Second Greatest Commandment
Notes
Transcript
Second Greatest Commandment
Second Greatest Commandment
The second greatest commandment is really the last half of the first—To love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, strength AND to love your neighbor as yourself.
This is a restating of the Golden Rule: Matthew 7:12
“Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you. This is the essence of all that is taught in the law and the prophets.
Or as Paul says in Romans 13:8-10
Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another, for the one who loves someone else has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, you shall not commit murder, you shall not steal, you shall not covet,” and if there is any other commandment, are summed up in this statement: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does not commit evil against a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
Interestingly (for a nerd like me), this concept goes all the way back to Egypt in 1800 BC.
It can also me seen in Exodus 23:9
“Do not oppress a foreigner; you yourselves know how it feels to be foreigners, because you were foreigners in Egypt.
written around 1400 BC.
Even Confucius says Do not impose on others what you do not desire others to impose upon you.
This is more legalistic and doesn’t include love, but the concept is there.
Jacobs, T. L. (2016). Golden Rule. In J. D. Barry, D. Bomar, D. R. Brown, R. Klippenstein, D. Mangum, C. Sinclair Wolcott, … W. Widder (Eds.), The Lexham Bible Dictionary. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
The Lexham Bible Dictionary Historical Parallels
Various formulations of the Golden Rule may be found in ancient Babylon, China, Egypt, Persia, Rome, Greece, and India. It may be seen in Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Taoism, Scientology, Wicca, and others. In philosophical traditions it has a presence in Existentialism, Humanism, Platonism, modern psychology, and countless others
All of this just shows how important this concept is to everyone. To be in all these ancient and modern day diverse groups also shows that it isn’t something that we naturally do.
If you have kids or baby sit for kids, you know that one of the hardest concepts is learning to share. A child has a toy someone else wants to play with or grabs someone else’s toy and says “mine.” The adult in the room usually will talk about sharing and taking turns playing with the toys.
Why? Because we are all selfish at heart, wanting what we want regardless of how it affects others.
But all of the these religions and disciplines tell us to consider others and how we treat them.
It is important to learn that there are others with feelings, thoughts, beliefs, that may be different from ours. The ones that are the most different or even difficult to love, those are who we are supposed to treat with love.
May God strengthen us to be able to love others, building them up instead of tearing them down.