1/8/23 The Greatest Commandment - Part 1
The Greatest Commandment – Part 1
Matthew 22:34-40
Have you ever heard of someone referred to as the GOAT?
I remember a few years back; our family was together for a celebration of some kind and the topic of sports came up. During this conversation, the word “Goat” kept surfacing when someone would bring up the name of a famous athlete.
For instance, someone said they believed that Michael Jordan was the Goat in basketball, while somebody else piped up and said that LeBron James was definitely the Goat. Yet another person said that they were both wrong and that Bill Russell was the real Goat.
The conversation eventually drifted into other sports with names like Tom Brady, Wayne Gretzky, Babe Ruth, Muhammed Ali, and Tiger Woods all described as the “GOAT” in their respective sports.
Finally, someone at the party who was a member of, let’s just say, the “Older generation”, blurted out “What do all of these people have to do with Goats?”
After a few chuckles and snickers from the youngsters, someone politely explained to them that the term “Goat” had nothing to do with the animal, but that G.O.A.T. was an acronym for “Greatest Of All Time.” Now, the conversation started to make sense to the individual who had asked the question.
In our passage for today in the book of Matthew, Jesus is asked about the “GOAT”, so to speak, of commandments to which he provides a 2-part answer. This week’s sermon will deal with the first part of his answer and next week’s sermon will cover the second part.
First of all, for some context, the 22nd chapter of Matthew is in the latter half of Jesus’ ministry when he has begun to speak about the Kingdom of God in parables and stories more often than in straight lectures such as the Sermon on the Mount found back in Matthew 5-7. By this time, it had become clear that the majority of Israelites, despite their fascination with Jesus and his miracles, were rejecting his spiritual message of salvation.
Therefore, Jesus was beginning to focus his efforts on building up the faith and strength of his disciples as they would soon be taking on the commission of spreading Jesus’ massage to the rest of the world. They would also oversee the inception of the church following the Holy Spirit’s arrival at Pentecost that we read about in the book of Acts.
Leading up to this account in chapter 22, Jesus has been bombarded with questions from the Sadducees and Pharisees in an attempt to trick him into saying something contrary to either the Mosaic or Roman law. If he contradicted the Mosaic law, his credibility as a Rabbi would be destroyed. If Jesus made a statement against the Roman emperor, he could be put in prison, or even put to death.
In verses 15-22, the Pharisees attempt to trick Jesus into making a treasonous statement against Rome when they ask him whether it is lawful to pay the imperial tax to Caesar. Of course, we know that Jesus sees through their wicked intent and tells them to “Give back to Caesar what is Caesars” and “Give to God what is God’s.” In other words, earthly pursuits such as money and materialism should not demand your attention, rather, focus your efforts on the spiritual realm of life. The Pharisees are astonished at his answer and go away defeated at their own game.
Then, in verses 23-33 in was the Sadducees’ turn to attempt to trick Jesus. They thought that asking him a question about a unique marital situation involving a widow multiple times over would force him to deny the reality of the resurrection – something the Sadducees believed. Instead, Jesus eloquently disproves their erroneous beliefs and leaves them in the same state of astonishment as that of the Pharisees in the previous passage.
Now, it was once again the Pharisees’ turn to once again try to discredit Jesus by asking him what would seem on the surface to be an honest question.
Verse 34 tells us that the Pharisees once again banded together to come at Jesus with their best weapon.
Verse 35 describes this weapon as an unnamed Pharisee/lawyer who apparently had no equal in terms of his knowledge of the scriptures and his skill in debate.
This Pharisee was someone who could match wits with anyone – or so he thought.
In verse 36, the unnamed Pharisee launches his attack upon Jesus in the form of this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
On the surface, this question seems to be relatively harmless, right? What’s wrong with asking Jesus to identify the greatest commandment of God? Seems legit, doesn’t it?
Well, it would have been a legitimate question had it been asked with pure motives. Unfortunately, the Pharisees’ motives were anything but pure when it came to interacting with Jesus.
Here’s the problem with the question asked by the lawyer.
First of all, by now the Pharisees understood that Jesus was proclaiming himself to be the Messiah, and as Messiah, he would inherently command the title as “King of the Jews” – of all time. This would mean that, as Messiah, Jesus would have been greater than any man who had ever lived, including heroes of the faith such as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, and, of course, Moses.
The Pharisees considered Moses to be the greatest man to have ever lived because of his close relationship to, and interactions with, Yahweh (God).
In fact, many Israelites honored him to such an extent that they equated Moses with the law itself. When an Israelite would mention the law, people would immediately think of Moses as well. Moses and the law were synonymous with each other – like peanut butter and jelly, or milk and cookies.
By appealing to this extremely high reverence of Moses, the Pharisees had hoped to ensnare Jesus. In asking Jesus which law was the greatest, they were hoping that he would respond in such a way as to exert his authority over that of Moses, and thereby turn the people against him. The Pharisees were hoping that Jesus would fall prey to his own ego and that he would make a statement establishing his authority over the law – which would have included authority over Moses himself….does this make sense?
In Jewish ideology of the day, to contradict Moses would be to contradict God, and that would make Jesus guilty of heresy in the eyes of many Israelites.
The Pharisees were also hoping that if Jesus answered the question by focusing on one specific law or command, then by doing this, he would be inherently lessening the importance of all other laws. If Jesus had done this, the skilled lawyer could have potentially caught him in a position of disrespect towards the entirety of the law and to that of Moses as well.
Obviously, Jesus sees through their intentions and masterfully avoids the snare in which the Pharisees had so hoped to catch him.
For Jesus’ response, we turn to verse 37&38 “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment.”
There are at least two reasons why this response is pure genius – should we expect anything less from Jesus?
First of all, Jesus is actually quoting from a passage of scripture from Deuteronomy that would have been very well known by everyone in attendance that day.
Deuteronomy 6:4-9 is known as the Shema. The Shema was the single most popular, and most recited, passage of scripture known to all Jewish people. It would be the equivalent to what John 3:16 is to us today.
Deuteronomy 6:4-9 reads “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.”
In Jesus’ day, every faithful Jew recited the Shema twice a day. Jewish men would often wear something called phylacteries on their foreheads and arms. Phylacteries were small leather boxes containing the Shema written on parchment. Israelites would also attach mezuzahs (Small boxes) containing the Shema to their doorposts as reminders to love God with all of their being.
This would be similar to what many of us do today when we wear bracelets or necklaces containing passages of scripture or when we decorate our homes with Christian pictures or images containing passages from the Bible.
The usage of the terms “Heart” “Soul” “mind” and “strength” aren’t meant to be dissected into their individual meanings as much as they are meant to convey the entirety of an individual, the wholeness of who we are. These words express the idea of comprehensiveness – every part of our being.
The beauty in referencing the Shema is the fact that the Shema was written by none other than Moses himself. The Pharisees, in their attempt to catch Jesus asserting himself above Moses, were most certainly disappointed when Jesus quotes Moses in answering their disingenuous question!
The second reason why Jesus’ response is pure genius is that his answer to “Love the Lord your God with all of your heart and with all of your soul and with all of your mind” encapsulates the first five of the Ten Commandments.
The first five commandments are directly related to your relationship with God and, in the case of #5 (your parents) the parental authority structure that God has placed in your life. If you love the Lord with your entire being, you will automatically be in obedience to Commandments 1-5 listed in Exodus Chapter 20:
1) You Shall have no other Gods before me
2) You shall not make unto thee any graven images
3) You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God
4) Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy
5) Honor your father and your mother
Jesus knew, of course, that while the 10 commandments were originally given to the people of Israel, these summaries of God’s natural, eternal law would apply to people of all ages – including you and I today.
You’re probably thinking “What about the next 5 commandments?” and yes, we will cover those commandments next week when we look at the second part of Jesus’ answer.
But there’s one final thing we need to look at today, however, and that is the first word that Jesus uses in both parts of his answer to the lawyer’s question – that word is ‘Love.’
We use the word ‘love’ all the time, but what is it?
We hear people talk about love….”I ‘love’ this movie, or I ‘love’ these Culver’s cheese curds (Yep, I’ve said that a few times in my day!)
Almost every song ever written has something to say about love:
For example, there is Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You” …. And I’m sure Dolly loved the royalties she received from Whitney Houston’s version!
Elvis “Can’t Help Falling in Love”….Olivia Newton John will ‘Honestly Love You’….Taylor Swift has a “Love Story”…..Eddie Rabbit “Loves a Rainy Night”…while George Jones told everyone that “He Stopped Loving Her Today.”
There was even a band from the 80’s by the name of Foreigner that had a song called “I want to know what love is”…. and another artist from the 90’s that had a dance hit called “What is Love?”
Is ‘love’ a noun? Is ‘love’ a verb? Is ‘love’ a combination of a noun and a verb?
When Jesus tells us to ‘love’ the Lord with all of our being, what exactly is he saying to us, what is he telling us to do?
To arrive at a definition of love, we could certainly go to Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians chapter 13 (The “Love” chapter)…This passage deals with a specific type of love that the Bible calls ‘agape’ love. Agape love is different from brotherly love (phileo) or romantic love (eros) and it is the type of love that is in view here in Matthew 22.
1 Corinthians 13:4-7 informs us that agape “Love is patient, love is kind, It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”
These verses describe so many of the attributes of agape (Biblical) love like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that have yet to be connected, or pieces of glass yet to be glued into a mosaic.
Let’s see if another passage of scripture can assist us in putting these pieces together to form a more recognizable picture:
The book of 1 John is a wonderful survey of love, and 1 John 3:16-18 actually begins by addressing our question.
It reads: “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.”
It appears as if our picture of love is getting clearer, wouldn’t you say?
In John’s definition, we see a great deal of action.
Jesus laying down his life = action….People helping their fellow man = action.
John actually ends the passage talking about love being active rather than passive!
1 John 5:3 tells us specifically that “This is love for God: to keep his commands….”
John also reminds us of what should motivate us to love God and others:
1 John 4:19 says: “We love because he first loved us.”
Finally, The words of Jesus in John Chapter 14 bring the picture into full focus for us:
John 14:15 “If you love me, keep my commands….”
John 14:21 “Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me….”
John 14:23 “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.”
If we synthesize all of these passages, we arrive at a complete and beautiful picture, or mosaic, of what biblical love is.
Love is active obedience to God (John’s writings), characterized by humility (Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 13) and motivated by gratitude to God for the gift of salvation (1 John 4:19) through Jesus Christ.
In conclusion, here are a few ways to apply the truths of today’s scripture in our everyday lives:
1) Love God and others whole-heartedly
2) Continually Keep God’s Word on your mind and on your lips (Shema)
3) Remember that true love is based in action, not in feelings that come & go
Next week we will cover what Jesus refers to as the second greatest commandment of all time recorded in verse 39 – to Love your neighbor as yourself.
Thank you all for attending worship service today as these 7 verses are some of the most important passages in all of scripture – and they will benefit you greatly as you continue to live a life of obedient love directed toward God and others.
Let’s Pray.