Matthew 22:34-40
The Importance of the Greatest Commandment
34 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:
36 "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" 37 Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."
Do we actually grasp the importance of loving God and loving our neighbor, or are they just words heard by us?...Do we know that the Bible was given to us by our Father to lead us into a deeper loving relationship with the One who wrote the Bible, and then also with loving everyone around us?...
Joslin "Josh" McDowell is an evangelical Christian apologist and evangelist....He wrote about the importance of having a relationship with both God and our neighbor...He tells us the importance of having a relationship both with God and all our neighbors and the importance of leading a life with these two loves centered around our lives...“Understanding the Relational Purpose of the Bible Jesus explained the true purpose of Scripture when He answered a question posed to Him by an expert in religious law: “‘Which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?’...Jesus replied, ‘You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’...This is the first and greatest commandment...A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’” (Matthew 22:36–39)...Jesus first quotes from Deuteronomy 6:5, which was part of the Shema, a liturgical prayer recited by the religious leaders at the beginning and close of every day: “The LORD is our God, the LORD is One!” (Deuteronomy 6:4 NASB)...Then He combines the commandment to love God found in Deuteronomy 6 with a command from Leviticus 19:18 to love your neighbor as yourself...Jesus told this inquiring Pharisee that the greatest, most important commandments are to love God with everything we have and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves...But Jesus didn’t stop there...He followed up with a most profound statement: “The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:40)...In other words, all right teaching and all right living hang on the commandments to love God and love one another...Jesus told this religious expert—and all of us—that Scripture was given to lead us into a deeper love relationship with the One who wrote the book, and then also with everyone around us...The Pharisees and other religious leaders seemingly grasped the doctrinal and behavioral purposes of Scripture...What they failed to understand was the connection between right beliefs, right behavior, and right relationships...From what I’ve observed, many people in our day fail to see that connection as well.”...“Rather than viewing Scripture as a book that merely teaches us how to believe and how to act, Jesus shows us that everything is rooted in how we ought to love...By distilling all the doctrinal and behavioral truths of the Bible down to a simple two-part statement—love God and love each other—the LORD of the universe showed us that the dual boundaries of what we believe and how we behave are intended to be understood and experienced within the framework of deep, loving relationships with Him and with one another.”...