well documented. So as was just stated they are asking him trick questions. This is common in their culture at that time and it was what they would do to each other as well. They would ask questions that where “tricky” or not obvious to each other as well.

An important implication in what is said by Yeshua though is that in order for us to love others we have to love ourselves. If we do not love ourselves very much how can we love others very much, if we are to love them as we love ourselves?

So how are we to love others in comparison to how we love ourselves? It is common in our society to immediately jump to the extreme. We should sacrifice ourselves for others. Yeshua even tells us this in No one has greater love than this: that one should lay down his life for his friends. So there you go we should sacrifice everything for each other. When should we do this, all the time? Well let us look at the appropriate way to do this.

Yeshua is the ultimate example of how to live out the commandments. How did he live out sacrifice? Consider when he was a baby. Harod and the whole of Israel new the prophecies of the coming Messiah. Many also new it would be around the time that Yeshua was born. Harod ordered the death of all the male children under 3 to try and kill Yeshua. Did Yeshua allow himself to be sacrificed at that time? Of course not, however he was not of age as an adult then perhaps the expectation was not for him to keep this commandment yet. We can also look in John chapter 8 and John chapter 10. Both Chapter are separate instances where Pharisees where going to seize and stone Yeshua after he told them he was the Son of YHWH. He did not allow them to do so in either instance. Yeshua came to die for our SINs and yet even in these instances he preserved his own life. Why? It was not the right time or way for his sacrifice. So we talk about loving our neighbor we also should understand that there is a time and a place for everything. If a sacrifice is to be significant then it is to be done appropriately not flippantly. We also should realize not every event is worthy of sacrifice. Think about how you sacrifice for yourself. It generally is only done to preserve or encourage your life or well being. So to when we sacrifice our life for others it should be to encourage life and well being.

Institute for Scripture Research, The Scriptures (South Africa: Institute for Scripture Research (Pty) Ltd, 2000), .

If we are honest when we try to use sacrifice as a method of showing love to others it is really about ourselves and not about them or more importantly about our Heavenly Father and his kingdom. We can prove this easily. How many of us would lay down our life for spouses and family? How many of us would wash, fold and put away the laundry not just without complaint by joyfully for our spouses and family? If you would die for your loved ones, would you joyfully and gladly stop what you are doing and listen to them talk to you about whatever is on their mind even when you have had a bad day? If you would give up all that you had to preserve the life and well being of your loved ones would you simply consider there thoughts and feelings as more important than your own everyday? Which is the greater task? If we cannot serve each other in the small tasks then the big tasks are more about ourselves than anything else.

So while we maybe quick to jump to the extreme of self sacrifice when we are thinking about love for others, the reality is this is just one event and not the everyday we are called to do. Yeshua being perfect set the example. He lived everyday as a sacrifice of the ultimate love for his people and when the time came he gave up his life for us. So the first implication is that we should love others in a sacrificial way but this is a daily sacrifice of living our life to promote the life and well being of others.

How then do we loves others as ourselves?

The next piece for us to look at is what is meant by love. Well let us see what kind of love they are talking about here. In the English language there is really just one word we use for love and that is love. We use love to express how we feel about YHWH, our parents, our siblings, our friends, our country, our job, our car, our shoes, favorite song, pizza toppings, type of ice-cream, and a great number of other trivial things. I would personally encourage all of us to stop using the word love to describe what we feel for things and instead think of more precise words to describe our feelings. In Greek they used many many words for love and each had a different type of love. Some examples are Phileo; the love between 2 friends we might call this friendship. Another kind is hesed and is an unfailing kind of love or loyal type of love. Interestingly this is the word used in the Greek texts to describe YHWH’s love when the covenant is referenced. A type we may be familiar with is Agape; this is some times defined as a love feast, benevolence, or charitable love. The word used here is similar to that and it is agapao. It means to love, to take pleasure in from a moral or social sense. It implies enjoying their presence and spending time together. It also indicates being interested in what they are interested in. It is a very interesting and worthy study to see all the areas of the scripture that references this word.

So the next implication here is we love others in a take pleasure in them kind of way. How do we take pleasure in them? We enjoy their presence, we appreciate how The Father has made them, we spend time with them, and we take an interest in what they are interested in. Sounds a bit like fellowship does it not?

The last implication we will look at today is this idea of all the Torah and the Prophets hang on these 2 commandments. In the popular Christian theologies today there is a common understanding that these 2 commandments replace the Torah or that by obeying these 2 commandments they are keeping the Torah. This is not so. It is a lack of understanding of the Torah that tends to lead one to this understanding. These are commandments within the Torah itself. They are Torah commandments. If they full fill the Torah then why have the other commandments at the same time as these? I think the problem comes in misunderstanding the language. We are using words like full fill and complete not really understanding what is being said. It might be easier to understand that all the commands in the Torah answer up to these 2 commandments.

To phrase it another way, these commandments answer the why question of the Torah while the Torah answers the how question of these Commandments. So when we are instructed to love YHWH the commandments of the Torah tell us how we can do that. The same when we are instructed to love others the commandments of the Torah tell us how we can do that. These commandments of love explain everything about life and how to live. The Torah explains how we are to love.

Lastly we have to understand the implication of action here. Is it any surprise in our culture we do not understand what love is when we do not even have good methods to express it in our language. We already established that we use love to describe a great deal many affections for anything in our life. In that sentence though we had a better word to use affection. Love is not a feeling it is an action, it is something you do. Affection, appreciation, attraction, impressions, and desire is something that we feel. When we say love we often times mean one of these things, yet that is not what love means. It is a thing you do. So we are to be active and do things when we love others as ourselves. We do not stand passively by and have this feeling, rather we actively take part in the life of the other person so that we are expressing these emotions.

In closing as we keep Torah and try to live out this commandment or Mitzvah we must remember we love ourselves and others everyday by actively and joyfully taking pleasure in this person that YHWH has made.