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The Foundations for
Living by Peter L. DeGroote |
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Notes for Bible Talk: October 12, 2005 Please read: Matthew 22: 34-40;
Mark 12: 28-34; Luke 10: 25-29 |
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Bible Talk is an informal discussion of
biblical passages, ideas, and related material. The discussions are on Wednesday evenings
at 7:30 pm, following the Service of Word and Table. Occasionally, they will
not be held due to special events. These Notes are intended to assist
participants in thinking about the passages and some of their implications
prior to the gathering. Usually, the Notes are prepared and the
discussion is led by Rev. Peter L. DeGroote The sources for biblical quotations are labeled as
follows: NRSV: The New Revised Standard Version, Copyright
©1989, The National Council of Churches of Christ in the SV: The Scholar’s
Version; i.e., The Five Gospels, The
Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus, Robert W. Funk and Roy W.
Hoover, and The Jesus Seminar, Copyright © 1993 by
Polebridge Press. TM: The Message, The New Testament in
Contemporary Language, Copyright © Eugene H. Peterson 1993. navpress, M: My paraphrase. |
1. Matthew presents a legal expert trying to test Jesus
on the law or Torah: "What is the most important commandment? The
answer: 'You are
to love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your
mind.' This commandment is first and foremost. And the second is like it:
'You are to love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hangs
everything in the Law and the Prophets.” A.
Mark and Luke use the same words in different situations. In Mark there is no
confrontation. The question is a friendly, asked by one of a group of
scholars who had been listening and were impressed. Different still, in Luke,
Jesus doesn't speak the words at all. Instead, a lawyer asks what he must do
to inherit eternal life and Jesus asks him what the law says. The lawyer
answers with the same words Jesus used in the other versions and Jesus
agreed. Then the lawyer extends the question, asking who his is neighbor is.
That gives Jesus the opening for the Parable of the Good Samaritan that tells
us everybody is our neighbor.
B.
Two interesting variations appear in Mark and Luke. First, love him with all your energy is included in the ways to love
God. Second, in Mark, the scholar is told that when one is pursuing such love
he or she is not far from God's domain, another way to say C.
We have said before that Jesus was not teaching something new. Loving God and
loving others is part of our inheritance from Judaism. As we have seen in
looking at the Ten Commandments, they are divided into two sections, the
first concerning our relationship with God, the other our relationship with
others. The unique aspect of Jesus’ teaching is that he tied the two
together; you can’t have one without the other; they are not only mutually
dependent but they feed each other. 2. To recapitulate, the summary of the Bible, and of
Jesus teachings is as follows: A.
Loving God with all our being. B.
Loving others. C.
The love is more important than any rituals or ceremonies—another way of saying
that our worship, prayer life, and our good works need to be an expression of
love or they don't mean anything.
D.
When we love we have life, which means we are in harmony with God and others.
We are in God's domain or kingdom, already a part of eternity. 3. That leaves us with a lifetime of pondering. Let's
consider a few observations. A.
The requirement to love God first is a statement of how everything begins to
work. By loving God we learn the meaning of love and how to love others. B.
To love others, we are prevented from thinking our relationship with God is a
private affair. We are expected to live a full life that includes others in
relationships of respect and concern rather than control, dominance, or
obsession. C.
Implied is the likelihood that we will meet God in others because God loves
others as well. We learn even more about God through what others have learned
and through the way love works between us. D.
Our relationships of love with God and others define life in harmony with God
and others or living in God's domain (kingdom). It is life as it was meant to
be, true or real living, and it is in a dimension of eternity. You might say
we are on the porch of heaven. 4. What is love? The definition of love is a constant
challenge, a constant question. A.
We often describe love in terms of the Golden Rule; i.e., to treat others in
the way we want to be treated. That is a traditional ethical guideline that
has much use but it is not a method for defining love. Two of the reasons it falls
short: First, modern psychology teaches us that the ways people want to be
treated are often not healthy. Second, the way we might want to be treated
tells us nothing about another person’s situation, needs, or abilities to
respond to us; i.e., our expectations may not be realistic. B.
An underlying assumption on which Jesus’ teachings rest is that we will
discover what it means to love when we do what he tells us. Turn the other
cheek; you will begin to understand love. If someone asks for your coat, give
them your shirt as well and you will begin to understand love. Doing these
things teaches the meaning of love. Put another way, don’t rely on yourself
to find out who you are and how life is to be lived but trust God and you
will discover these things. Peter L. DeGroote |
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