Welcome to 2015!
For the four Sundays in January I am going to preach a “Love God, Love Your Neighbor” series from selected texts. I thought to myself several months ago, “What a good way to begin the new year!” So here we are.
Did you know that the instruction, the teaching, to love the Lord our God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind and with all our strength was Bible doctrine?
We do this weird thing sometimes. We have “love” and “doctrine” in separate categories. Someone asked me one time if I thought love was more important than doctrine.
Doctrine in its most basic form is teaching, instruction, what is taught. The word used predominantly is διδαχή (didachē) in various forms in the Greek.
DOCTRINE … διδασκαλία (didaskalia), teaching, instruction; διδαχή (didachē), teaching.
Jesus was a “doctrine” man.
- He taught doctrine (Mark 1:21).
- People were astonished at his doctrine (Mark 1:22).
- People were amazed at Jesus and his doctrine (Mark 1:27).
- Jesus rebuked those who were teaching the rules of men as the doctrines of God (Matthew 15:9).
But somehow when the scribe approaches Jesus in Mark 12:28, and Jesus calls us to the love of God, our image of Jesus morphs from powerful teacher of the Word of God to this gentle man who wants us to be nice to each other.
This question that the scribe approached Jesus with in Mark was a hotly contested theological issue among the religious experts of the day. They were determined to test Jesus’ theological mettle.
- (Mark 12:28–34 ESV) And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?”
They wanted to know out of the 613 commandments (their number), Which one was the most important?
This was a test. They wanted to see how Jesus would interpret the law, their Bible. They wanted his view on doctrine.
So when Jesus began with the Shema (see Deuteronomy 6:4-9) and then called them to love the Lord their God, he was saying, “You want the most important doctrine of all, then here it is. Love God first and love him with everything you have.”
Message Title: “First Love, First Doctrine!”
Message Text: Mark 12:38-34, Revelation 2:1-7
- ▶︎ Great or small, heavy or light … Which one is most important?
The question asked by this scribe, this expert in the knowledge of the whole body of Jewish religious literature—God’s written law and its oral interpretation and application, could be expected of him. The rabbis, devoted to hairsplitting legalism, carried on lengthy debates about the commandments, arguing whether a particular one was great or small, heavy or light. It was natural, therefore, that they debated the question, “Which of the 613 commandments, 248 of them positive, 365 negative [according to their count] is foremost of all?” (Hendriksen, W., & Kistemaker, S.J. (1953–2001). Exposition of the Gospel According to Mark (Vol. 10, p. 492). Grand Rapids: Baker Book House.)
