"'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. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"
(Matthew 22:37-39)
Over the years I have been asked numerous times about my stance, or that of the church I was serving at the time, on a particular issue. Sometimes it was theological, sometimes, social, ethical, or ideological in nature. My answers have not always been satisfactory for those who question. Baptists have traditionally refrained from being painted into that kind of corner for no one person can speak for a body of believers, and no one issue, save faith in Jesus Christ, is salvific in nature. The issues that divide often seem more interesting to us than that which truly unites.
Jesus was asked in our text for today what he believed the greatest commandment in the Law was. His answer was very simple and straightforward...Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. That he identified as the greatest commandment. Then he said that the second is like the first...Love your neighbor as yourself. Among the many theological "hot potatoes" of the day that he could have chosen, he called, instead, those who would listen, to remember the words of old that came from the Levitical code. "Love God and love your neighbor," he was saying. Everything else depends on these two commands.
It would seem that the cross of Christ is evidence of this for Christ came in human form to do the will of his heavenly Father whom he loved, and to lay his life down for a sinful human creation whom he loved as well. Love motivated incarnation and crucifixion...loving God and loving others.
In the midst of a world that argues about many many things, Jesus calls his followers to do two things...love God and love others. That is indeed enough to change the world.
Prayer: We love, because you first loved us, O God. May our love for you empower our love for others around us. Amen.
Jim Abernathy
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