And one of the scribes came up and…asked Him [Jesus], “Which commandment is the most important of all?”
Mark 12:28-34
The timing of this event, in Mark, is between the Sadducees asking Jesus about the resurrection and Jesus asking the religious leaders, gathered in the Temple, about whose Son is the Christ. A scribe asked Jesus to name the greatest of the Commandments. Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 6:4-5 to begin and He consolidates the rest of the Ten Commandments in His statement, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself…” In two commands, Jesus summarized the Ten Commandments God gave to Moses. The religious leaders were never interested in learning anything from Jesus and His teaching. They were always looking for any “reason” to accuse Him of false teaching and to get rid of Him for Jesus was viewed by them as an enemy of the Jewish religion, not the Son of the Living God who had come to save them. In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus gave these two commandments, also. In that event, a scribe (lawyer) asked Jesus to define who the neighbor is, not to understand but, to justify his hatred of the Samaritans which began hundreds of years earlier with the northern kingdom of Israel inter-marrying with the Assyrian peoples sent to occupy the northern kingdom after their defeat. Even today, there are so-called Christians who believe they are to hate some peoples and love others. The Jews of Jesus’ day believed they were the chosen people of God and they had to keep themselves apart from Gentiles, all non-Jewish peoples. No. Jesus’ teaching, then and now, is that the whole world is a neighborhood and we are all neighbors to one another. We are not all brothers and sisters of one another in this world for God has adopted Christians into His Elect and left others to receive His righteous judgment at death. Jesus commands us to treat all people as our neighbor who needs to hear the gospel message until the gospel message is preached to all peoples. In salvation, all Christians are to go, tell, baptize and, teach all things Jesus has taught right here in the Holy Scripture given, by inspiration of God the Holy Spirit to humanity, to call all people to Him. Christians, we are called! How are you doing in your calling today!
Source: S C Ball May 6, 2023
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