Sermon Tone Analysis

Bible Study

Based on the Shema from Deuteronomy, for loving your neighbor is primarily based on loving God first and foremost.

Key Verses:

Mark 12:31

1 Jn 4:21

Lev 19:32-34

Romans 13:9

Matthew 19:19

Additional verses:

James 2:5-13

Luke 6:30-36

The combination of the two commandments has become a commonplace in subsequent Christianity, but it is important to realize the revolutionary achievement of Jesus’ answer.

Although love of God and love of humanity were occasionally affirmed separately in Israel, there is no evidence that before Jesus they were ever combined.50

It does not appear that any rabbi before Jesus regarded love of God and neighbor as the center and sum of the law.

For Jesus, the requirements of the Shema cannot be fulfilled in ritual or sacrifice but in unfeigned love of God, wholly and genuinely.

The Shema must also be complemented by the love of neighbor.

Love of neighbor, moreover, is the chief means of loving God, and is received as love of God; likewise, love of God expresses itself in love of neighbor (1 John 4:20).

Jesus’ answer avoids the danger of mysticism, which results in a detached and disembodied love of God; as well as the danger of humanism, which acts toward humanity without reference to God and without the understanding that human beings are inviolable creatures of God.