Reasoning Through the Bible
Taking a cue from Paul, Reasoning Through the Bible is an expository style walk through the Scriptures that tells you what the Bible says. Reviewing both Old and New Testament books, as well as topical subjects, we methodically teach verse by verse, even phrase by phrase.
We have completed many books of the Bible and offer free lesson plans for teachers. If you want to browse our entire library by book or topic, see our website www.ReasoningThroughTheBible.com.
We primarily do expository teaching but also include a good bit of theology and apologetics. Just like Paul on Mars Hill, Christianity must address both the ancient truths and the questions of the people today. Join Glenn and Steve every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday as they reason with you through the Bible.
Reasoning Through the Bible
S46 || Why is This the Most Important Commandment? || Mark 12:28-34 || Session 46 || Verse by Verse Bible Study
Love forms the foundation of our entire faith journey. In this profound episode of Reasoning Through the Bible, we explore what Jesus called the greatest commandment of all – the command to love God wholeheartedly and to love our neighbors as ourselves.
During the final week of Jesus' earthly ministry, a remarkable conversation unfolds between Christ and a sincere scribe. Unlike other religious leaders trying to trap Jesus, this scribe genuinely seeks wisdom. "What commandment is foremost of all?" he asks. Jesus' answer revolutionizes our understanding of what matters most to God.
The greatest commandment isn't about religious ritual or following rules. It's about love – loving God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and loving our neighbors as ourselves. This radical prioritization of love over religious works challenges both ancient and modern assumptions about what God desires from us.
We discover how Christianity fundamentally differs from works-based religious systems. Our faith begins with love, not obligation. We don't obey to appease God; we obey because we already love Him. This subtle but crucial distinction transforms how we approach our spiritual journey.
The episode also explores an often-neglected dimension of faith: loving God with our minds. While many Christians embrace emotional connection with God, Jesus explicitly commands intellectual engagement. Christianity has a rich tradition of deep thinkers who have loved God with brilliant minds – a tradition we're invited to continue.
Join us for an intellectually stimulating and spiritually enriching exploration of love as the greatest commandment – the profound truth that can transform your understanding of what it means to follow Jesus.
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May God Bless you!! - Glenn and Steve
Today on Reasoning Through the Bible, we're going to learn one of the greatest words in the entire Bible, one that hinges our relationship with the Lord God. We're also going to learn a very surprising point of inspiration of the Gospels. So I trust that you're going to enjoy today's session. If you have your copy of the Bible, open it to Mark, chapter 12. Just a bit of reminder of where we are.
Speaker 1:Jesus is in the last week of his life. He's come to Jerusalem. He's been confronting the Jewish leaders. The Sanhedrin has sent a series of delegations to him trying to trap Jesus in his words and trying to separate Jesus from his followers. They've failed in every attempt and Jesus is in total and complete control of every situation. He is in fact driving himself towards the cross. That's going to be the culmination and the resurrection of the gospel. Of course, Today we're going to meet a scribe who has been listening to Jesus's response and comes up with a very profound question. So we're going to see that today, if we have your Bible, open to Mark, chapter 12, starting in verse 28 and down to verse 34.
Speaker 2:One of the scribes came and heard them arguing, recognizing that he had answered them well, asked him what commandment is the foremost of all? Jesus answered the foremost is Hear O Israel, the Lord. Our God is one Lord, 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. The second is this you shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these. The scribe said to him right teacher, you have truly stated that he is one and there is no one else besides him. And to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength, and to love one's neighbor as himself is much more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices. When Jesus saw that he had answered intelligently, he said to him you are not far from the kingdom of God. After that, no one would venture to ask him any more questions After that no one would venture to ask him any more questions.
Speaker 1:One of the scribes had heard the argument between the Sadducees and Jesus and he realized that Jesus was giving very good answers. I find here that's the first lesson is when the Jewish leaders this scribe was a trained person in the leadership of the nation when they were not so blinded by their traditions and would stop and listen to Jesus, they would see Jesus gives very profound answers. That's why the traditions that had been handed down to them were blinding the eyes of these what are supposed to have been spiritual leaders, but they were so attached to their traditions that they would not hear the Word of God. This scribe finally realizes that Jesus is giving very intelligent responses. And the scribe asks an intelligent question. He wants to know what is the most important thing. Now we have here a scribe that asks an intelligent, sincere question and Jesus gives an intelligent, sincere answer. When the scribes would finally ask something sincere, seeking truth, jesus would give very profound answers. When they're just trying to trap him, then it was a whole different story. I think the same thing applies today. God has many commands here, but we need to be not so attached to our traditions and then focus on the Word of God.
Speaker 1:The other thing that I think we can realize here is that he's talking about more important and less important things. The scribe's question was about what's more important. Jesus gives some important things, which tells us that there are more important and less important things in the Bible, and I think too many churches don't realize that there's more important and less important things in the Bible. And I think too many churches don't realize that there's more important and less important things. They hold all things to be equally important and they end up dividing. And places like Romans, chapter 14, tells us that even though people are wrong on minor things, then we shouldn't split churches over them. Steve, when we just read this passage, what are the first things that jump out?
Speaker 2:I want to add to what you said, glenn, that here this scribe comes to him with a sincere question and that Jesus' response to him is a sincere dialogue with him. We see this all throughout the Gospels. Remember, nicodemus came to Jesus by night. He was a Pharisee and asked Jesus a sincere question and Jesus' answer to him you must be born again. His disciples would come to him and ask him questions and he dealt with them. So I think it's a key thing that you've pointed out there is that Jesus didn't show disdain for people that come to him with sincere questions and were seeking to understand him, and I think that's a key thing to point out here as we get in here to this particular portion. Here it's just that this scribe is seeking to know and understand Jesus better, and we see that through the question that he has here.
Speaker 1:Steve. I think that's why, even today, people that approach the Bible and approach the Lord with sincerity, looking for answers, will get sincere truth. People that are just trying to prove the Bible wrong or just trying to ask trick questions of Jesus, they're never going to get a satisfactory answer, because that was Jesus' pattern in the Gospels and I think it's still his pattern today. First of all, if we look at the exact question, they ask what was the exact?
Speaker 2:question. The exact question was what commandment is the foremost of all? Which commandment is the greatest of all commandments?
Speaker 1:That's an intelligent question and I think that's an important question. In verse 29, jesus' answer the first part of his answer quotes what has been called the Hebrew Shema. The Lord, our God, is one Lord, and that's a quote out of Deuteronomy 6.4. That's really the precursor to his two-part answer, but I think we need to pause there for just a moment. The Lord, our God, is one Lord.
Speaker 1:Now Jesus believed that there was one and only one God. Zechariah 12.10 reinforces this Before me. There was no God formed and there will be none after me. I am he, it says. This scribe responds by agreeing, but he quotes Deuteronomy 435 that he is God and there is no other besides him. These verses clearly show that Jesus and the Jewish leadership believed there was one and only one God. There are no others. There have been skeptics and critics today that have questioned whether Israel or the Bible ever even taught monotheism. The Bible is thoroughly monotheistic, from start to finish. That's the first lesson here. Then in the answer, steve, what is the main part of Jesus' answer? What is the most important thing?
Speaker 2:So the second part here, of love your neighbor as yourself, is included with honor and love God with all your heart, mind and soul. That there's only one God. I find that that's kind of intriguing, glenn I don't know about you that love other people as you would yourself is considered to be one of the greatest commandments.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I find that to be very profound To our audience. This is probably the most important thing out of this whole section. Don't miss it. The question from this very educated scribe was what is the greatest commandment? And Jesus' answer. It was a two-part answer, but they both had the same central theme, which is love. Jesus' answer same central theme, which is love. Jesus' answer is the most important thing is love. Love the Lord, your God, and love your neighbor. So our entire Christian experience, our entire Christian belief system, is built around an ethic of love.
Speaker 1:I think this is extremely profound in the sense that, steve, I've found most people that I encounter outside the church anyway have a system of works in their mind. They have some idea that if I do things then I can please God. Or even people inside the church have an idea as many churches focus too much on works. As we went through the book of Galatians, the Apostle Paul was very emotional, trying to say that Christianity is not of works. He went over and over that. So the motivation to bring in a work is strong.
Speaker 1:But here, when he asked what is the greatest commandment, that was the scribe's question and the scribe was thinking oh, do this, do that do the other thing. No, the greatest is love. It's not a do thing, it's a what you have, it's a love. Now, all the actions flow from those, do they not? We do things because we love. Am I right? If we have our priorities straight that we're going to love God, therefore, then we will obey God. It's not the other way around. It's not an obey God in order to appease an angry God. No, it's a love relationship. Therefore, we obey his commands.
Speaker 2:The second part of love your neighbor as yourself. Just think if it would have been just and love your neighbor. Well, how do you interpret that? But when you add yourself to it, that's very clear. In other words, you don't want to mistreat yourself, you don't want to deny yourself of certain things. When you add that qualifier of love your neighbor as yourself, it's very clear how we are to love others. I think it's a great thing that is here.
Speaker 2:If we love our neighbors, and of course you have the parable from the Good Samaritan. When somebody says, well, who is our neighbor, then you have Jesus giving us the parable of the Good Samaritan. When somebody says, well, who is our neighbor, then you have Jesus giving us the parable of the Good Samaritan and the learnings from that. Our neighbors are our fellow human beings. Now, that doesn't mean that we are to just abandon good and common sense, but that is the way that we are to approach our fellow human beings.
Speaker 2:And Paul, I think, even goes further in his epistles and he calls out the body of Christ, the believers, that we are to love the believers, even differently or not differently, but we're to love them more than the other people and non-believers. We're to treat them as family. Paul mentions that several, several times. I think believers miss that. I think that they do not treat other believers necessarily with love, much less people who are unbelievers. Here's a great commandment Love your God with all your heart, mind and soul, but also love mankind as yourself. Approach the world that way.
Speaker 1:Right here Jesus gives the highest ethic. The highest ethic is love. The greatest commandment is love and the next one down is love. We love our God and love our neighbor. It's not an obedience in order to please him relationship. It's a love relationship. Because we can't, we are unable to do things to please him. He has come down because he loved us. All we have to do is love him back. If we love him, then we will obey out of desire, not out of obligation.
Speaker 1:Christianity is not a list of rules, of things that we have to do. No, it's a love relationship and a list of things we want to do. My friend, if you don't want to do the things that God has commanded us to do, then I would question the love relationship with God. Christianity is primarily a love relationship and not an obedience relationship. Yes, we are to obey, but we obey because we love him.
Speaker 1:Many religions are based on submission and obedience to commands. Christianity is based on love. The end of verse 33. Here loving God is more and more important than burnt offerings and sacrifices. The whole Old Testament sacrificial system had all these obligations you had to do. But here Jesus and the scribe realizes this that loving God is more than all of the doing Quote, for I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice, and in the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. It says in Hosea 6.6. So here in verse 30, jesus gives four things that we are to love God with—heart, soul, mind and strength. Modern Christians—and this is just my anecdotal experience—modern Christians get the heart and soul part right, but we often miss the love with your mind part. God commands us to love him with our minds. You ever thought about that? The greatest commandment, according to the Lord Jesus, says that we are to love God not only with our heart, soul and strength, but we are to also love him with our mind.
Speaker 1:Christianity has a long series of deep and profound thinkers. Modern Christians tend to be anti-intellectual. I heard someone just recently. There was a pastor of a church said well, go in and just disconnect your mind and stop thinking and just experience. My friend, the first and greatest commandment is to love God with our mind. The church needs deep and complex Bible teaching, but some of it is not so much complex, it's just simple but profound. I in you and you in me. Now most of that is single-syllable words, but it's so profound. Go off and spend an afternoon praying about Jesus, saying I in you and you in me. That's the type of thing that we need to engage our mind and love God with our meditations, love God with our thinking. Let's experience some of the great thinkers of the church again and bring them back into our lives. Jesus says that we should love God with our mind. In fact, it's a commandment to love God with our mind. We should think about him, meditate on him and think about the deep things of our faith. Steve, am I close?
Speaker 2:You're spot on with that, glenn. As we do that, what we actually do is we build up a relationship. That's what God wants. He wants a relationship with him. He doesn't want a bunch of people that are going to just do things so that they can kind of feel good about what they're doing and use the doing as a measurement of how their relationship with God is. No, he wants a relationship with them. Isn't that the way that we are? God is? No, he wants a relationship with them. Isn't that the way that we are? Whenever we first fell in love with our spouse, didn't we want to know everything about them? Didn't we want to get to know them and to love them with all of our being? That's what God wants, and through doing that and loving him that way, you can build such a great, great relationship with him.
Speaker 1:One side rabbit trail I want to bring up here in this passage, with this conversation with this scribe. Again, the scribe comes to Jesus and he asks this question and Jesus gives an answer and then the scribe responds in verses 32 and 33. Now the reason I want to bring this up is that passage believe it or not can give us a great support for the divine inspiration of Scripture and the fact that it was written by an eyewitness who was in Jerusalem in the first century. The reason I can say that is there's a modern problem. It was not an ancient problem or even an ancient question, but a modern question by many skeptics and critics is they look at the four Gospels and they say well, wait a minute. Matthew, mark, luke, john, none of them signed their name down at the bottom and said you know, I, mark, wrote this and here's my address and my phone number, so therefore documenting that I wrote this. No, they did not inject themselves into the story. They were writing about the Lord Jesus Everywhere in the New Testament. He must increase, I must decrease. Well, they always put him first and never bragged about it. The closest it ever got was John saying this was the disciple that Jesus loved. But I submit to you that, yes, the originals didn't have Mark's name down at the bottom saying I Mark wrote this, but we can take passages such as this conversation with the scribe and tell that it was written by an eyewitness in the temple in the first century that was intimately familiar with what was going on at the time. The reason I can say that is this If you follow this story, what happened Jesus this last week of his life?
Speaker 1:He comes in and overturns the tables of the money changers. Well, that was in the court of the Gentiles, that was the outskirts of the temple. The next story was about the widow's mite. The widow was then giving money in the coffers. Well, if someone was to walk from outside of Jerusalem through the gate into the temple, the first thing they would have seen was the court of the Gentiles, where they would have been selling the animals. The next thing they would have seen was the court of the women, where the women would go to give their offerings. Whoever wrote this knew the structure of the temple and what would be where and what would be going on at different places. And what would be where and what would be going on at different places and what you would see if you were just walking through Then in this story with the scribe we have here, a scribe that gives a response that I submit to you is thoroughly, entirely Jewish.
Speaker 1:The Gospel of Mark, we said from the very beginning, was written to Romans and there's very little in here that was written for Jews, but this scribe's response is thoroughly, entirely Jewish. His response let me read this again, starting in verse 32, says this the scribe said to him Write, teacher, you have truly stated that he is one and quotation of Old Testament passages that he has blended together into an answer. So that scribal response has a whole series of quotations from the Old Testament, and even the small part of it that wasn't a quotation from the Old Testament mentioned things that were in the Old Testament. This scribal response shows an intimate knowledge of Old Testament passages. Not only that, but when he quotes these passages, he is one and, to love him, he's actually slightly misquoting this.
Speaker 1:The original passages used the word God, only this scribe didn't use the word God. He substituted the pronoun he, which is what a scribe in that day would have done. He would have substituted he instead of naming the word of God. They took it very seriously to not take God's name in vain. So they would substitute he instead of God when they were just in casual conversations. So I submit to you whoever wrote this was very familiar with how scribes would talk and all the quotations from the Old Testament and how the temple was laid out.
Speaker 1:All those responses are not overt in the text, they're just woven into the fabric of the text. They're in the background, they're in the aftertaste, the flavor of the passage. Whoever wrote this wasn't being upfront with it. They weren't Hosea says, or Daniel says. They didn't put that out there, they didn't make it an obvious quote. Therefore, whoever wrote this was an eyewitness in the temple in the first century that knew how the scribes would talk. And it becomes increasingly difficult to accept what these modern skeptics and critics hint at, that this was somehow written many years later in a foreign land. Made up religious text. It just doesn't hold water. The inspiration of Scripture goes down to the very flavor and the tone and the ins and outs of the language that are in the background. This is very profound support for the inspiration of Scripture. Passages like this help destroy the idea that the Bible is a made-up religious myth. Now the next thing questioned here, steve. In verse 34, he says you are not far from the kingdom of God. What can we learn from that passage, steve? We?
Speaker 2:can learn from that, that the kingdom of God is a place that somebody can choose to enter into.
Speaker 2:I think that, glenn, you and I did a session on the kingdom of God versus the kingdom of heaven and we'll put a link on that to our session that we did with that.
Speaker 2:But the kingdom of God, I think, is a spiritual kingdom and it's also a kingdom of heaven, is what we call the millennial kingdom or the restored kingdom of Israel. Both of those were entered through recognizing who Jesus was and I think that through Jesus answering him and saying to him you are not far from the kingdom of heaven. I think he's telling this scribe you're not far from recognizing who I am and that gives you entrance into the kingdom, because he says there what you just got through saying love him being God with all your heart, understanding, strength and love one's neighbor as himself. This is more than burnt offerings and sacrifices. The scribe is understanding that this is more than doing, it's more than going through all of the rituals and stuff. I think Jesus is telling him you're not far off from understanding me and recognizing who I am. I think that this is an encouragement to the scribe as he tells him this oh, I think it's a great encouragement to him.
Speaker 1:What I want to talk about real quick is this idea of the kingdom. The reason why I bring this question up is Jesus mentions it here. Reason why I bring this question up is Jesus mentions it here. You are not far from the kingdom. Well, in our modern day, over the centuries, well-meaning Christians have wrestled with this idea of the kingdom and we have different views from amillennialists and postmillennialists and preterists and dispensationalists and covenant theologians, all having their own aspect of what is the kingdom, and I submit that it's not as easy as some of these groups make it out to be. Jesus here says you are not far from the kingdom, which makes it. As we just pointed out, our ideas and our thoughts and our decisions can bring us up to something that's not far from the kingdom. Now, if we compare that to other passages written in the scriptures Mark 1.34, the kingdom was at hand. That was the first message. The kingdom is at hand, which means it is here. That's what at hand means. You can reach out and touch it. If it's at hand, that means it's here, right now, present.
Speaker 1:In Mark 1.34, the kingdom was present. It's at hand. Matthew 12.28, the kingdom has come upon you. Past tense verb has come upon you here in Mark 12.34,. The kingdom is something you can be very close to, apparently enter based on a belief you have in God. Enter based on a belief you have in God. The parable of the minas in Luke 19 gives a little different story. The kingdom in the parable of the minas in Luke 19 is something that the nobleman Jesus in the parable goes off to receive and bring back with him. The kingdom is something that he has to go off and get and come back with. Matthew 25, the kingdom is something that comes at midnight when the bridegroom returns, which is Jesus. So again he comes and brings it at an hour that we don't know.
Speaker 1:Acts 1.6,. The disciples ask Jesus when the kingdom would be set up. Right time for him to say okay, the kingdom is just spiritual or it's going to come on the earth at some point. He says that's not for you to know. Didn't say there wasn't going to be one. Several places in Acts the kingdom is associated with the gospel, such as Acts 8-12.
Speaker 1:However, acts 14-22, paul says he's talking to Christians already established churches. He says quote through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God, steve, I submit. The kingdom is this multifaceted thing. It's not quite so easy. Is the kingdom now in the church? Well, yes, but that's just part of the story. If we look at the full-orbed explanation of the Scripture, I think it's quite clear there will be a future earthly kingdom. It's just the case that because the church is the kingdom now doesn't mean there's not going to be an earthly fulfillment of the literal kingdom later. It's just that our question should be the same as what the scribes should be asking is if I'm not far from the kingdom, how can I take that last step, steve? How can our listeners take that last step and get in the kingdom? The?
Speaker 2:last step is to believe in the Lord, jesus Christ, and you shall be saved. Confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that Jesus is the Messiah and is God, and that he has died for us, for our sins, and paid the price and paid the penalty for us, and that he has risen again on the third day. That gives you entrance into the kingdom. It gives you eternal life. It was true then with this scribe, and it's true today with us.
Speaker 1:What Jesus told the scribe was you are not far from the kingdom. So apparently the kingdom is something you can get close to but not quite enter. And hopefully this scribe took that last step. But that's the question for us Am I standing close to it and taking that last step? If I'm not taking that last step, then I'm not entering it, and the last step is merely really receiving it. He has gone off to receive a kingdom and bring it back to us because he is in love with us. If you didn't miss anything from this, then don't miss what we're saying here, which is love is the greatest ethic. How do we get into the kingdom? By love, loving our Lord, god with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and our neighbor as ourself. At that answer, steve, it was so profound that at the end of the verse there it says that nobody else dared to ask him any more questions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so this is a rabbit trail that I'd like to venture off into real quickly, glenn, as we wrap up this session, is that remember, jesus has come into Jerusalem. This is his last week, as we've pointed out several times, and he entered into Jerusalem on the 10th of Nisan, which was the day that the people were to take the lamb that they were going to sacrifice the Passover lamb and bring it into the house. And it stayed into the house until the 14th of Nisan, which was the day of Passover, the day that they slaughtered and sacrificed that lamb. The purpose for bringing it into the house was twofold. One was to ensure that it was clean from any type of blemishes and also protect it from getting any blemishes. So they were to inspect that lamb every day.
Speaker 2:What we have seen here in Jesus through the latter part of chapter 11 and through most of chapter 12, he has been inspected. It started out with the chief priests, elders and the teachers in the latter part of chapter 11. Then it moved to the Pharisees and the Herodians trying to entrap him on a statement. Then it moved to the Sadducees trying to entrap him about the resurrection. Now we see this sincere scribe coming to him and the exchange that he had with him that last part there that you read in 34, that no one ventured to ask him any more questions. He has passed the inspection. He is our Passover lamb who has no sin in him, has no blemish or spot in him, and they could find nothing wrong with him. Later on we'll see Pilate even mention that I find nothing wrong with this person that you want me to kill. So I think that is something that's also profound in understanding what's going on here in this last week of Jesus as he approaches the cross.
Speaker 1:Such rich grounds, such profound things here in the scriptures and in this passage we've reached the point where again it says no one else dared ask him any more questions. Well, now he's going to start asking them questions. We'll get to that next time. We'll find out the question that Jesus turns around and asks them, and that's even richer than what we've seen so far. We trust that you'll be back here with us next time to reason through that.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for watching and listening. May God bless you year.
