Transcription

Connor:
You’re listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun and practical ways.

Chris:
Hey everybody, welcome to the Bible Guys. He is Jeff and I’m his companion, Chris.

Jeff:
My faithful companion.

Chris:
Yes. I’m loyal like a dog.

Jeff:
Yes. So Chris, today we are talking about the greatest commandment, which is, this is one of my favorite passages. Yes. It really summarizes what God’s expectations for us as humans are. There’s a lot of verses in the Bible. I don’t know if you knew that. You have a big book.

Chris:
Are there? Yeah, yeah. Wow.

Jeff:
Didn’t know that, Jeff. So it’s hard to go, hey, what exactly does he want? So Jesus goes ahead and solves that today.

Chris:
But before that.

Jeff:
Before we get into that, we’re going to do a this or that.

Chris:
This or that. Yes. Would you rather is essentially what this is. What’s the jingle for this or that? This or that. How about that? Yeah. Little sound bite. Wednesday Wednesday Wednesday Wednesday, so this or that so which would you rather do? Okay, okay, sorry So we’re gonna read a question, and then you and I are gonna pick this or that yes, you ready Which one would you rather do yeah? I’ll do the first one would you rather kill a a lion with your bare hands, or be swallowed by a giant fish and be spit back out.” Oh, so this is actually referring to two Old Testament stories. Okay. Yes. So we’ve got Samson killing a lion with his bare hands, and then Jonah who gets swallowed by a fish and gets spit back out.

Jeff:
That’s correct.

Chris:
So what would you rather do? Well, goodness gracious.

Jeff:
I’d kill a lion.

Chris:
I’d rather kill a lion. Yeah, me too. But that assumes that I’m Samson though.

Jeff:
No, it’s asking you specifically. Chris Zarbaugh? Chris Zarbaugh. Would Chris Zarbaugh rather kill a lion with your bare hands or be swallowed by a giant fish and spit back out?

Chris:
Well, I’d still pick the lion.

Jeff:
Yeah, because it already says we killed it. So if it said, would you rather fight a lion with your bare hands or try to kill a lion with your bare hands? It may or may not die. That’s right. Whereas being swallowed by a fish, you’re getting spit back out.

Chris:
Because it tells the future. We know there’s a victory in there, right?

Jeff:
That’s right. That’s right.

Chris:
Yeah. So I guess I’d rather do that.

Jeff:
Fight the lion. It makes a way better story.

Chris:
And not only that, but like, yeah, right. Hey, hey, once upon a time I get swallowed by fish and then I get spit out with vomit on the shore. That’s gross. No, here’s the reason why also, because I am afraid of drowning.

Jeff:
Really?

Chris:
Yeah, sort of.

Jeff:
Yeah, I think most people are.

Chris:
Yeah. So, I mean, the idea of being in a fish’s belly and the fish is underwater. Eww. That’s scary. Yeah. There’s a thing called oxygen.

Jeff:
I saw that Pinocchio cartoon. He’s just sitting there with a little fire. It’s fine.

Chris:
Yeah. He’s fine. He builds a fire. Of course, not to mention he didn’t need oxygen, Jeff.

Jeff:
Are you saying he wasn’t a real boy? At the time he was wooden.

Chris:
So, um, okay, next one.

Jeff:
Would you rather have two bears as bodyguards or have the ability to control the weather? What? They don’t even go together. That’s a tough one. What? Would you rather have two bears as bodyguards or have the ability to control the weather? No. These are just random. You’re trying to make sense of the unsensible.

Chris:
Well, I mean, I was thinking brother bear and storm from X-Men.

Jeff:
Okay. So which would you rather be or have?

Chris:
I would, honestly, I’d rather control the weather.

Jeff:
Me too.

Chris:
Yeah, why would you not want that ability?

Jeff:
Yeah, control the weather. Two Bears as bodyguards is cool though. I mean, talking about an entrance.

Chris:
Yeah. Married in a hurricane. You know what I’m talking about? Nope. Are you telling this story or am I? Come on. We don’t talk about prunes.

Jeff:
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There you go. I’ve seen that like twice.

Chris:
Oh, well, you know, we’ve, we’ve only watched it a million times and she controls the weather.

Jeff:
Yeah. And that song is, uh, what’s your name? Papita or something, by the way, it gets in your head. Yeah. Okay. Uh, would you rather heal someone who is blind or have the ability to multiply food?

Chris:
Ooh, it says someone meaning only one time, I guess. Right. But having the ability to multiply food seems perpetual to me.

Jeff:
I think you’re reading a lot into that.

Chris:
Hey, I’m literal. This is a question that I need to consider, Jeff. It’s asking me. It’s significant. It says, heal someone, meaning a one-time miracle or perpetual miracles.

Jeff:
Well, every person you run into that’s blind is someone. No. Yes, they are.

Chris:
No.

Jeff:
They are someone.

Chris:
No, it says, would you rather heal? The operative word is heal. It doesn’t say a person who is blind.

Jeff:
Heal someone. It doesn’t say heal a person who is blind.

Chris:
Yes, it does. So every person you meet. That’s exactly how it reads.

Jeff:
Every person you meet is someone.

Chris:
No, it’d be someone’s.

Jeff:
No, I think it’s the other way, but go ahead. Anyways, what would you choose?

Chris:
I would choose perpetual miracles. I would feed, I would solve the world hunger problem. Yeah, yeah. That’s what I would do.

Jeff:
I would heal somebody who’s blind.

Chris:
Every one I came up to. Then you’re done. Every someone blind that I come to. Then you’re done. All right. Well, way to go. Way to settle for the one miracle, Jeff. You’re a settler.

Jeff:
That’s not what I did. You are imposing a meaning on that. Nope. It’s not meant.

Chris:
It’s how it reads. Go ahead.

Jeff:
Number four, would you rather, by the way, that’s so funny. We’re going to fight about this.

Chris:
Would you rather have the ability, ooh, perpetual, to walk on water or have the ability to teleport? See, That’s proof that the previous question is a one-time miracle. It’s not. Yeah, because she would have said the ability to heal somebody blind. No. So, okay, let’s move on. Would you rather have the ability to walk on water, which is cool, or the ability to teleport? I already know this answer.

Jeff:
Teleport. Of course, teleport.

Chris:
That’s a no-brainer. Yeah, teleport. I mean, can you imagine?

Jeff:
You’ve already declared that, like, five times on this show. No, it was just last week. Last week? Well, no, you’ve talked about teleportation before.

Chris:
Oh, in the past, yeah.

Jeff:
Not having to fly anywhere, remember?

Chris:
Yeah, that’s right.

Jeff:
All right. Would you rather experience a plague of frogs or a plague of flies?

Chris:
Ooh, now this one’s an interesting one because this is not fun at all.

Jeff:
No, this is gross.

Chris:
The other, the other ones were fun.

Jeff:
Yeah. I would choose frogs.

Chris:
Yes. I would definitely choose frogs. Although I wonder how frogs can get as irritating as flies. What? Walking and stepping on frogs? Yeah. Ugh. But you’d have to get like a shovel. A shovel? Sure. Yeah. You can shovel frogs just like you can snow.

Jeff:
We were driving through, when I lived in Southeast Texas, we lived right on the border.

Chris:
You never even questioned that I claimed that you can shovel frogs? You can, you can.

Jeff:
I was going to say you can. So we lived in the swamp. That’s where we lived. So we were right on the border of Louisiana and Texas and right up on the Gulf of Mexico. So it’s just all swamp and marsh and bayous and stuff. And in the spring, we were driving, we drove over the Sabine Pass area. and into Louisiana and the road was just covered in frogs, just covered. Like the whole road was jumping. And so you just leave the skid marks all the way down the road. It was, it was really gross, but it was, it was bad enough. You could have shoveled them. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Wow. But I would still choose frogs over flies.

Chris:
Yeah, me too. Yeah. Flies can get really irritating.

Jeff:
It’d make it impossible to sleep.

Chris:
It’d make it impossible to live.

Jeff:
Yes. It’d be terrible.

Chris:
So that’s our time on that segment. We need to move on. I’m glad because that’s a gross one. Matthew 22, the greatest commandment.

Jeff:
Yeah. This one only has just a few verses. So we could have talked for five or six more minutes about frogs and flies. Okay. So this is, Jesus is questioned by the religious leaders about the greatest commandment. Here’s what it says in Matthew chapter 22 verse 34. It says, And Jesus replied, you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important. Love your neighbor as yourself. The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments. And then in Mark chapter 12, it recounts the same story. Verse 28, it says, one of the teachers of religious law was standing there listening to the debate, and he realized that Jesus had answered well, so he asked, of all the commandments, which is the most important? Jesus replied, the most important commandment is this. Listen, O Israel, the Lord our God is the one and only Lord. You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength. The second is equally important. Love your neighbor as yourself. No other commandment is greater than these. The teacher of religious law replied, Well said, teacher. You’ve spoken the truth by saying that there’s only one God, no other. And I know it’s important to love him with all my heart and all my understanding and all my strength and to love my neighbor as myself. This is more important than to offer all the burnt offerings and sacrifices required in the law. realizing how much the man understood, Jesus said to him, you are not far from the kingdom of God. And after that, no one dared ask him any more questions.

Chris:
There’s the no one dared comment again.

Jeff:
So the other one was none of the Sadducees dared ask him any more questions. And now none of the Pharisees dare ask him any more questions. Right. That’s what happened there. Yep.

Chris:
Yeah. So when it says one of the teachers of the religious law in Mark, and then at the beginning of Matthew 22, it says, but when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees with his reply, they met together the question and then it says one of them, an expert in religious law. So this is a, this is both of them are Pharisees. That’s what they’re referring to.

Jeff:
That’s correct. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So one of them is kind of a lawyer Pharisee guy.

Chris:
Yeah. And, and, and by the way let me start off with this. There’s a lot of things to talk about, but The first one is that I would say the majority of people, I’m making this assumption, but I think this is a safe assumption. I would say the majority of people, based on my life experience, seem to think that these are two greatest commandments and they’re listed in order of importance. They would say, oh, the greatest commandment is love God. And then the second most important commandment is to love one another as yourself, love your neighbors yourself. But in both of these references, it says the second is equally important, equally congruent, meaning it is exactly the same. In other words, the second commandment isn’t second in order of importance. It’s second sequentially. Right. So he’s saying that these are two equal commandments, which, by the way,

Jeff:
Yeah, I think there’s other translations. Let me push on that one just a little bit. There’s other translations that say, is like unto it, right? So we might be overemphasizing the word equally here as opposed to what he’s implying is they’re flip sides of the same coin. You can’t separate one from the other, right? But I can love people and that’s not the same as loving God.

Chris:
Well, I know that for sure.

Jeff:
Right. So that’s why he puts it in order. He does say the second comes after first.

Chris:
Well, second, sequentially. You can’t blurt out two things at one time.

Jeff:
Right, but both times he says it that way. I’m going to give you the most important one, love God. And the second is this way. I would put them sequentially. But they’re flip sides of the same coin. You can’t separate one from the other.

Chris:
Yeah, I like that phrase. You can’t separate one from the other.

Jeff:
Which is what John tells us, right? You can’t claim to love God and hate your brother.

Chris:
Right. That’s exactly right. Which is why I like that going together. And by the way, so, what was I going to say? I lost my thought. I’m sorry. No, no, I lost my thought. What I was going to say is, Oh, I’m talking about the law of Moses. So the law of Moses, when he says, which is the greatest commandment in the law of Moses, a lot of other misconceptions is that people think perhaps that he’s trying to summarize the 10 commandments, but he’s not, right? He’s summarizing all the law. So there’s 613 precepts that were given in the book of Exodus. And so 613 laws. So when he talks about the law of Moses, that’s what they’re talking about. Did you know that 248 of them were thou shouts? and 365 of them were thou shalt nots, which makes up 613 precepts. And so, by the way, that means there’s more thou shalt nots than there are thou shalts. So yeah, so that really what he’s doing is he’s saying these two commandments summarize all 613 precepts. And he says later on right here, he says all the law and the prophets hang on these two things. So think about every single uh, piece of scripture that they memorized. Think about how much scripture they have memorized right now. So the people asking him those questions, you know, it was customary back then for Jewish boys by the age of 12 to memorize the entire book of Moses. So, so the, you know, the, the, the Pentateuch or the first five books of Moses, right. The first five books of the Bible, Can you imagine being 12 years old and being a good Jewish boy, being raised that way, and having memorized the book of Leviticus?

Jeff:
Yeah, all of Genesis, all of Exodus, all of Numbers, all of Leviticus, all of Deuteronomy.

Chris:
Can you imagine memorizing the book of Numbers? Yeah, yeah.

Jeff:
Holy Christmas. That’s a lot.

Chris:
That’s amazing. And so what he’s saying is he’s saying everything you have memorized, it all hangs on these two statements. That’s amazing.

Jeff:
Right. So he quotes here Deuteronomy 6.5, love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. And then he quotes Leviticus 19.18, love your neighbor like you love yourself. So he’s quoting scripture to answer. But this was a common thing. You know, those of you that are a little bit of history students, you know that The Romans had the forum and the forum was a place where all the smart people would sit around and just debate things. They’d talk and they would explore things. Or the Greeks had the Areopagus near the Parthenon there in Athens and Socrates and Plato and Aristotle, all during their different ages, they would sit around and they would talk with the other smart people and they would challenge big ideas and they would think big thoughts, right? They didn’t have television. They weren’t playing around. They weren’t trying to smash fruit on their phones, right? All this dumb stuff. So, so instead they use their brains, the smart ones, and they would sit and just challenge thought, not in an angry way, but in an open, fair debate, right? That’s what they would do. And so the Pharisees, a big part of what the Pharisees did was they would take the 613 laws and they would go, okay, which one’s more important? And then they would just sit down and debate, you know, when a donkey falls in a ditch and you see your neighbor, you should help your neighbor pull out the donkey, right? Versus the sacrifices on this festival day, you should bring two doves and a goat, right? And which one’s more important? And they would weigh those things. And it was literally the would you rather that we just did a minute ago. Only they would do it over real heavy things, big things, which is a bigger deal to God. And so this is a customary thing. And by the way, it’s interesting because he’s a lawyer among the Pharisees. He would have been extremely skilled at this. And so to come rolling in on Jesus with the thing that he has spent his entire life doing and has never heard Jesus do. Right? There’s a moment where he’s thinking he’s going to get the upper hand on Jesus, and Jesus comes and blows everybody away. And this guy’s delighted by his answer.

Chris:
Right?

Jeff:
I love that. Jesus’ answer wins this guy over.

Chris:
And not only that, but he’s so delighted that he says, uh, uh, I know what is important. Uh, and he gives the truth. You’ve spoken the truth.” And then he adds to it. He adds his own thought. He said, this is more important than to offer all the burnt offerings and sacrifices required in the law. So think about how important that is. Right? So he’s referring to something similar to, where is it written, where David said, you don’t desire my sacrifice, you don’t desire my burnt offerings, but in Psalm 51, right? where he says, it’s more important, what does he say? It’s more important than sacrifice. What is it? The verse. Something is more important than sacrifice.

Jeff:
I don’t know. I’m not trying to quote it.

Chris:
Give me a second. I’ll get it. I can’t remember.

Jeff:
Yeah. But that’s the direction he’s going here. There’s other places in the Minor Prophets where God says, I would rather that you give me obedience is better than sacrifice.

Chris:
Meaning he wants your heart.

Jeff:
Yeah, so that would be in the stories of David and Saul. When Samuel is confronting King Saul, and obedience is better than sacrifice, that would be probably 1 or 2 Samuel. this phrase comes up often where God goes, I would rather have your broken and contrite heart than all the sacrifices, or Malachi talks about it, different places talk about this idea. And so this young leader, this ruler, it doesn’t say he’s young, but is amazed at Jesus’ explanation. Love God with all of who you are, all your mind, soul, body and strength. Is that what it says? It says, um, with your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Chris:
So Matthew doesn’t say strength and Mark adds the word strength. Which, by the way, I’ve always thought that, because, you know, different versions. Hey, love, Lord, your God with all your heart, soul, and mind. And I never know whether I should add the word strength, but I’m like, I know it’s in there somewhere, right? Yeah, it’s marked. And this is actually, but I know I read it, right? And it’s because Matthew, for some reason, doesn’t include the word strength. Yeah.

Jeff:
So it turns out that the Bible doesn’t include every word Jesus said. Right. As a matter of fact, John ends with by saying the world could not contain the books Mm-hmm if we tried to write everything that Jesus said and did right so you know What’s not happening here is they’re not disagreeing right mark just adds strength right which is appropriate it makes sense Um, so the, the idea here, love God with all your heart, you know, that’s the emotional side. That’s, that’s where our, you are your heart, right? Really your, your intelligence, your intellect, all that stuff, all your soul, that that’s the living portion of you. We got a spirit. We have to worship him in spirit. Um, your mind, that’s your, your intellect, your ability to reason, uh, working through those things. And then your strength is, is your body, how you live your life, what you do.

Chris:
your abilities, your accomplishments, your ability to move things forward.

Jeff:
And then love your neighbor as yourself is a pretty easy one.

Chris:
Yeah. Well, it’s not easy, it’s simple. It’s simple, it’s not easy. Which, by the way, I’ve always loved, I had a good friend, Jack, who’s a psychologist, and one of his famous sayings is he would say, he said, simple is not a synonym for easy. Right. Right? So it may be simple, but it’s not easy to do. So, and I think that overall, you know, this actually speaks into God’s will for our lives. So, you know, for instance, we’ve mentioned this before, but like sometimes God’s will can be lateral. It could be like, Oh, does God want me to, you know, choose this city to live in or this city to live in and you pray and pray and pray and it’s possible for God to say to you directly, I give you a direct answer, you know, in your spirit, it’s definitely clear that this is choice A, you know, but then sometimes you pray, pray, pray, pray. And it’s like, it just seems like, You don’t have a clear answer to where I would just say, um, God is giving you the choice that God’s giving you the green light on both things. And so therefore God’s will, isn’t determined by your city. God’s will is determined by whether or not you live, uh, loving the Lord, your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And so you’re in God’s will in this city doing that, or you’re in God’s will in this city doing that, because this is God’s will for you. The greatest commandment is, you know, It is that way. Right.

Jeff:
So it’s not terribly complex. Right. Right. But yeah, you’re right. It’s not easy. So then making God your priority and then making God’s priority your priority. Right. So you make him your priority. And then what is his priority? His priority is people. So then we make people our priority. When we do those two things, it fulfills the law. This is, you know, back when we were in school, they had CliffsNotes. Like, if you had to write a book report, you go out, buy CliffsNotes.

Chris:
I’m very familiar with Cliffs.

Jeff:
Yeah, and it would be an abbreviated version of the book. You could blow through it in a few minutes and get the whole idea of the book, write a book report. You know, we use those before the internet. So now on the internet, kids just look up, hey, what’s a good book report? Now it’s ChatGPT that will write the book report for you.

Chris:
I was going to say, there are still CliffsNotes on the internet. Yeah. Yeah. I discovered that in college.

Jeff:
Well, that was a while ago. Right.

Chris:
Right.

Jeff:
Right. But so it’s funny. Basically, that’s what Jesus is saying. You want a summary? Yeah. So loving God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. That covers the first four or five commandments in the Ten Commandments. Right. Right. and then love people like you love yourself. Don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t kill, don’t covet, all those things. That’s the other side of that. And so really, they’re flip sides of the same thing. So if you take the Ten Commandments as cliff notes for the law, and then these two verses that Jesus quotes out of Deuteronomy and Leviticus, really are cliff notes for the Ten Commandments, which are cliff notes for the whole law. God first, people are important to God, so they should be important to you. You gotta live right with them. And that’s really what Jesus is trying to say. It really does simplify our decision making. Is this decision honoring God? Is this decision going to benefit others or hurt others? That’s it.

Chris:
That’s awesome. Well, that’s a great place to end and that is our time. So we will see you next time on The Bible Guys.