"And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord; And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment."
Mark 12:29-30
Part 1
Today: Who is to be the Supreme Love of Our Lives?
One day Jesus was approached by some Sadducees wanting to talk. These men, as a group, did not believe in miracles. They did not believe in Jesus’ deity, and they had nothing to do with His works. They were going to test Him with a question about heaven to see if they could trip Him up. They asked about the wife of a man with no children, and her husband died. They referred to the Law in Deuteronomy 25:5-10, where the dead man’s brother can marry the widow to raise up children for the deceased brother. In their scenario, the Sadducees said this man had seven brothers. Each brother, in turn, took the first brother’s wife after the last brother died. In all, there were no children, and each of the seven brothers had married the first brother’s wife. Their question was, “Who did the wife belong to in the resurrection?” Jesus told them that they asked their question in error because they obviously did not understand the Scriptures, nor God’s power!
Jesus explained to them,
“For when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage; but are as the angels which are in heaven” (Mark 12:25).
As these men have failed in their attempt to confuse the Lord, they left Him. A Scribe (a man from another group not known to love Jesus) approached Him from nearby, where he listened to His answer to the Sadducees. His job as a scribe required him to know the scriptures, and he agreed with Jesus’ response to the inquirers (Mark 12:28 and 32). This man had a question of his own. Unlike the Sadducee’s issue, this man’s question has merit, for it is a matter of life and death. Coming from his knowledge of the Word of God, the man asked Jesus, “Which is the first commandment of all?” (v. 28). He listened intently to Jesus’ answer.
“And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord.”
Quoting the Law of Moses, in just a few words, Jesus had described who Israel must worship.[1] “Jehovah is their God, and He alone is their God!” If they are to have only one God, then it stands to reason that Jehovah is the only God they must have affections for! All other gods were out of bounds for them! Moses thoughts were apparent when he wrote,
“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might” (Deuteronomy 6:4-5).
How did Jesus apply this text to the Scribe that day? And how does He expect us to obey this command? Come back tomorrow, and we will take the verse apart to understand it better.
Quote: “For each believer, Jesus’ command to ‘love the LORD thy God,’ is our main concern twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.”[2]
[1] “Shema Yisrael, Yehowah, Elohainoo, Yehowah aichod.” “Hear, Israel, Jehovah, our God, is one Jehovah” (TSK). Treasure of Scripture Knowledge, Cross References, the electronic version in eSword. Deuteronomy 6:4.
[2] The statement is jlh’s notes.