You Say You Love God… But Do You Really?

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The Bryce Crawford Podcast 17 min 1 speaker 6 chapters transcribed 15 days ago

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What is the context of Jesus’ greatest commandment in Matthew 22?

Bryce Crawford 0:00

What's going on, guys? Welcome back to another episode of the Bryce Carver Podcast. I'm Bryce, and today we are actually going to be diving into What I believe is One of the most important scriptures in all of the Bible. And this is what Jesus says out of his mouth is the greatest commandment. We're gonna be talking about what it is, what it means, what this means for us as believers today. As we dive in, we're gonna be in Matthew chapter 22, starting in verse 34. If you have your Bibles now. Let's set the scene here. All right. We need to understand. That the Pharisees, okay, literally about 15 verses prior, have been plotting to get Jesus to trip upon his word so that they can arrest him. Right. So this whole time, every time you see the Pharisees, the Pharisees are actually never genuinely curious, right?

Bryce Crawford 0:53

You have Nicodemus who's genuinely curious, but when it's referencing the Pharisees as a whole, they don't care about Jesus' well-being, his physical well-being. They literally want to find a way to throw him in prison. So much so. Like I don't know if you remember, but in the account when like people are throwing all these slanderous accusations out about Jesus, none of them are true. But they're throwing out accusations just because they want a reason to arrest him. So when we get to verse 34, you have another attempt of the Pharisees and the Sadducees, which are the religious leaders of the time. These guys are supposed to be the guys that really know the scriptures well. And Verse 34, it says, But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together.

Bryce Crawford 1:39

All right, so what happened? The Pharisees and the Sadducees, two different religious group sects, said, Well, Jesus responded to the Sadducees in such a way about the resurrection, they were so blown away by his response that they had no rebuttal. So the Pharisees are like, Well, the Sadducees couldn't do it, so now we gotta gather together. So they gather together, and it says in verse 35, one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. Now, this isn't very this is very important that the man asking this question.

Why do the Pharisees and Sadducees try to trap Jesus with a legal question?

Bryce Crawford 2:12

Is a lawyer. Because a lawyer is going to understand the law fully, right? That's why when or God forbid, if you get into some legal trouble, you're gonna hire an attorney. Because they know the law better than you do. They understand the ins and the outs, the loopholes. That's why when the IRS comes knocking on the door, who do you call? You don't do your taxes yourself, you call a CPA. Because they know the law better than you. So they know a little few extra things that they can write off, blah blah blah. You get the point. The lawyers ask this question. So you got to think: this is like someone who knows what they're talking about is asking Jesus a question. And he goes, Well, teacher. Which is the greatest commandment in the law?

Bryce Crawford 2:59

Now I can imagine the lawyer in this scenario is very smirk, very grinny. He's like, oh man, I'm really getting Jesus. Why? Because there's 613 laws and 10 commandments, all of them equally important in Old Testament Levitical law. Therefore, if Jesus were to say, Oh, well, this law is better than this other one, then they could catch him for blasphemy. Trip him up, arrest him, and ultimately have him tried and get what they want. So the fact that this lawyer Is asking Jesus, hey, out of all 613 Laws and Commandments, which one is the greatest? It's so important because this lawyer and his expertise is trying to trip Jesus up. In verse thirty seven. Such a gangster, gangster response. We'll talk about why it's gangster.

Bryce Crawford 3:46

Jesus says It says 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. This is the great and first commandment. Pause right there. Did Jesus just invent some new commandment? Yes or no? No, he did not. Hey, quick pause. I have to tell you about something I've been looking forward to all year. It's called Open Heaven, and it's the biggest live event we've ever done. It's happening November 8th at the pavilion at Toyota Music Factory in Irving, Texas.