Title: Don't Sell Your Mind
Contents
1. Words that begin
Dtoldori received a game console as a gift from her father who returned from a business trip. Dtoldori, who had a new wind, said to his father, “Thank you. i love you dad Mom, my dad is the best. That’s great.” and trembled. The more days I was preoccupied with playing with the game console, the more I forgot about my gratitude and love for my father. My father, who gave me a game console, also studied for growth, which is the will of my father. All of his interest was in how he could play the game better.
The Jews, especially the Jewish leadership, thanked God for giving the law and loved God for a while, but they forgot to give thanks and love to God because they were entangled in the given law. Moreover, as the pride of being a people of the law only grew stronger, they fell into legalism, leaning towards literal rather than spiritual interpretation, and even leaders who believed in the law as idols instead of God emerged.
2. The scribe asked what was the greatest commandment
One of the scribes who believed in the resurrection asked Jesus when he heard a wonderful refutation of Jesus after being challenged by the Sadducees who claimed that there was no resurrection. “What is the first of all the commandments?”
The rabbis, who are doctors of the law, said that there are 613 commandments in the Law, including 248 positive commandments and 365 negative commandments. The question of which of all the commandments of the law was the greatest was an important issue the rabbis were discussing. They tried to find a great principle or supreme commandment that governed all other commandments. The most famous of these attempts is the words of Hillel. Hillel, who lived from about 40 B.C. to about 10 A.D., was challenged by a Gentile, saying, "If I could teach you the whole law while I stood on one foot, I would convert to Judaism." He said, “Do not do to your neighbor what you do not want it to be done to yourself. This is the whole law, and the rest of the law is only an explanation of it. Go and learn this.”
Akiba said, “Love your neighbor as yourself. This is the essence of the greatest law.” And Simon the righteous said, “On three things, namely, the law, worship, and service, the world was established.”
On the other hand, on the other hand, they demanded that all the commandments be kept. Strict Shammai, paired with the free Hillel, refused to encapsulate the Law into one supreme commandment. All the commandments are important, so the commandments are all commandments.
3. Jesus' Answer to the Greatest Commandment
Jesus said, “Listen, Israel, the Lord our God is the only 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.” You said.
Deuteronomy 6:4 is a verse that forms a central part of the Schema, a prayer and a monotheistic confession of faith. In the Hebrew liturgy, Deuteronomy 6:4-9, 11:13-21, and Numbers 15:37-41 constitute the Shema. The basic theme of the Shema is the uniqueness of God and the covenant relationship between God and the Jewish people. Therefore, “the ancient custom of initiating synagogue services by reciting the Shema continues to this day.
The Jews used parchment with the three verses of the Shema written on it, put it in a small leather box, a sacristy, and tied it around their forehead and left arm during morning prayers as a token of their never forgetting to keep the law. Also, I put the parchment paper on which the shema was transcribed into a small cylindrical box made of metal or wood, and put it on the front door and door to remind me of God whenever I went in and out. In the days of Jesus, Israeli men had to recite the Shema, a prayer and confession of faith, in the morning and evening, and each time, they reminded themselves of their chosen people with gratitude.
The point of Jesus' answer is to love the one and only God. Loving God must be radically different from loving man or any other creature created as a finite, relative being.
Second, we must not spare our lives, but love God with all our souls. Our life should be a life of martyrdom for the love of God. In 1 Corinthians 15:31, the apostle Paul said, “By the boasting in you, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I affirm, brethren, that I die daily.” Apostle Paul's boasting about his members in the Lord, who was saved by blood, was not about becoming famous for the size of a large church or a chapel, not knowing a powerful person, or using a religious flair. Apostle Paul's pride was his daily life of killing himself for the love of God and the gospel.
Third, we must love the one and only God with all our will, without dispersing our will. The Greek word for “will” is dianoias (διανο?α?), meaning ‘thought’, ‘purpose’, ‘intellect’, ‘thinking power’, ‘thought’, and ‘temperament’. We must love God with all our spiritual strength, without being preoccupied with left, right, or middle ground, any thoughts or ideologies, any strife, or any person. The end of those who are preoccupied with things other than God is destruction.
Fourth, we must love the one and only God with all our might, without dispersing our strength. The Greek word for “strength” is isquios (?σχ?ο?), meaning “intrinsic and essential power”. It is used here as a psychological term to denote the total strength of the soul. Even an hour of worship, which is to be offered in spirit and in truth, cannot expect the love of God as the Spirit from a person who does not devote his whole soul to it.
As creatures, we humans must love God with all that God has given us, including the life He has given us. As a part of us, we should not love God as a part of us, who received our lives through the love of the Creator and the only absolute God and received forgiveness and salvation through that love. The love of God must be the pouring out of our whole being. Married life or family life, work life or social life, work or business, work or study, all life should be consistent with the love of God, not self-love or family love. Jesus said, “with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mental strength, and with all your spiritual strength” four times over and over again. In this way, loving God with all that we are and with all that we have comes from faith in God.
As part of the love that stems from faith in God, love for nature, love for work, and especially love for neighbor should be practiced. Without faith in God, it is impossible to love God, and without love for God, it is impossible to love nature and work, especially humans, who are God's creatures and objects of providence.
In connection with the love of God, which is the first commandment, Jesus said, “The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no greater commandment than this.” A quotation from Leviticus 19:18, which summarizes the second part of the Ten Commandments, the commandments concerning men. The first combining the two commandments by Jesus is his commentary on love of neighbor as part of the love of God. 1 John 4:20 says, “If anyone says, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar. He who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.” If love for the communist dictator further solidifies the evil power and thus exacerbates the suffering of the people, it is not the right love of neighbor. For some people, praise or reward is love, while for others, reproof or punishment is love.
4. Conclusion
The first commandment that we, who came to live in the world through the creation of the one and only God, and who have been saved through the only begotten Son Jesus, must keep, is to love God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mental strength, and with all our spiritual strength. No matter what field we work in, our life itself must be consistent with loving God. That kind of love for God, love for neighbor, is better than any sacrifice. May we all live with the heart of the Lord's love.
(Poongseong Methodist Church. Book: Complete Commentary on 27 New Testament Books/ Interpretation of Difficult Scriptures I, II/ Salvation Before Jesus Came/Paul’s Understanding of Man/ Prosperity Prayer/ Seasonal Sermonbooks/ Sermonbook 18. -3051)