Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
We're not to love God simply for all of the wonderful gifts and benefits that we receive from His hand, but we're to love Him for who He is in Himself. We don't really progress in the Christian life until we understand that, that to love God is to love Him because He is lovely, He is wonderful, and He is worthy of of the creature's unqualified affection.
Which commandment is the most important of all? When Jesus was asked this question, in His answer, He said, Do you love God like that? Do I? Welcome to the Sunday edition of Renewing Your Mind as we come to the conclusion of a short series in Mark's Gospel in which R.C. Sproul has examined some of the questions that were posed to Jesus, some questions to stump him and others out of curiosity.
And today, we learn what the great commandment is and what it means to love God. As this is the final sermon in this series, it also means it's the final Sunday to request R.C. Sproul's hardcover commentary on the entirety of the Gospel of Mark. If you'd like a copy, simply give a donation in support of Renewing Your Mind before midnight tonight at renewingyourmind.org.
Thank you for extending the reach of this listener-supported podcast. So, which commandment is the most important of all? Here's Dr. Sproul.
Mark 12, 28 to 34. 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? Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
And you shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your mind, and with all of your strength. This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these. 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. 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. And 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." In past weeks, we've looked at the different subgroups among the Jews who brought interesting questions before Jesus. First of all, we saw the Pharisees who on this occasion were united with the Herodians to try to trap Jesus on questions of
tax, and then last week we looked at the plot of the Sadducees to trip up Jesus with reference to His views regarding the resurrection of the dead. Now that third group that was distinctive that we meet throughout the New Testament was that group called the scribes. They were the theologians, the experts in biblical interpretation among the Jews.
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Chapter 2: What is the greatest commandment according to Jesus?
And so we read in Mark's gospel these words, "'One of the scribes came, having heard them reasoning together and perceiving that he had answered them well.' asked Him, which is the first commandment of all? Now the question is not a question of temporal chronology. Jesus is not being asked, what was the first commandment that God ever gave? That's not the question.
When He says, what is the first commandment, it's not the question of chronology, but the question of priority. He's asking, what is the single most important commandment that God has ever given to this world? What commandment sums up the whole duty of human beings before their Creator?
And what is in view here is not simply a question about what the sum and substance is of obligations of members of the household of Israel, or then later of the Christian community, but rather of the entire world. What is the chief duty of every human being created in the image of God?
Now there were many times in the Old Testament where people gave executive summaries of our chief obligation to God. We remember Micah saying, what does the Lord require of thee but to love mercy, to do justly, and to walk humbly with thy God, and elsewhere the just shall live by faith.
Rabbi Hillel, who taught 20 years before the ministry of Jesus, summed it up this way when he said, "'What you would not want done to you, do not do to your neighbor.'" Now what you see there and hear there obviously is the golden rule, in this case articulated not in positive terms as Jesus did, but in terms of a negative prohibition.
Don't do to your neighbor what you don't want to have your neighbor do to you. And then Hillel added to this, this is the essence of the law. Everything else is mere commentary on it. And so there were these attempts to sum up the whole duty of man in one single sentence. And so when Jesus is asked to do this,
He directs the attention of the scribe back to the most fundamental summary of obligation that God gave to His people in the Old Testament. He takes them back to the Shema. And before I read the Shema to you, let me read the few verses that begin chapter 6 of Deuteronomy as the introduction to it. We read, Now this is the commandment,
And these are the statutes and judgments which the Lord your God has commanded to teach you, that you may observe them in the land which you are crossing over to possess, that you may fear the Lord your God to keep all His statutes and His commandments which I command you, you, your son, and your grandson, all the days of your life." that your days may be prolonged." That's the preface.
And then comes the divine summons, the call, as it were, to solemn assembly with the use of the Hebrew word shema, which means hear or listen, give ear to what I'm about to say. And so the summons goes like this, "'Hear, O Israel, The Lord our God, the Lord is one, and you shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart and with all of your soul and with all of your strength.
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Chapter 3: How does love for God differ from love for His gifts?
And she allowed that it was. And I said, does that mean that you are engaged? And she was happy to announce that she was, yes, engaged. And I said, are you engaged to John who had just walked in the room with her? And she said, yes, I am. I said, well, before we start class, let me just take a moment here.
Let me ask you, since you're now engaged to John, you're planning to marry him, you're wearing his ring, do you love him? And she said, well, of course I love him. I said, oh, that's fine. I said, now tell me why you love him. And she thought for a second. She said, I love him because he's so intelligent. I said, you won't get any argument from me.
He's an excellent student, on the dean's list every semester, probably has an all-college 3.8. But here's Bill over here on the other side of the room. He's got a straight four-point, and I know that students can get good grades just by extra labor, and some of them are educated beyond their intelligence. But I think, and in the case of Bill, he's an intelligent student. Would you grant that?
And she said, oh, yes, yes. I said, but you're not in love with Bill. You're in love with John. She said, right. I said, so Mary, there must be something about John that you love that's not in Bill. What is it? She said, oh, she said, John is so athletic. I said, yeah, he plays on the basketball team. He starts, and he's a good, good ball player.
I said, I granted that, but Bill's the high scorer, and he's the captain of the team. said, granted, Bill also has athletic ability, wouldn't you? And she said, yes. And I said, but you're not in love with Bill. You're in love with John. She said, right. I said, well, come on now. We can't waste the whole day. I said, tell me more. What is it about John that makes you love him and not Bill?
She said, well, John is so polite and courteous. I said, Bill, did you hear that?
She
Are you rude? Oh, no, no, no, Mary said, no, I don't mean to cast aspersions on Bill in that way. I said, well, come on, Mary. Bill has all these qualities that you say you find in John, and yet they don't define your love. Please, Mary, I said, tell us what it is about John.
She said, well, I love John because he's, I love him because he, I love him because, I love him because he's, because he's, he's John. I said, yes. Yes. I said, when you ran out of the specific qualities that you could enumerate, in order to capture the essence of this person, you went to his name. Because to you, everything that John represents is bound up in his name. And so it is with God.
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