The Greatest Commandment: Introduction to the Ten(10) Commandments

The Greatest Commandment: Introduction to the Ten (10) Commandments

“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law? Jesus answered and said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” Mat 22:40

Jesus says there are really only two (2) Commandments, and that all of the others “hang” on these.

“Hang” is the word used for the thieves who were crucified on each side of Jesus; they “hung” on crosses. Think of fruit hanging on a tree. It has a trunk and two (2) limbs, each with fruit hanging it. The “base” is God. The two limbs are these two (2) Commandments: love him and love others. They originate with him, they grow out from him. Then from these two (2) Commandments, hanging from them, sprouting from them, we have fruit: specific commandments telling us how to love God and how to love others.

There are four (4) commandments telling us how to love God:

1) Have no other God or object of worship other than him, because there is no one or nothing thing equal to him.

2) Do not try to represent him, because he is spirit; you will not due him justice.

3) Do not speak lightly about him, liable him, slander him, ie disparaging his good name, because there is nothing in him that is evil.

4) Acknowledge that because he made us, he has the right to command our time and hence our everything; because in the end, it is all his anyway; the Universe is his; really, we own nothing, we

control nothing.

And there are six (6) commandments telling us how to love others:

1) Honor you father and mother, ie, submit to, and honor the authority God has placed over you.

2) Do not kill, because people are made in God’s image.

3) Do not commit adultery, ie be loyal, because God is the most loyal being in the universe.

4) Do not steal, because God has given you what he wants you to have; be content with that.

5) Do not lie in any way at all, because God is only Truth, but the devil is the father of lies.

6) Do not covet, ie. steal in your heart, because God also exams our thoughts and desires and motives; obedience is not just the actual actions, it goes to the heart.

Yes, the Ten (10) Commandments.

How do I love God? How do I love others? I follow these commandments; they tell me how to love.

If I use God’s name in vain, do I love him? If I steal from you, do I love you?

Or flip those questions around: Do I show my love of God by using his name as a curse word?

Do I show my love of you by stealing from you?

It is actually quite simple!

This is the Moral Law, the Two (2) Commandments, the Ten (10) Commandments.

So do you love God? Do you love others? Not as you define love, all warm and fuzzy, but as God does, by concrete actions, as defined by the law?