It’s rarely taught
For twelve years, starting from the age of six, we will spend 14,342 compulsory hours in an educational institution. We do so to acquire knowledge, skills, habits, beliefs, rudimentary values, and nominal morals that have been deemed necessary for society. Our teachers teach us Humanities, Social Sciences, Natural Sciences, Formal Sciences, and Applied Sciences. Moreover, many people will elect to further that compulsory education with 120 additional hours of higher education at a College or University. Nevertheless, in those 14,342 to 14,462 hours, for the vast majority of students, there will be no mention of what is ultimately important in life.
Unfortunately, most parents don’t teach their children what is ultimately important in life. This is largely because they themselves never learned it. A wise parent knows that training their children in what is ultimately important in life is critical to the child’s success.
Of course, without any structured training, most people will inevitably formulate their own nascent ideas about what is important in life. However, as we see from the global turmoil, failing to teach what is ultimately important in life has resulted in undesirable consequences. Further, what is ultimately important in life is not a matter of opinion based on a person’s history, desires, theorization, or postulation.
What is ultimately important in life is clearly defined. It spans all of time. It’s impartial and indiscriminate. And it is applicable to all of mankind regardless of culture, creed, or conviction. No one can give viable reasons that oppose it nor cite practical evidence against it. When society neglects it, society degenerates as it mishandles solutions to challenging issues. When leaders in the political and business arenas ignore it, they make poor decisions that catastrophically affect society.
If we love the one true God and our fellow man, we can be certain that we are focused on what is ultimately important in life.
“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And He said to him,”
1. ‘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 foremost commandment. “The second is like it,
2. ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’
3. “On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”
*red numbers mine
– Holy Bible, Matthew 22:36-40
Deep dive
We can break down Jesus’s teaching above into three parts. To develop a deep understanding it is helpful to study it in reverse order:
3. “On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”
With these eleven words God is giving us marvelous insight in to the very foundation of the Holy Bible. That is, the aim of the law, and the aim of all that the prophets said, has been to get people to understand that our life’s primary pursuit must be to love God and to love each other. There is nothing commanded, nor forbidden, in the Bible that doesn’t fall under these two.
2. ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’
When we read the Holy Bible in English, we are obviously reading a translated book. The scribes wrote the Old Testament in Hebrew and the New Testament in Greek. In Greek, the Bible uses two different words for “love” (Philia and Agape). In this case the Greek word is Agape:
- The word love means: to welcome, to entertain, to be fond of, to love dearly. To be full of good-will and exhibit the same
- The word neighbor means: any other man or woman irrespective of race or religion with whom we live or whom we chance to meet
The Bible is full of illustrations about what it means to love God and to love our fellow man. But there are a few verses of scripture which give us an easily understood word picture of what it means to love your neighbor. For example:
“… he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
Jesus replied with a story: “A Jewish man was traveling from Jerusalem down to Jericho, and he was attacked by bandits. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him up, and left him half dead beside the road.
By chance a priest came along. But when he saw the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by.
A Temple assistant walked over and looked at him lying there, but he also passed by on the other side.
Then a despised Samaritan came along, and when he saw the man, he felt compassion for him. Going over to him, the Samaritan soothed his wounds with olive oil and wine and bandaged them. Then he put the man on his own donkey and took him to an inn, where he took care of him. The next day he handed the innkeeper two silver coins, telling him, ‘Take care of this man. If his bill runs higher than this, I’ll pay you the next time I’m here.’
“Now which of these three would you say was a neighbor to the man who was attacked by bandits?” Jesus asked. The man replied, “The one who showed him mercy.” Then Jesus said, “Yes, now go and do the same.”
–Holy Bible, Luke 10:30-37
Love Your Neighbor
Of course, when you read the Bible you have to extrapolate the concept and apply it to the situations you encounter in life. The above verse has very deep meaning. But the basic idea is that a fellow human being has been metaphorically beaten up in his life and is in desperate need of good-will. In today’s terms, maybe someone just served divorce papers to a co-worker who is now crushed. Or maybe someone’s neighbor’s house has burned down, and they are devastated. Maybe that woman at the gym just lost her husband to cancer. Or maybe that man in the apartment above is all by himself and needs to hear a kind greeting. The list of possibilities is as endless as are the opportunities to love to our fellow man.
3. ‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’
To understand the meaning of the key words in the above quote, we first need to explore how the Bible uses them in different ways:
- The word love means: to welcome, to entertain, to be fond of, to love dearly. To be full of good-will and exhibit the same.
- The word heart means: the fountain and the location that is the center of the thoughts, passions, desires, appetites, affections, purposes, endeavors.
- The word soul means: the self, a human person, an individual
- The word mind means: the faculty of understanding, feeling, desiring.
As sentient beings these represent the entirety of who we are.
With our heart – we are to love God with all our faculties and powers. We are to love Him supremely, more than all other beings and things, and with all the ardor possible. We are to fix our affections supremely on him. More strongly than on anything else, and to be willing to give up all that we hold dear at his command.
With our soul – we must be willing to give up our life to Him. And to devote it all to his service; to live to him, and to be willing to die at his command.
With our mind – we submit the “intellect” to his will. To love his law and gospel more than we do the decisions of our own minds. To be willing to submit all our faculties to his teaching and guidance. And to devote to him all our intellectual attainments and all the results of our intellectual efforts.
Summary
These two great commandments lay at the root of all of the Holy Bible. Our love of God must be sincere, not in word and tongue only. We must love our neighbor as truly and sincerely as we love ourselves. In many cases we must deny ourselves for the good of others.
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