Thursday
Evening Bible Study
May 3, 2007
Introduction
We are in the final week of Jesus’ life before the crucifixion. Jesus
arrived in Jerusalem on Sunday,
with the cheers and adulation of the crowd. It was His “Triumphal Entry”, we
know it as “Palm Sunday”. Jesus immediately went to the Temple
where He threw out the merchants that were ripping off the worshippers. Then
Jesus began a pattern He would keep throughout the week – every evening He’d
walk back across the Kidron Valley
up to the Mount of Olives, where He and the disciples
would spend the night as Galilean pilgrims. In the morning Jesus would get up
and come back across the Kidron to the Temple
where He would spend the day teaching the people.
:34-40 The Greatest Commandment
:34 But when the Pharisees heard that He had silenced the Sadducees, they
gathered together.
silenced – phimoo – to
close the mouth with a muzzle
I wonder if the Pharisees weren’t a little pleased at how Jesus silenced
the Sadducees.
:35 Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, and
saying,
lawyer – some of us think of lawyers as sneaky people …
Illustration
A Mexican bandit made a specialty of crossing the Rio
Grande from time to time and robbing banks in Texas.
Finally, a reward was offered for his capture. An enterprising Texas Ranger
decided to track him down. After a lengthy search, he traced the bandit to his
favorite cantina, snuck up behind him, put his trusty six-shooter to the
bandit’s head, and said, “You’re under arrest. Tell me where you hid the loot
or I’ll blow your brains out.” But the bandit didn’t speak English and the
Ranger didn’t speak Spanish! Fortunately, a bilingual lawyer was in the saloon
and translated the Ranger’s message. The terrified bandit blurted out, in
Spanish, that the loot was buried under the oak tree in back of the cantina.
“What did he say?” asked the Ranger. The lawyer answered, “He said, ‘Get lost,
you turkey. You wouldn’t dare shoot me.’”
But the New Testament concept of lawyer was different. This wasn’t a guy who defends you in front of
Judge Judy, but a guy who was skilled in the law of Moses. This was a religious scholar.
In fact, this guy seems to be a good guy.
Mark gives us a little flavor to this incident between Jesus and the
scholar.
(Mark 12:28-34 NKJV) Then one of the scribes came, and having
heard them reasoning together, perceiving that He had answered them well, asked
Him, "Which is the first commandment of all?" {29} Jesus answered
him, "The first of all the commandments is: 'Hear, O Israel, the LORD our
God, the LORD is one. {30} '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.'
This is the first commandment. {31} "And the second, like it, is this:
'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment
greater than these." {32} So the scribe said to Him, "Well said,
Teacher. You have spoken the truth, for there is one God, and there is no other
but He. {33} "And to love Him with all the heart, with all the
understanding, with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love one's
neighbor as oneself, is more than all the whole burnt offerings and
sacrifices." {34} Now when Jesus
saw that he answered wisely, He said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." But after that
no one dared question Him.
:36 "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?"
This is not a new question for Jesus’ day.
This was an issue the religious scholars had been debating for
centuries.
The Law of Moses had a lot of commandments to choose from.
"The scribes declared that there were 248 affirmative precepts, as
many as the members of the human body; and 365 negative precepts, as many as
the days in the year, the total being 613, the number of letters in the
Decalogue" (Vincent).
Some of the scholars had divided the law into “heavy” and “light”
commandments. Their approach was that if
you just focused on the “heavy” commandments you’d be fine.
But the problem with that is that if you are going to base your
relationship with God on the Law, it only takes ONE
transgression to put you in conflict with God.
(James 2:10 NKJV)
For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he
is guilty of all.
Illustration
A man on a camel rode through miles of the sun-drenched desert searching
for some sign of life. His supplies were running low when his camel died. Now
on foot, he desperately sought refuge from the heat, and, most importantly, a
source for water. Suddenly, he came across a vendor in the middle of the
desert. “Thank God I found you!” the man cried. “Please help me. I’m in dire
need of some water.” “Well,” said the vendor, “I don’t have any water. But
would you like to buy one of these fine ties.” “What am I going to do with a
tie?” the man asked. “That’s what I’m selling sir. If you don’t like it, I
can’t help you.” The man left the vendor and walked on for many more miles,
praying each minute that he would find refuge from the scorching sun. His eyes
squinted a bunch of times when he came across a restaurant in the distance.
Unable to comprehend a restaurant located in the middle of the desert, he
assumed the place was a mirage, but decided to check it out anyway. As he
approached the door, his mouth opened in amazement, seeing that the place
actually existed. The doorman stopped him before he entered. “Excuse me sir,”
the doorman said, “but you can’t come in here without a tie!”
Sometimes the desert of life can get a little confusing. Sometimes it’s hard to know just what we’re
supposed to be spending our time doing?
Is it all that important that I wear a tie???
Which of the laws is the most important?
:37 Jesus said to him, " 'You shall love the LORD your God with all
your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.'
Jesus isn’t going to choose between one of the Ten Commandments. He’s going to quote from Deuteronomy, from
the passage known as the “Shema”, the
great confession of faith repeated by the Jews, summarizing their belief in
God.
The word “Shema” means “to hear”,
and refers to the first word in verse 4.
The prophet “Samuel” has this word in his name. Here’s the “Shema”:
(Deu 6:4-5 NKJV) "Hear,
O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one! {5} "You shall love the LORD
your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.
This is not a new concept with Jesus.
This was recognized as the greatest commandment.
Lesson
The best Love is a choice.
The word used here is the word used in “agape”
love – agapao – to
love, to feel and exhibit esteem and goodwill to a person, to prize and
delight in a thing.
We use the word “love” to describe lots of different things. I love the Angels. I love ice cream. I love my sons. I love a good Sherlock Holmes mystery. I love my wife. And when I say “love”, I have slightly
different ideas each time I use that word.
I don’t love ice cream the way I love my wife. I don’t love Sherlock Holmes the same way I
love my sons.
The word “agapao” describes a love that is based in on the “will”, not on
the emotions. It’s making a choice of
placing “value” on something. It’s
choosing to treasure something.
When you have a garage sale, you make choices as to how
much you are going to sell things.
To have agape toward someone is to choose to place a high
value on them.
(John 3:16 NKJV)
"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son,
that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
This doesn’t mean that there are no emotions involved. It just means that the love flows from the
choice I make, not the feelings I feel.
Lesson
A complete Love
The love we are supposed to have for God is to involve our entire being,
all we are.
The words “heart, soul, and mind” overlap quite a bit. The words Jesus used are in some places a bit
interchangeable.
In addition, there’s the word “strength” in the Deuteronomy and Mark
versions of this passage.
But there is a point here – our love for God is not one dimensional.
For some Christians, their love for God is highly emotional. They equate love for God with the music they
sing at church, arms waving, maybe even jumping up and down, some run up and
down the aisles waving banners.
Is this wrong? Not
at all, but it’s just one aspect of our love for God.
Our love for God should involve our “mind” as well.
Often times I’m asking you on Thursday to “expand your
vocabulary” when it comes to giving thanks and praise to God. I think we need to grow in our knowledge of
God, of who He is, what He does, how He works, and that ought to deepen our
love for God.
Our love for God also ought to involve our body as well – “strength” and
“heart” are two words tied to the physical body.
Some early Christians isolated their body from their
spirit in thinking that what they did with their body didn’t affect their heart
or their spirit. They could go sleep
with a prostitute and then serve communion in church and they would tell
themselves they had done nothing wrong.
Illustration
We need to avoid the “TV Dinner” mentality.
A TV dinner has each item in a separate compartment. Instead, we ought to work at developing the
“Chicken Potpie” mentality in our relationship with the Lord. Our love for the Lord should have everything
thrown into the mix.
:38 "This is the first and great commandment.
:39 "And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as
yourself.'
like it – homoios – like,
similar, resembling
Even this commandment, like all others, is tied to the first commandment.
If we love God, we will love His children.
John wrote,
(1 John 4:20-21 NKJV) If someone says, "I love God," and
hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he
has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? {21} And this commandment
we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also.
We can’t love God and hate our brother.
Over the last half a century there has been a tendency for preachers to
take this verse and talk about the need to “love our selves” so we can truly
love our neighbors.
I understand the concept of “low self-esteem”. But I’m not sure we really
need to “love ourselves”. I think the
problem is that we already love ourselves too much.
You might think that a girl that looks into the mirror and says, “I look
horrible, I look so fat” must have low self-esteem. I think the problem is that she really loves
herself too much. If she didn’t love
herself, why would she care if she looked fat?
Our society has become incredibly “narcissistic”.
There was an article in Time magazine last week about the shooter at
Virginia Tech. It’s an amazing article,
considering it’s in a leading secular magazine.
Here’s a few excerpts:
“It’s All About Him”, By David
Von Drehle, (article in TIME Magazine, April 30, 2007)
…I’ve lost interest in the cracks, chips, holes and broken places in the
lives of men like Cho Seung-Hui, the mass murderer of Virginia Tech. The pain,
grievances and self-pity of mass killers are only symptoms of the real
explanation. Those who do these things share one common trait. They are raging
narcissists. “I died—like Jesus Christ,” Cho said in a video sent to NBC.
Psychologists from South Africa
to Chicago have begun to recognize
that extreme self-centeredness is the forest in these stories, and all the
other things— guns, games, lyrics, pornography—are just trees. To list the
traits of the narcissist is enough to prove the point: grandiosity, numbness to
the needs and pain of others, emotional isolation, resentment and envy.
...Freud explained narcissism as a failure to grow up. All infants are narcissists,
he pointed out, but as we grow, we ought to learn that other people have lives
independent of our own. It’s not their job to please us, applaud for us or even
notice us—let alone die because we’re unhappy.
…There’s a telling moment in Michael Moore’s film Bowling for Columbine,
in which singer Marilyn Manson dismisses the idea that listening to his lyrics
contributed to the disintegration of Harris and Klebold. What the Columbine
killers needed, Manson suggests, was for someone to listen to them. This is the
narcissist’s view of narcissism: everything would be fine if only he received
more attention. The real problem can be found in the killer’s mirror.
I don’t think our problem is that we don’t love our selves. Our problem is that we aren’t loving others
like we love our selves.
When we’re in a conversation with others, we need to stop sometimes and pay
attention to how much we’re talking about ourselves. We need to learn to use that line, “Enough
about me, how about you?”
:40 "On these two commandments hang all the Law and the
Prophets."
Love God. Love your neighbor.
Lesson
Love is a key to obedience
If you do these two things, you will find yourself fulfilling all the
commandments.
If you love God, you won’t go after other gods, make idols, and you’ll take
a day to worship God.
If you love your neighbor, you won’t kill him, steal from him, sleep with
his wife, or covet his stuff.
Jesus said,
(John 14:15 NKJV)
"If you love Me, keep My commandments.
Even when you sin, let it be something that drives you to Jesus to be
cleansed and forgiven, and the result will be a greater love and greater
obedience.
(Luke 7:36-50 NKJV) Then one
of the Pharisees asked Him to eat with him. And He went to the Pharisee's
house, and sat down to eat. {37} And behold, a woman in the city who was a
sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at the table in the Pharisee's house,
brought an alabaster flask of fragrant oil, {38} and stood at His feet behind
Him weeping; and she began to wash His feet with her tears, and wiped them with
the hair of her head; and she kissed His feet and anointed them with the
fragrant oil. {39} Now when the Pharisee who had invited Him saw this, he spoke
to himself, saying, "This man, if He were a prophet, would know who and
what manner of woman this is who is touching Him, for she is a sinner."
{40} And Jesus answered and said to him, "Simon, I have something to say
to you." So he said, "Teacher, say it." {41} "There was a
certain creditor who had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the
other fifty. {42} "And when they had nothing with which to repay, he
freely forgave them both. Tell Me, therefore, which of them will love him
more?" {43} Simon answered and said, "I suppose the one whom he
forgave more." And He said to him, "You have rightly judged."
{44} Then He turned to the woman and said to Simon, "Do you see this
woman? I entered your house; you gave Me no water for My feet, but she has
washed My feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head. {45}
"You gave Me no kiss, but this woman has not ceased to kiss My feet since
the time I came in. {46} "You did not anoint My head with oil, but this
woman has anointed My feet with fragrant oil. {47} "Therefore I say to
you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom
little is forgiven, the same loves little." {48} Then He said to her,
"Your sins are forgiven." {49} And those who sat at the table with
Him began to say to themselves, "Who is this who even forgives sins?"
{50} Then He said to the woman, "Your faith has saved you. Go in
peace."
:41-46 David’s Lord
:41 While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them,
Jesus now turns the questioning back to His questioners.
:42 saying, "What do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is
He?" They said to Him, "The Son of David."
It is a well known fact of Biblical prophecy that the Messiah, the Christ,
would come from the line of David. They
are correct. Partly.
Jesus asked something similar to the disciples:
(Mat 16:15-16 NKJV) He said
to them, "But who do you say that I am?" {16} Simon Peter answered
and said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."
The Pharisees only have it partly correct.
They are going to struggle with the question Jesus will ask because they
only have the “human” part of the Messiah understood. They need to realize that Jesus is also the
Son of God.
:43 He said to them, "How then does David in the Spirit call Him
'Lord,' saying:
:44 'The LORD said to my Lord, "Sit at My right hand, Till I make Your
enemies Your footstool"'?
Jesus is quoting from a well-known Messianic Psalm:
(Psa 110:1 NKJV) The LORD
said to my Lord, "Sit at My right hand, Till I make Your enemies Your
footstool."
:45 "If David then calls Him 'Lord,' how is He his Son?"
In the passage Jesus quotes, Yahweh is speaking to David’s “Lord”, telling
this person, the Messiah, that He is to sit at God’s right hand while God takes
care of the Messiah’s enemies.
The odd question that Jesus raises has to do with man’s custom of giving
reverence to your elders.
It’s perfectly fine for a son to call his father “Lord”. But it is not proper for a father to call his
son “Lord”.
How could the Messiah be David’s “son” if David is calling Him “Lord”.
:46 And no one was able to answer Him a word, nor from that day on did
anyone dare question Him anymore.
The Pharisees were blown away by the question and didn’t know what to say.
But WE know the answer!!!
Jesus is both the Son of Man and the Son of God.
Jesus is a descendant of David through His mother Mary. But Jesus is also the Son of God, being born
of a virgin.
Jesus is no ordinary man.
Is the question Jesus asked an important question?
I’d say your salvation depends on your answer.
If Jesus is just the son of man, then His death on the cross wouldn’t pay
for very much.
But because He is also the Son of God, when He laid down His life He was
paying an infinite amount, enough to pay for you and me.