Jesus said and taught a lot of things. The meaning of some of what he said is easy enough for us to grasp (“A man reaps what he sows”); some of what he said strikes us as pretty cryptic (“The Son of God has no place to lay his head”); some of it is downright abstruse (“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple.”). And then we have this:
One of the teachers of the law came and heard [Jesus and some of his critics] debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
So there is Jesus flat-out telling us that this is the most important thing he ever has said or will say.
Seems like a good thing to pay attention to, no?
If Jesus says that something is the greatest commandment of all, then we can be certain that we have found ground upon which we can stand for the rest of our life, without once having to wonder whether or not we’re in the right place.
And what Jesus says at Mark 12: 28-31 is easy to understand. The Great Commandment is so simple. Yet it’s so deep and rich it’s like a mine from which we can forever extract pure gold.
The Great Commandment (obviously) consists of two parts: Love God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength; and love your neighbor as you love yourself.
Pfftt. Like those are so hard to do, right? You could probably do those while sitting right there in your chair!
Let’s all fulfill the Great Commandment, right now! Let’s all close our eyes, and love God with all our heart, mind, strength, and soul.
Ahhhhhh.
Feel your love for God.
Ahhhhhh.
Feel your love of your neighbor. Feel yourself feeling how your neighbor isn’t really such a bad guy at all. Feel yourself forgetting all about how your neighbor constantly plays his stereo at concert-decibel levels, or how he seems convinced that his leaf blower endows him with a special, divine right to wake up everyone in the neighborhood at eight o’clock on a Saturday morning as he blows the debris from his yard into everybody else’s. Feel yourself forgetting how your neighbor flicks his cigarette butts over his fence, or how he won’t even try to keep his dog from constantly barking.
Don’t you just hate your stupid, lazy, inconsiderate #%@!! jerk of a neighbor?!?!!!
Loving God is easy—but that guy! Who could love that guy?
Or the guy in the pick-up truck who cut you off on the freeway yesterday.
Or the lazy, manipulative coworker who keeps trying to take credit for your work.
Or the boss whose imperiousness leaves him or her apparently incapable of a normal human interaction.
Or the roommate who thinks it’s cute to eat your food.
Or this person.
Or that person.
Or these people. Or those.
Thus do we begin to sense some of the more challenging aspects of the practical, everyday application of Jesus’ supreme commandment to us all.
Having an abstract feeling of love for your fellow man is easy. But having actual love for your actual neighbors? Not so much.
That Jesus. He sure does know how to … pick his commandments.
Fundamentally, though, the Great Commandment really is pretty simple to execute. First off, you love God. But you must love God seriously—with, in fact, all of your heart, mind, soul and strength. In order to fulfill the Great Commandment, you must get alone, take some time, and really, really love God.
And when you do that (and, in fact, do do that, right now), what happens?
What happens is the part of the Great Commandment that Jesus, in his awesome wisdom, left out of the Great Commandment. And why would Jesus leave something important out of the Great Commandment? I believe it was so that we could discover for ourselves what he most intended us to—because discovering a thing for ourselves is how we really own and understand that thing.
That’s what great teachers do. They lead us up to the point of understanding—and then leave us to experience that next step, to suddenly comprehend the critical truth of the matter, for ourselves.
What Jesus didn’t say about the phenomenon of the Great Commandment is what happens when you love God with all your heart, mind, and strength.
And what happens is that you feel how much God loves you.
That’s the part he left out!
It’s not love God, and then love your neighbor. It’s love God, feel how much God loves you, and then love your neighbor.
Three steps. Not two.
We’re not designed to unconditionally love our neighbors. Our normal, everyday, quick-to-anger, reactively judgmental, habitually evaluative minds don’t work that way. But our hearts (which as a rule are overridden by our minds, especially when we’re out making our way in the big bad world ) are designed to fully process full love. But to open those channels, to get that love flowing at full capacity, we first need to tap into the One Big Love.
If you’re really going to feel peaceful, benevolent, patient, and truly loving toward people—even people as obnoxious as some of the “neighbors” in your life—then you’re going to need undiluted, pure, direct-from-the-source Divine Love.
Love; get the maximum, purest kind of love possible; love.
That’s the real deal of the Great Commandment.
In effect, the way to “do” the Great Commandment is to simply do its first part: to love God with everything you have. The next part—the miraculous part, where, filled with God’s love, you then fully love others—will naturally follow.
Just out: UNFAIR: Why the “Christian” View of Gays Doesn’t Work (softcover edition; Kindle edition; NookBook edition). You’re invited to check out my Facebook page, and my group Unfundamentalist Christians, the motto of which is “Above all, love.”
![John Shore on The Huffington Post](http://johnshore.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/huffpost.jpg?w=120 "John Shore on The Huffington Post\")
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In my experiences, many christians I’ve spoken to speak and/or preach from a position of privilege (there are numerous types of privileges so I won’t begin to list those). I come from a home where I was severely abused for 10 years. I’m sure there are many individuals on this site that can relate though it is extremely rare when someone tells me they were physically and/or sexually abused in their lifetime. In 1997, my mother nearly strangled me to death and my younger brother had to forcefully remove her from me. My mother was and remains an extremely bitter/angry woman (that is an understatement) because she didn’t have the marriage she wanted. She’s told me many times, “I should have aborted you,” and followed these degrading statements with random beatings if I missed the bus, if I she caught me sleeping after I came home from school, etc. The beatings, whipping and head beatings (she would take my hair and repeatedly bang my head onto the living room wall in her home ) would many times leave me without much breath. My older brother would sometimes get me a paper bag and literally repeat many times “calm down and breathe” because my body was so tormented by pain that crying and breathing at the same time was unbearable. I won’t go into the deets of sexual abuse.
So, as someone who loves Christ, I can personally say that doing love unto someone or loving someone who I normally would prefer to curse out and hate, remain angry with for the rest of my life, or equally beat them as they beat me, or throw them unto oncoming traffic in the hopes they die and are not able to exert physical violence on me, is not at all a facile task. One more time, loving someone or doing love unto someone who almost killed you with their bare hands is e x t r e m e l y difficult.
The odd thing is, the only reason I believe in Christ is because he knows what it feels like to be me, though I can say with the utmost of confidence that he suffered more than I ever will in this life. That actually brings me comfort and the fact that he was willing to forgive a murderer seriously challenges me to “count the costs” of following him. Counting the costs for me means that I have to somehow (perhaps through supernatural strength) love my mother, and the gentleman who randomly killed my uncle due to his pigment before calling him a n*gger (only a few years ago). If one of my friends who is self-identifiedqueer were ever murdered because of their orientation, I would somehow have to figure out how to love or do love towards her murderer. I’m not sure when I will be able to genuinely love or do love towards my mother or the man who killed my uncle, but I pray that it will happen before I die. My maternal side is Jewish and I won’t even go into the stories for my aunt regarding her folks in the camps. I know a couple of older folks who survived the brutalities of the civil rights movement and I can tell you by hearing their stories how hard it truly is to “love your neighbor as yourself.” When government-sanctioned crime/prejudice/hatred is in the picture, loving someone is another ballgame. I’m sure children all over the world who were systematically rape would also say it’s difficult to love their rapists.
How does one do love or love an individual who is more than just the annoying neighbor – who is a rapist, a murderer, an abuser? Suggestions?
total win.
It’s “obtuse,” not “arbtruse.” In fact, “arbtruse” is not a word at all.
Are you talking to me? Not sure if you are, but the word I used is “abstruse,” which is a word–and is the word I meant to use.
www. merriam-webster.com/dictionary/abstruse
Definition of ABSTRUSE : difficult to comprehend : recondite
Example of ABSTRUSE : I find questions about the definition of the word “abstruse” to be very abstruse.
John … I’ve been hoping that the comment-box rabbit trail below would lead to the following point, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen. So I’ll just ask directly.
Why do you assume that “the most important thing [Jesus] ever has said or will say” has to be a quotation from the Hebrew Torah?
The second greatest commandment is simply a formulation of the Golden Rule. We don’t need Jesus for that … we can find the Golden Rule in just about any world religion or philosophy.
The greatest commandment is something we could have gotten from any rabbi, or indeed from any teacher in any religion that involves devotion to a deity. Again, we don’t need Jesus to tell us to love God.
Jesus said plenty of things that aren’t so easy to find elsewhere. Things only the incarnate Son of God could have said. Things that make Christianity unique among religions.
But somehow the most important thing he said isn’t even an original statement? It’s not only a quotation from the law, but something that plenty of other teachers besides Jesus could have said and in fact did say?
I think you’re taking a big leap by assuming that “greatest commandment” = “most important thing I ever said.”
I don’t follow women’s lacrosse, so if someone told me Team A and Team B were the two greatest women’s lacrosse teams of all time, I’d be unlikely to conclude that those two teams were the most important franchises in the history of organized sports.
Which is kind of like commandments. Your community here seems a little bummed out by commandments in general. You don’t like being told what to do; you’ve said so yourself. So if commandments on the whole aren’t that great, why is the greatest of them so much more important than everything else?
Furthermore, how is it that the central principle of Christianity turns out to be something we could have found just as easily in Zoroastrianism?
Funny, that. Isn’t it.
Well, Christy …
You asked whether I was for or against Christianity. I may now have just enough information about what you call Christianity to give you an answer.
And that answer is …
I am 100 percent, entirely, thoroughly …
indifferent and apathetic toward it. Not the slightest bit for or against.
Since the most important features of Christianity are, according to you, the features it happens to share with nearly every other religion or system of ethics one can name, then obviously it doesn’t matter whether I choose Christianity or one of those other religions or systems. There is no need to favor any particular religion over any other, since I can get what I need from any one of them.
What a refreshing thought.
Thanks.
Well spitting animal, you may now be drawing very close to the Kingdom!
The Kingdom? What does that mean?
James, the Kingdom of which Jesus repeatedly spoke. The one, he said, is also within you.
Yeah, but what is this Kingdom? I’ve never really understood it at all. It’s always spoken about in abstractions. I live in the real world, at my desk in lab. In a body filled with organs and blood and lymph, among other things. What’s this “Kingdom”?
It is refreshing.
Personally, I’d think you have it backwards.
I don’t think that formal Christianity is the only way that God interacts with human beings – and in fact, I feel that thinking so is arrogant and reflects a belief that God is cruel – in most cases, people who aren’t exposed to Christianity aren’t because of an accident of birth, and all the historical civilizations before the birth of Christ or sufficient cultural interaction so they’d hear of him would be out of luck.
So, it would make far more sense that the most important theological realities, the most important interactions between God and God’s creations, would be reflected in all human civilizations’ best moral teachers.
In fact, to me, the things that are most specifically and uniquely present in a particular religious tradition (no meat on Fridays, or use a specific prayer rug at specific times of day) seem to me to be the MOST likely to be human inventions. That doesn’t invalidate them as good practice for placing yourself in the right state of mind to approach God from the human side of things, but it makes them far less likely to be universally necessary for connecting to God from God’s side.
Very nice. Thanks, Lymis.
Thanks Lymis. I do hear what you’re saying.
So how do you know where to draw the line between human inventions and universal spiritual truths? Atheists would say that God himself is a human invention, and that we don’t need an imaginary guy-in-the-sky to tell us how to treat each other. How would you answer that?
I think everyone was given a conscience for just that reason. Most of us are great liars, especially to ourselves, but the truth is there if you’re willing to be honest.
I personally believe that Jesus’ Great Commandment is a wonderful razor for cutting through human inventions. If I can’t figure out why a thing would be offensive to God or hurt somebody, I figure it’s made up from whole cloth. I may be mistaken about whether or not a particular action is hurtful, but I missed the part where Jesus said stupid people can’t get into heaven. Even in the OT it says, more than once, Hey, what made you think you need to do all this stupid stuff? What I asked you to do was be nice to each other, how about you try that?
This would be the god I referred to earlier when I asked you to tell me about the god you don’t believe in and perhaps we will find I don’t believe in that god either. How we use words to describe the Divine (which necessarily limits the Divine and is a challenge anytime we try to use words to describe an inherently subjective experience with an ineffable force) doesn’t mean that’s the way the Divine is. EG: Because some choose to describe and understand God as an imaginary guy-in-the-sky doesn’t mean that’s, in fact, who or what God is. That’s merely how some people choose to understand the Divine and relate to what they call God.
The doctrinal notion of the fall of man in the garden and original sin is a theory, an explanation, a myth: ways we have made sense of our place and relationship in the world. Other theories, or explanations, or myths point to a Divine nature within – of yin and yang, good and bad – and like in Native American Spirituality parables, the one we feed is the one that grows. So in this way, the universality of spiritual truths keeps getting discovered and rediscovered again and again and again and encouraged as an individual practice; and, yet, humans continue to take these universal spiritual truths and try to pound them into religious structures involving power holders and the powerless, winners and losers, us and them, the in group and the out – again and again and again.
When all the great spiritual masters have said the same thing: The Kingdom of Heaven is within you; when you know this, you can stop searching for and chasing the ox because it doesn’t exist outside of you…..and this knowing (insight, conversion, understanding, gnosis, repentance, enlightenment) compels you to go into the world in service to others rather than in service to yourself.
The trouble with the “greatest commandment” is that if you take it seriously, it obliges you to take all the OTHER commandments EQUALLY seriously. To love God is to OBEY him. Jesus himself also said, “If you love me, keep my commandments” (Plural! Not “some of my commandments” or “only the commandments you agree with”). As an earlier commenter noted, loving God can actually be very difficult, contrary to John’s assertion.
People seem to think that calling this the “greatest” commandment exempts them from having to pay attention to the other commandments. That is erroneous.
No, Martin, you are not correct. It is the greatest commandment because Jesus said, effectively, that if you forget everything else I’ve ever said or you’ve ever read or heard about God, fine. But THIS is the one thing you shouldn’t forget. If you keep THIS commandment, you’ll be keeping the essence of all the others.
Literalists need not apply.
Why shouldn’t literalists apply? Are you suggesting that not even the “greatest” commandment deserves to be taken literally?
Read the passage in context (Mt. 22): When Jesus identified this as the greatest commandment, who was he speaking to?
Pharisees, that’s who.
Pharisees were literalists.
Pharisees were in no danger of forgetting the law. Pharisees were the ultra-Orthodox Jews of their day, and they knew the law backwards and forwards. The person who asked him the question was not only a Pharisee but “a lawyer.” He asked Jesus about the “greatest commandment” as a trick question, to “tempt” him (Mt. 22:35). The Pharisees were hoping that if he identified this or that commandment as the greatest, they’d be able to accuse him of saying that the other commandments were less important.
So Jesus chose the one commandment that is the linchpin of the law: Love God. He didn’t say, “If you get this right, you can forget about the other commandments.” He said: “On these two commandments ALL the law and the prophets.”
By misconstruing what Jesus said here, you’ve fallen into the very trap that he deftly avoided.
Just for the record, Pharisees were not particularly literalists. They differed from the legalists by believing in a life “to come”.
We don’t have to guess about this. We know what Jesus did about legalism and literalism, not just from the Great Commandment, but from specific examples of how he lived his life. Such as picking corn and healing people on the Sabbath. Or how about the observation that what came out of a man’s mouth made him unholy, not what went into it?
dang … beware the dreaded missing word. It’s ““On these two commandments … hang … ALL the law and the prophets.”
Martin, I answered this for Ralph here: http://johnshore.com/2011/10/28/the-mild-goose-festival/comment-page-2/#comment-101596
Not much of an answer, was it?
What part was confusing to you?
I never said I was confused. Stop judging me.
No, you said my answer wasn’t much of anything. But I’m the one accused of judging. I’m going to try not to get angry and give you a second chance. What part of it did not answer your question about how we are to love God?
Ahh. You’re a troll.
Indeed! Didn’t we meet at the troll convention?
Ralph: I’m going to take you out of moderation. Just resist your urge to get personally snarky, okay? Keep it about the TOPIC, don’t get insulting, and I can go back to not having to monitor these comments. You’re new here, so don’t know: I don’t tolerate any kind of ugliness here—and, yes, I get to decide what does and doesn’t qualify as ugly. If the conversation’s worth having, it’s worth having without getting nasty or in any way rude. Thanks for understanding. Welcome to the group.
You’re welcome. I will behave if DR behaves.
No, Ralph. That’s not a satisfactory answer. If DR misbehaves, I’ll take care of it. Someone else being an asshole is not a moral waiver for you to also become one. We’re not children.
I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have called you that. I do find your aggressive tone here really off-putting. In my opinion you’re just here for a fight and it seems like that’s clear from the conversations you’re having with others. I hope I’m wrong. But again, I’m sorry for the name calling, that was silly.
And I’m a woman by the way. A very girly one. (you called me a man below).
Apology cheerfully accepted. Sorry if I offended by assuming you were male … it was a 50-50 shot, I just got it wrong.
You can attribute my aggression to my gender if you want … it doesn’t bother me. I’ll just smoke another Camel and gargle some raw hamburger.
I forgot the
in my previous reply, John. Understood. Don’t worry, I will take responsibility for myself here.
What I want to know is which part of Martin’s assertion Mindy judges to be “incorrect.”
The part that seems incorrect to me is where he says: “People seem to think that calling this the “greatest” commandment exempts them from having to pay attention to the other commandments.”
No we don’t. We see how the Greatest Commandment and the Second that is just like it and the Ten Commandments all dovetail rather nicely together.
Well, “People seem to think” is rather vague; obvi0usly he doesn’t mean EVERYBODY thinks this way. As long as SOME people think this way, he’s not incorrect.
Anyhow, so you’ve got 12 commandments and they dovetail rather nicely together. I can get on board with that. What about the hundreds of other commandments?
Are you Jewish?
I don’t really think that’s pertinent. Does your argument depend on whether I’m Jewish or not?
I think it’s pertinent to know where people are coming from. Are you atheist? Because I haven’t figured out if you are for or against Christianity yet.
That’s how I like it, for now.
I guess the answer depends on whose definition of Christianity we are talking about, doesn’t it? The biblical principle is “To every man an answer.” Do you have a faith that will stand up to all comers?
Ralph, you seemed frustrated that Christy wasn’t answering your questions in earlier comments. Isn’t your refusal of answering hers exactly what you’re frustrated with? I’m curious as to where you’re coming from as well and yes, it does matter.
DR, thanks for the sincere engagement!
Folks who hang out here seem to hold church authority in downright contempt (http://johnshore.com/2010/11/14/church-authority-smurch-schmashmority/) and are also rather disdainful of scriptural authority. That leaves us with a bunch of individual popes defining Christianity on their own individual terms. I couldn’t possibly tell one of these popes whether I’m for or against Christianity until I see his or her doctrinal statement. When Christy gives me her definition of Christianity I’ll tell her what I think of it.
So in other words you’re not going to answer the question ( I didn’t expect it.)
If Christy wants to know whether I’m fer Christianity or agin’ it, she’ll have to tell me whut it iz first.
So far she’s wondered whether I’m Jewish, atheist or Catholic. I wonder what I’d have to say to make her think I was a Muslim?
I always feel obliged to point out that the” greatest” and “second greatest” commandments themselves do not originate with Jesus. They come from Deuteronomy and Leviticus, respectively. It’s fashionable to hate on those two books, but if they contain the two greatest commandments, they can’t be all bad!
Anyhow, there is incredible wisdom in Jesus’ statement about these two commandments, but still, that statement was essentially a debate trick: a clever riposte to a difficult, abstruse philosophical question. How it came to be upheld as the be-all, end-all of the gospel is something of a mystery to me.
I wonder why, instead, we don’t hold up Jesus’ response to the rich young ruler (Mt. 19:16–30) as the essence of the gospel. After all, in that instance the question was much more direct: “What must I do to get eternal life?” It might even have been a sincere question, whereas the lawyer’s question in Mt. 22 was not.
But of course, the answer Jesus gave there is much, much harder to obey — or to pretend to obey — than the greatest commandment is.
I always feel obliged to point out that in the first century Rabbi Hillel was asked much the same question in the same challenging manner that the lawyer asked Jesus: while standing on one foot recite the whole of the Torah. To which he replied: “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn.”
Mindy’s point about literalism is pertinent here. You are focussing on the words of these specific questions while missing that they are all home to the exact same concept: selflessness, putting ourselves last and God and others first. We could add the parable of The Goats and the Sheep from Matthew 25 here as well. This is about ego and compassion/sin and Divine love about which I wrote earlier today: http://johnshore.com/2011/10/28/the-mild-goose-festival/comment-page-2/#comment-101433
Re: “But of course, the answer Jesus gave there is much, much harder to obey — or to pretend to obey — than the greatest commandment is.” No it isn’t. It is the exact same answer: put yourself and your wants last.
Are you saying it’s not difficult to put yourself and your wants last?
I’m saying it’s doable.
I note that Rabbi Hillel said “Go and learn.” He didn’t say, “Just let it melt away.”
A world of difference, that.
Well, in your world can a girl go and study torah or go to seminary?
I *think* I live in the same world you do; at least I hope so! Strictly as a matter of personal opinion, yes, everybody should study the scriptures and people of either gender should be allowed to go to seminary. I’m sure people from various traditions will disagree with me, but I can’t help that.
>Mindy’s point about literalism is pertinent here. You are focussing on the
> words of these specific questions…
Hm. I didn’t realize there was something wrong with paying attention to what texts actually say.
> while missing that they are all home to the exact same concept: selflessness,
> putting ourselves last and God and others first.
Seriously, just because I didn’t MENTION that doesn’t mean I MISSED it. I was interested in exploring the text in greater detail, that’s all. Is something wrong with that? Are you saying selflessness is the ONLY thing we can or should infer from these texts? Are you claiming that your interpretation is superior to mine?
Ralph, if you want to have a conversation then I’m happy to do that. If you want to throw shit at the fan to see if I get pissed off about it, I’m not interested in playing.
I don’t think he’s here for real conversation I think he is just some angry dude with an axe to grind. But as usual, you’ve handled him with a lot of class.
Agreed. Just like Thomas and our other favorite trolls, he’s just trying to pick fights so he can continue playing the martyr.
Yes, it’s so unsettling to watch people like this become unglued. Brrr.
Unsettling, but fun. Pass the popcorn!
DR, you really had me going last night when you dropped your deflector shield for a few minutes. I’m still not quite sure what made it go back up. Any time you wanna talk, or play Scrabble, let me know.
Which is more than can be said for you.
Wow, what a hateful, arrogant comment. Just where did she handle you without class? Jerk.
Sorry, Melody. The comment ended up in the wrong place. It was meant as a reply to DR. I can agree with DR that Christy handles herself with class (at least up to the point where she accuses me of “throw[ing] shit at the fan to see if I get pissed off about it”). DR, however, handles himself with significantly less class than Christy does. John, our Almighty Moderator, professes not to tolerate ugliness, but evidently he makes an exception for DR.
Ralph: You’re new here. DR is a long-time friend of this blog (and of me personally). You become a friend of mine—you spend a couple of years on this blog, as DR has, thoughtfully engaging people—and I’ll cut you the same slack I do her. In the meantime, if you want to continue commenting here, tread carefully. “But evidently he makes an exception for DR” is getting real close to being rude to me personally. That doesn’t work for me.
Thanks John. We’ll see whether I stick around for a couple of years or not. Even if I were to do so, I don’t know whether “slack” would be the best thing for me … I need more practice at being gracious than I do at being snarky.
Ralph, I’m cool if you’re not my #1 fan. I think we’re probably both going to survive the other’s negative opinion of one another which is pretty well-entrenched at this point so please put the testosterone pipe down, you’ve got the biggest – opinion in the virtual room. I still maintain that you’re not really here for dialogue but it’s certainly entertaining to watch and keeps things lively so who cares!
“Louie, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” — Humphrey Bogart
After seeing how you spoke to some people who demonstrated enormous patience with you? Who are treasured members of this online community and have helped so many here? I’ll pass on the friendship however ironically offered.
Me confused.
Ralph, I’m not going to giive you any attention anymore. You’re dismissed (and I’m not easy to alienate, I like feisty posters but you’re…..at a different level. We’ll leave it at that.)
Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow. It was thoughtful of you to cease hostilities, however briefly, but I guess it was too good to last.
When I begin to see the second greatest commandment actually put into practice around here, I may get closer to agreeing with what John has to say about it.
Ralph it’s clear you feel quite victimized. Victims tend to make excellent bullies and you take the bully cake, I’ll give you that. The unconsciousnessof those of you have sometimes who enter into these conversations is so creepy, but I know – it’s everyone else’s problem. Right? Youre just……misunderstood. Keep telling yourself that perhaps you might even believe it soon.
Wow … if I get any more psychotherapy here I might have to quit drinking.
Anyhow, I’m glad we had this little chat. You’ve helped me to see that comments like the following (from this thread alone)…
“not correct”
“need not apply”
“confused”
“a troll”
“Jewish”
“atheist”
“throw shit at the fan to see if I get pissed off about it”
“some angry dude with an axe to grind”
“trying to pick fights so he can continue playing the martyr”
“hateful, arrogant”
“Jerk”
“not really here for dialogue”
“not going to giive you any attention anymore”
“feel quite victimized”
“try to completely control and manipulate the conversation”
“interested in lobbing accusations”
“ego-stroking”
“I don’t wish to engage with people in this way”
“miserable”
“creepy”
…are really just examples of people demonstrating “enormous patience” with me, and that if I feel “victimized,” it’s really all just in my head.
I feel better already.
Oh, and I’ve also just realized that the ultimate expression of patience is giving up on the conversation in disgust. So the fact that I’m still here must mean that I’m not patient enough. I still have much to learn…
Conversation would entail your clarifying your position by answering questions that are put to you. So, again: Are you saying that selflessness is the only thing we ought to infer from the passages we have been discussing?
Conversations would entail you not inferring things in your questions about my point of view that I am not saying and to show a little openness on your part and not try to completely control and manipulate the conversation. A little vulnerable honesty would go a long way. This ain’t my first rodeo, friend.
Your original question was why does the Greatest Commandment get to trump all the “1oo’s of others?” I’m a spirit of the law kinda girl now, Ralph. I used to be the letter kind. Upon further careful study and evaluation, particularly in light of Jesus’ interaction with the Pharisees, for me, it is not a compelling argument that the point of our relationship with the Divine is for God to be an accountant and us to be rule-followers.
So it is possible to love God without obeying him?
If you understand and keep the spirit of the law, which God says is loving God, how is this disobeying?
Well, I think your argument is essentially circular. It goes like this:
Q: How do you love God?
A: By obeying him.
Q: How do you obey God?
A: By loving him.
It has the benefit of simplicity, I guess …
Anyhow, if your position really is that the Greatest Commandment “trumps” all the others, I refer you back to the text. The Pharisees tried to trick Jesus into naming a commandment that trumped all the others. He replied by naming the one commandment that brings all the others along with it. For Jesus to declare to the Pharisees that one commandment trumped the others would mean that the Pharisees won the debate. Clearly that didn’t happen, so clearly Jesus didn’t mean to say that the greatest commandment trumped the others.
That is what the text says, but hey, why bother with what it says when you’ve already decided it means something else?
Nice straw man, Ralph. You show up, accuse me of saying something I never said, then say how it’s completely and utterly wrong.
Perhaps you are a lawyer. You are adept at asking closed ended questions and trying to force people into corners to get them to say what you want them to say. My position is worth defending, but it is clear you aren’t interested in actually talking about what Jesus said or what the text means; you are interested in lobbing accusations, trying to score rhetorical points, and “win.” I’m walking away, not because I don’t have something worthwhile to say or because I can’t say it well, but because I am unwilling to play your ego-stroking game.
Does this mean you’re NOT saying that the greatest commandment trumps the others? Why do you clam up when asked for clarification?
I am not a lawyer, but some of the most upstanding, respectable people I know are lawyers. Thanks for the compliment.
I already clarified my point, which you ignored. I said the greatest and the ten dovetail together. They are, in spirit, the same.
Anyhow, to be fair, you’ve said elsewhere that the 2 greatest commandments “dovetail” with the 10, and the other 600-plus are more or less superfluous variations on a theme. Or something.
(It’s interesting that all 12 of the commandments that you’ll cotton to come from that nasty brutish Old Testament! 1 from Deut., 1 from Lev., 10 from Exodus! What’s up with that?)
So yes, you’ve already said that you don’t believe the greatest “trumps” the others … but in the above comment it appeared for a second that you might be contradicting yourself. Apparently you weren’t. That’s fine. But: if you want to take a whack at me for logical fallacies, go ahead, just remember that turnabout is fair play.
What a text says and what it actually means is not the same thing. A world of difference, that.
Which part of what the text says do you want me to ignore?
http://www.cracked.com/article_19468_5-logical-fallacies-that-make-you-wrong-more-than-you-think.html
Is off-linking your idea of a conversation?
I’ve put forth a good faith effort here. It was expedient. I’m having trouble with your communication style. If I have a choice, I don’t wish to engage with people in this way, and here I have that choice. Best of luck to you, Ralph.
Ah well. You and I appear to agree on at least one thing: your position here is not really worth defending.
I’m really not interested in formulations that begin with “If you forget everything else Jesus ever said …” The average reader can sit down with a Bible and read everything Jesus ever said in one evening, and still have time to catch Letterman. Forgetting things that Jesus said is just laziness.
Did you read the link about logical fallacies?
No. If you want conversation, then converse. It’s hypocritical to appeal to me to make conversation on my end while you use non-conversational tactics on your end.
If you wish to accuse me of indulging in a logical fallacy, kindly do so in your own words.
Sometime we’ll have to get together for a beer and you can show me how you can discern the message of scripture without looking at the words. That sounds like a pretty neat trick.
Oh ralph. I just want to cuddle you to my bosom. You sound miserable.
Now, now, I’m a married man! But I wouldn’t say no to a nice game of Scrabble.
I’d play only after you demonstrate a certificate of completion from Anger Management class. from how you’ve acted here with these lovely people who’ve been so kind to you, I don’t think you’d lose well.
What makes you think I’d lose?
Which comments of mine — apart from the ones directed at you earlier — are you having trouble with?
You are a SAINT!
Saint Ralph. I like the sound of that.
But aren’t we all “saints”?
Ah, here I am:
http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=4554
St. Ralph. Feastday: June 21.
Benedictine bishop known for his learning. Also called Raoul and Radulf, he was the son of Count Raoul of Cahors and, as was the custom of the times, was entrusted into the care of the monks of Solignac, France. Educated under Abbot Bertrand, he may have became a monk, although he certainly rendered invaluable assistance to several abbots before receiving election as abbot himself in several houses, including St. Medard, Soissons. Named bishop of Bourges in 840, he took part in various synods and founded monasteries and convents. Ralph was also known for his learning and the deep concern he felt for the monks in his care. He attended the Synod of Meaux in 845.
Sounds like a decent enough guy.
I read the link, so your efforts weren’t entirely wasted.
This is great information I kept this bookmarked!
“I always feel obliged to point out that the” greatest” and “second greatest” commandments themselves do not originate with Jesus. They come from Deuteronomy and Leviticus, respectively. It’s fashionable to hate on those two books, but if they contain the two greatest commandments, they can’t be all bad!”
Yes, even a broken clock is right twice a day. In other words, just because the books of Deuteronomy and Leviticus are full of it in some ways, doesn’t mean that the occasional fragment of wisdom can’t come from them.
Indeed.
Do you think Jesus believed those books were “full of it”?
He certainly thought the Pharasees were full of it when they insisted on “straining out gnats while swallowing camels.” Yes, I know. That’s different.
Yes it is. Jesus had a lot to say about how the law was being misinterpreted in his day. But he was profoundly respectful of the law itself.
Anyhow, Diana, the argument being made here by John & Mindy & Christy goes far beyond admitting that the OT contains “the occasional fragment of wisdom.” Rather, they appear to be saying that these two Old Testament verses quoted by Jesus are the most significant statements to be found anywhere in the Bible. Here’s John from his OP:
> So there is Jesus flat-out telling us that this is the most important thing he
> ever has said or will say.
(It’s certainly debatable whether that’s an accurate representation of what Jesus means by “the greatest commandment,” but whatevah.)
> If Jesus says that something is the greatest commandment of all, then we
> can be certain that we have found ground upon which we can stand for the
> rest of our life, without once having to wonder whether or not we’re in the
> right place.
So according to John, the most important, foundational, infallible utterance Jesus ever made consisted of … two quotations from the Old Testament. That’s the same Old Testament that Mindy admits she never pays attention to, and Christy says makes God look like Thor. (I don’t know whether John is on record disparaging the Old Testament or not … what he says about Scripture on the ThruWay Christians FB page is, IMHO, quite thoughtful and nuanced.)
Despite all that, evidently I’m the one who commits logical fallacies.
I’m glad you’ve got that part straight
I always liked St. Augustine’s “love God and do as you like.”
Nice work again, John! And I admit I was expecting a different “missing part” of the commandment, which I might call 2A. It’s a progression.
1A: Love God w/all heart, soul, mind, strength.
1B: Feel God’s love for you.
2A: Therefore realize that you are lovable, and love yourself .
2B: Love your neighbor as yourself.
I guess I’ve known enough self-hating people to want to articulate that not everyone does in fact love themselves. (I mean, if you don’t have any self-respect, you can treat others like sh*t and claim you’re just following Jesus’ second commandment to the letter.)
Wakes people up at 8am?
Who isn’t awake at 8am? I mean, sometimes I sleep in until 6:30, but 8am? Is there some kind of plague in the neighborhood?
Anyway …
Yes, I agree. Loving our neighbors, or really anyone, as ourselves definitely requires miraculous intervention. It seems like such a simple instruction until you try to act on it. (No offense to my neighbors, in case you’re reading this. You guys are great … although I wouldn’t mind if you’d keep your dog on a leash or stop shouting at him at 5 in the morning and … ahem … never mind.)
Loving like that requires an act of grace, and an outpouring of it into our hearts and souls.
Great post.
the way i see it is this…god created us of his own image. god is love. we were made from that love. it’s through society that we forget about loving, god, ourselves & others. because i love god, i love myself. because i love god, & myself, i love everyone. we are all connected. we are all children of god. that doesn’t mean i don’t get irritated or angry with others. i just remind myself that they too were created from the love of god. these people are my brothers & sisters. i don’t know what’s going on in their lives, but i love them just the same. the ‘good’ guys & the ‘bad’ guys. thanks, john for sharing this. blessings.
in my small understanding, I thought by loving others you realize that you are giving love to God. Maybe it’s also love your God and then your feel love and then do something with it and love your neighbor. What about loving yourself? Is it ok to care or respect and honor yourself or you have to do all that to others and God before self…it’s also left out. Just sayin…..
I think it is like when Jesus said “when you give someone in need a drink, or clothing, or give them food, you have done it unto me” The way we show God we love Him is to serve and help others, and treat them the way we would like to be treated (The Golden Rule)
Yes. So true, Karen.
John, I have personally considered that the “idiots guide to Christianity” for some time now-
What I believe is that once you can take car of that business, you can move onto the the rest of the Bible.
Actually the first part can also be hard. Loving God can be difficult at times… during times when your life doesn’t make sense or when you watch those you love suffer. When I lost my loving, kind husband to cancer at age 50 I found God’s ways difficult to understand. My mom suffered with Alzheimer’s and I also found her suffering difficult to bear. At these kinds of times, when someone I truly loved and knew to be of the best character possible, it is hard to see others prosper while these suffer. And to say “they’ll get their reward in heaven” doesn’t bring much relief. Like a child, I would say, “That’s not enough. I don’t care about that. I want them not to suffer NOW.”
That’s such a strong point, Jeanette. Thank you for saying this.
Actually, it’s NOT three steps … he left nothing out. It’s ONE step.
Read the Great Commandment again. He said “The second is like unto it…” According to Jesus loving God IS THE SAME as loving your neighbor as yourself. It’s all one.
True, but it’s easy to miss that. John’s breakdown makes the message clearer.
Will: Gimme a break. I never censure or block anyone off this page who maintains anything near a tone of respectful engagement.
You’ve been petulant and defensive since your first comment here. Bear in mind that you’re posting with a lot of people who are holding you accountable for the *impact* of your expressed beliefs about homosexuality. Stop being such a victim, your beliefs hurt a lot of people and a lot of us are pretty angry that you could give a sh*& about that and instead, have this whiny, self-absorbed “No one is being nice to me here everyone is against me” attitude.
There are hundreds of testimonials on this site alone that show how you and your beliefs are DAMAGING the spiritual, emotional and even physical components of the GLBT community. And a lot of us are furious with you about that. So stop expecting everyone to be nice to you and realize you’re choosing to be here with the people that are here. In short? Grow up Will, try to cultivate a little self-awareness and drop the belief that you’re entitled to believing whatever you want to, expressing those beliefs and having everyone still like you. It’s not the real world.
Dualism is one school of thought, but there are others. And the world is not so simple as either/or, will. It is very much made up of yes/and and sometimes maybe.
Wow! Thank you, it’s been a rough few weeks and I really needed to hear this in this moment.
John, I really appreciate your analysis of spiritual questions. Before today I never realized that people speaking semitic languages have no easy way to “like” someone or something, but, can easily choose between loving them and hating them. This seems to me to potentially explain a lot about middle East conflict.
Oh thanks John.
About two years ago, when I was going through the early stages of ending my marriage and feeling lost and alone, I started back to college. One of the first classes I took was a comparative religion course. The teacher, a part time pastor, couldn’t help but interject his views of other religion with Christianity being the “better” of the two. Frankly I was quite disappointed as I was hoping for an honestly objective view on things (and I hope for world peace and a million in my bank account…see what that gets me.)
Anyhoo, what that class did do was to find myself deconstructing my own faith and I ended up tossing out a lot of religious dogma to the curb. I was left with those two commandments of Jesus. I came to the conclusion that Christianity hinges on those two simple yet difficult commands. I will be spending the rest of my life trying to follow them, failing repeatedly, yet trying again. He gave us those two commands for a reason, a reason often overlooked, yet so vital. To me it is the most important statement Jesus uttered.
But I’m odd like that.
Very nicely written. I think you have it very correctly, that you have to FEEL God’s Love before you can love your neighbor.
That can’t be right, Ayn Rand said…
Ayn Rand was the AntiChrist, wasn’t she? And now today so many of her political followers are mascarading as Christians.
Perhaps these people have children and should get them started early:
http://i-beta.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/photoshop/3/0/0/300_slide.jpg?v=2
Don’t worry, it’s NOT real. It’s part of a Cracked.com Photoshop contest. (Main contest is here but many of the entries are not worskave/intentionally very offensive http://www.cracked.com/photoplasty_3_the-40-most-inappropriate-childrens-book-covers/?wa_user1=1&wa_user2=Weird+World&wa_user3=photoshop&wa_user4=recommended Not to be clicked if you can’t just cannot tolarate lowbrow humor. Some of them are very funny, some are just… ugh ).
I love Cracked.com! wandering over for a look-see.
I always looked at this whole thing like this: God is not visible he is not living here with us like our neighbors are. So how does one love God? The way I see it is that the ONLY way to express your love for God is by loving your neighbor.
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