PRESENTER'S NOTES
If we were to turn to Exodus Chapter 20, or Deuteronomy Chapter 5, we would find God’s Ten Commandments listed. A quick review of them, summarized, would remind us:
- We must not worship other gods before God
- We shall not make idols of God
- We shall not take God’s name in vain
- We are to remember the Sabbath day and keep it Holy
- We are to honor our fathers and mothers
- We shall not murder
- We shall not commit adultery
- We shall not steal
- We shall not bear false witness
- We shall not covet
When Christ was asked which of these commandments was the greatest, He artfully replied by appearing to divide all of the commandment into two parts, one part about our relationship with God, and the other about our relationship with each other. His answer, at first appeared to choose the greatest as that of loving God, but let’s go to the conversation and read it all the way through…
Matthew 22: 34 But when the Pharisees heard that He had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, and saying, 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?”
37 Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and great commandment.
…We could stop here… But if we did, we would miss…
Matthew 22: 39 And the second is LIKE it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”
Discuss “like”… They are similar, literally, not figuratively or poetically. Figurative: “My Love Is Like a Red, Red Rose.”
Let’s drive this one home, okay? Turn to James
James 2: 10 For whoever shall keep the whole law and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.
11 For He who said, "Do not commit adultery," also said, "Do not murder." But if you do not commit adultery, yet if you murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.
Actually, the equation is already built into the Ten Commandments is a mingling of love toward God and neighbor, though we may not initially notice…
The first three commandments provide specifically clear definitions of love by the individual for God. The last five commandments provide specifically clear definition of love by the individual for his neighbor.
Commandments four and five, however, have a family or community component, that, if family or community is not participating, the commandment cannot be fulfilled. If I don’t participate with my brethren in worshipping God, I participate in devaluing the family of God. If I disregard honoring my parents, I contribute to the break down of my nuclear family.
Leviticus 23: 3 ‘Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation. You shall do no work on it; it is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings.
In a sense, keeping the Sabbath as a holy convocation, as you must interact with fellow human beings in your practiced relationship with God, it pulls into that godly relationship commandments, 5-10. In honoring our parents, as our family structure is a shadow of a godly family structure, it pulls the first four commandments about honoring God into the human relationship.
Love the Lord your God… = Love your neighbor as yourself
If we break ANY of the commandments, we turn the (=) sign into either an (≠) sign or one of either a (<>) sign
Break one break all…
(Compare murder with coveting)
God is not a respecter of ANY persons! No distinction is made (IN THE FORM OF LOVE). God is Spirit, perfect, and eternal. We are flesh, flawed, and mortal, but the love is supposed to be the same.
So, as we remember the words of Christ to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind, AND to love your neighbor as yourself, let us remember that “LIKE” means “similar”, literally; that the equation is “equal”. When it comes to love, SIMILAR means SAME.
