The greatest commandment
Love is the whole point
Asked for the most important rule of all, Jesus gave two, and said they belong together.
Key points
- What it means: Jewish teachers counted 613 commandments in their Scriptures.
- Try this: Before one decision this week, ask: what would loving the people affected by this actually look like?
- The good news: Jesus is the one who loved God and neighbor completely, and he did it for you.
What he said
“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Matthew 22:39
Find it: Matthew 22:34–40
Read Matthew 22:34–40
34 But the Pharisees, when they heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, gathered themselves together. 35 One of them, a lawyer, asked him a question, testing him. 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest 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. 39 A second likewise is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”
World English Bible, public domain. The whole chapter on Free Scripture → · Read in the NRSVue, the ELCA’s standard translation →
What it means
Jewish teachers counted 613 commandments in their Scriptures. Someone asked Jesus which one mattered most. He answered: love God with everything you are, and love your neighbor as yourself. All the rest, he said, hangs on these two.
Love here is not mainly a feeling. It is choosing someone’s good, again and again, including when you don’t feel like it.
“As yourself” matters too. It assumes a healthy regard for yourself. Love that leaves you empty and resentful isn’t the love Jesus meant.
At work
- Run any decision through it: does this treat people as people, or as numbers?
- Customers, coworkers, the person on the other end of the email: neighbors, all of them.
With people
- Love includes boundaries. Saying no to what harms you is part of loving yourself as a neighbor.
- The neighbor is often the person closest to you, and hardest to love: family.
The hard part
If you aren’t sure about God, the first half can feel out of reach. Many people start with the second. Jesus said the two hang together, and that loving people is one way you come to know God.
Try this
Before one decision this week, ask: what would loving the people affected by this actually look like?
Go deeper
The good news
Jesus is the one who loved God and neighbor completely, and he did it for you. His love comes first; ours grows from it.
Nobody lives this perfectly. How to read it