May 25, 2014 ADULT SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON THE GREATEST COMMANDMENT MINISTRY INVOCATION O God: We give thanks to You for the manifold blessings to us. You did not have to bless us but You did. We shall remain eternally grateful. Amen. WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW AND UNDERSTAND Jesus tells the story of Lazarus and the rich man to teach His followers to put their selfish desires aside so they can help the poor. THE APPLIED FULL GOSPEL DISTINCTIVE We believe in the indwelling of the Holy Ghost for all believers and that the Holy Ghost verifies and validates the Believer as part of the Body of Christ. TEXT: Background Scripture Leviticus 19:16; Deuteronomy 4:35; 6:1-9; Mark 12:28-34 Key Verse Mark 12: 30-31 Lesson Scripture Leviticus: 19:18; Deuteronomy 6:4-9; Mark 12: 28-34 Leviticus 19:18 (NKJV) 18 You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD. Deuteronomy 6:4 9 (NKJV) 4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one! 5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. 6 And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. Mark 12:28 34 (NKJV) 28 Then one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, perceiving that He had answered them well, asked Him, Which is the first commandment of all? 29 Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is: Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one. 30 And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the first commandment. 31 And the second, like it, is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these. 1
32 So the scribe said to Him, Well said, Teacher. You have spoken the truth, for there is one God, and there is no other but He. 33 And to love Him with all the heart, with all the understanding, with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love one s neighbor as oneself, is more than all the whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. 34 Now when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, He said to him, You are not far from the kingdom of God. But after that no one dared question Him. COMMENTARY Verse 18. Revenge and malice are forbidden as well as hatred, and the negative precepts culminate in the positive law, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, which sums up in itself one half of the Decalogue. For he that loveth another hath fulfilled the Law. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the Law. Verse 4. Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord. This is an affirmation of the unity and simplicity of Jehovah, the alone God. Though Elohim, He is one. The speaker does not say, Jehovah is alone God, but Jehovah our Elohim is one Jehovah Among the heathen there were many Baals and many Jupiters; and it was believed that the deity might be divided and communicated to many; but the God of Israel, Jehovah, is one, indivisible and incommunicable. He is the Absolute and the Infinite One, who alone is to be worshipped, on whom all depend, and to whose command all must yield obedience. Not only to polytheism, but to pantheism, and to the conception of a localized or national deity, is this declaration of the unity of Jehovah opposed. With these words, the Jews begin their daily liturgy, morning and evening; the sentence expresses the essence of their religious belief. Verse 5. To the one indivisible Jehovah undivided devotion and love are due. Hence the injunction, Thou shalt love Jehovah thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. The heart is the inner nature of the man, including his intellectual, emotional, and cognitive faculties; the soul is the personality, the entire self-consciousness; and the might is the sum of the energies, bodily and mental. Not by profession merely is Jehovah to be loved; the whole man, body, soul, and spirit, is to be yielded to him in holy and devout affection. The last letter of the first word, and the last letter of the last word in this verse are larger than the ordinary size and as these two form the word for witness, the Jews say that they are written thus that every one may know, when he professes the unity of God, that his heart ought to be intent and 2
devoid of every other thought, because God is a witness, and knoweth everything. Verses 6, 7. Where true love to God exists in the heart, it will manifest itself in a regard to His Will, and in the diligent keeping of His commandments. Hence His words were to be not only in the memory of the people, but laid upon their hearts that they might be ever present to the thought and will. They were also to be inculcated upon their children, and to be the subject of conversation on all fitting occasions between them, the members of their household, and even their casual associates. Thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children; literally, Thou shalt sharpen them to thy children, impress them upon them, send them into them like a sharp weapon. Verse 8. The words of God were to be bound for a sign [a memorial or directory] upon thine hand, the instrument of acting, and to be as frontlets [fillets or bands] between thine eyes, the organs of direction in walking or moving, and so on the forehead, the chamber of thought and purpose; and they were to inscribe them on the posts of their houses and on their gates. The purport of this is that they were constantly and everywhere to have these commandments of the Lord in view and in mind, so as to undeviatingly observe them. It seems, however, to have been a custom widely prevalent among the ancient Eastern peoples to carry about their persons slips of parchment or some other material, on which were written sentences of moral or religious import; and such sentences they were also wont to inscribe on conspicuous places of their dwellings. This custom originated, probably, in a desire to have the sentiments inscribed always in mind; but for the most part these inscriptions came to be regarded as amulets or charms, the presence of which on the person or the house was a safeguard against evil influences, especially such as were supernatural. Ver. 28. St. Matthew (22:34) says that the Pharisees, when they heard that He had put the Sadducees to silence, gathered themselves together, and that then one of them, who was a lawyer that is, a scribe, asked Him this question, What commandment is the first of all! It appears that this scribe had been present at the discussion with the Sadducees, and he had probably informed the others of what had taken place, and of the wisdom and power of our Lord s answer; so he was naturally put forward to try our Lord with another crucial question. It does not necessarily appear that he had an evil intention in putting this question. He may, in his own mind (seeing the wisdom and skill of our Lord), have desired to hear what Christ had to say to a very difficult question on a matter deeply interesting to all true Hebrews. The question was one much mooted amongst the Jews in the time of our Lord. 3
Verse 31. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. God is to be loved above everything above all angels, or men, or any created thing. After God, amongst created things, our neighbor is above all to be loved. We are to extend to our neighbor that kind of love with which we love ourselves. Our love of ourselves is not a frigid love, but a sincere and ardent love. In like manner, we should love our neighbor, and desire for him all those good things both for the body and for the soul that we desire for ourselves. This is what our Lord himself teaches us. All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, even so do unto them. There is none other commandment greater than these. There is no commandment greater than these, because all the precepts of the Divine Law are included in them. So that our Lord teaches us that we ought continually to have these two precepts in our minds and before our eyes, and direct all our thoughts and words and actions by them, and regulate our whole life according to them. Verse 32. The first words of this verse should be rendered thus: Of a truth, Master, thou hast well said that he is one. In our Lord s answer the word rendered by understanding. It is an act of understanding. It is the thought associating itself with the object, and standing under it so as to support it. Verse 33. Is more - according to the most approved reading, much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. This scribe was evidently emerging out of the bondage of ceremonial things and perceiving the supremacy of the moral law. Verse 34. And when Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, he said unto him, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God. It would appear from this answer that our Lord regarded him as one who approached Him with the sincere desire to know the truth and so He encouraged him. This shows how powerful an influence our Lord s teaching had already exercised amongst all classes of the Jews. This scribe, notwithstanding the prejudices of his class, had reached the borderland of the kingdom. He had learned that the true way to the kingdom was by the love of God and of our neighbor. He was not far from the kingdom not far from the Church militant here on earth, by which is the way to the Church triumphant in heaven. He was not far from the kingdom, but still he wanted that which is the true pathway to the kingdom faith in Christ as the Savior of the world. And no man after that durst ask him any question. The Lord puts the question to them; and this silenced both their questioning and their answering. All felt that there was such a vast reach of wisdom and knowledge in all that He said, that it was in vain to contend with Him. 4
RELATED DISCUSSION TOPICS CLOSING PRAYER My God: I am grateful to have found You and kept You in the forefront of my being. Bless us continually with Your grace and mercy. They represent bountiful blessings for all of us. Amen. 5