REFLECTIONS TODAY

The Gospels often refer to the Sadducees and the Pharisees having conflict with and testing Jesus. Both were religious sects within Judaism during Jesus’ time. Both groups honored Moses and the Law. Both had a measure of political power. 

The importance of the commandments had long been debated by the religious leaders. Some held the view that observing the Sabbath was the most important of all commandments. Others valued circumcision over all else. 

So here, when Jesus is asked to weigh in on the question, “Which commandment in the law is the greatest?” (v 36), he is perhaps expected to pick sides in an already contentious debate. He plunges into a new area of insight by answering not only which commandment is the greatest, but how people may go about fulfilling it: “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind” (v 37). 

Then he adds a second commandment, taking from Leviticus 19:18: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” He joins the second with the first commandment by saying it is “like it” (v 39). For Jesus, loving God is inseparably linked to loving other people. John echoes this statement when he says, “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ but hates his brother, he is a liar” (1 Jn 4:20)
 

Gospel • Matthew 22:34-40 
When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a scholar of the law, tested him by asking, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”

He said to him, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”

Source: “365 Days with the Lord 2023.” E-mail: [email protected]; Website: http://www.stpauls.ph.