Round one: Jesus validates Civil and Spiritual Government (Matthew 22:15-22)
Round two: Jesus validates the Resurrection (Matthew 22:23-33)
Round three: Jesus is quizzed on what the greatest commandment is.
Matthew 22:34–40 ESV
34 But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
Up until this point in the passage, the Herodians, Pharisees, and Sadducees had been so focused on the fact that the message that Jesus had been preaching was making their entire life’s work obsolete, that they were missing the Messiah that they had read about their entire lives.
Sometimes we get so caught up in chasing good things, that we miss God's things.
Love God
Matthew 22:37 ESV
37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 6:4-5, which is the most recited passage in all of the Jewish scriptures.
Deuteronomy 6:4-6
4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.
Jesus speaks to the fact that we are to love God. “Love” in this passage is translated “agape”. Agape could be defined as charity. Agape love is unconcerned with the self and concerned with the greatest good of another. Agape isn’t born just out of emotions, feelings, familiarity, or attraction, but from the will and as a choice. Agape requires faithfulness, commitment, and sacrifice without expecting anything in return.
HEART
Proverbs 4:23 ESV
23 Keep your heart with all vigilance, from it flow the springs of life.
Matthew 6:21 ESV
21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Whatever we keep in our hearts is what we will love most in life.
Exodus 34:14 ESV
14 (for you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God),
SOUL
All throughout scripture the emotions of God’s people seem to move the heart of God:
- Jesus wept when He saw those that He cared about mourning the death of his friend. (John 11)
- God was filled with pride when John baptized Jesus in the Jordan River. (Matthew 3)
- God showed mercy to Moses and the Israelites when Moses loved God too much to move on without His presence. (Exodus 33)
- God’s prophet, Elijah, was ticked off about God’s people disobeying him, so he prayed for a drought and God delivered. (1 Kings 17)
MIND
Deuteronomy 6:4-5 ESV
4 “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
Matthew 22:37 ESV
37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
Our pursuit of God is not simply emotional in nature, but also one that God wants us to care enough to invest in growing our knowledge of who He is.
Love People
The second of the most important commandments that Jesus gave in this heated debate is to love people as we love ourselves.
Leviticus 19:18 ESV
18 You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.
Ephesians 5:28–31 ESV
28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” The way that we treat God’s people reflects the way that we love God and how we interpret His love for us. Unfortunately, we seem to live in a time where the world that we live in seems to know us more for what we stand against rather than what we stand for.
1 Peter 4:8–9 ESV
8 Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. 9 Show hospitality to one another without grumbling.
John 13:35 ESV
35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
