R.C. Sproul

And then the Shema says, with all of your strength.

The affection we have for God is not to be a weak, impotent thing.

but that we call upon all of the strength that we can muster up in our persons to magnify that affection for Him.

But you notice something strange here about how Jesus quotes the Shema.

In the Shema of the Old Testament, there are three dimensions about our love for God.

We're to love Him with all of our heart, all of our soul, all of our strength.

Some Hebrew scholars say that in the word for strength is ambiguously but implicitly contained the idea of the mind, but it's not spelled out.

Well, Jesus doesn't leave it in any ambiguity.

When Jesus summarizes the Shema, He said, "...you shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, all of our soul, all of our strength, but with all of our mind."

the fullness of our understanding.

You know, sometimes I really get impatient when I hear people say, I don't want to study.

I just want to have a simple faith.

God did not give all of this to his people to be treated as a children's story.

He calls us

to apply the fullest ability of the faculty of our minds in our attempt to understand the riches and the depths of what He has given to us in His Word.

I live in terror on that part of the great commandment because I'm aware, not fully aware by any means, but to some degree aware

of how little I know about this book, how much of the content I don't know, I've never really carefully, closely studied.

I know that in many, many ways, dear friends, I have wasted my mind with respect to mastering the things of God.

And I know if God were to ask me, R.C., have you loved me with all of your mind?

I would have to say, not by a million miles.