Hearing that Jesus had silenced the
Sadducees, the Pharisees got together.
One of them, and expert in the law, tested him with this question:
“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “`Love the Lord your God with
all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest
commandment. And the second is like it:
‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All
the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:34-40
NIV).
My
final semester at Colorado Christian University, I took “Worldviews,” which covered the philosophical
core of atheism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. I engaged myself, since I want to better
convey the truth of Christianity to people who have some false “worldviews.” Now Biblical Judaism is not a false
worldview, simply an incomplete worldview without the Messiah. The Messiah, Jesus, furthered and fulfilled
the Law and the Prophets, and He offered a new covenant to everyone which is an
eternal covenant. Near the end of the
semester, we were discussing Judaism, and the professor asked the class, “Who
can recite the Shema?” I immediately
blurted out, “I can!”
In my four and a half
years at CCU, I spoke out in my classes often, since I was studying at CCU in
order to be able to do more ministry work and teach the Bible, thus I wanted to
convey my knowledge in classrooms. Plus,
I just like to talk. Yet as my time went
on at CCU, professors knew I was fully engaged in all of my studies, and I did
not need to go overboard to impress them.
As a long time student of the Bible, I eventually started abstaining
from giving numerous answers in a class to give younger students a chance to
answer questions.
After my sudden response
to the Shema question, I then thought it was an easy answer some younger
student could give. So I then said to
Professor Murphy, “Oh, I am always opening my mouth in this class. Someone else can answer the question.” There was a silence in the classroom; utter
silence. It was near the end of the
semester when students are overloaded with papers and preparations for finals,
and apparently some students had not carefully read the long reading assignment
for our class that day. The silence was
only filled when Bre, who sat next to me, spoke: “Hunter, open your
mouth.” So I did. If sister Bre tells me to do something, I do
it. I have seen her take out women on
the basketball court who are much stronger than me. The Shema is found in Deuteronomy 6:4 –
“Hear, O’Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one” (NIV). The Shema originally was only Deuteronomy
6:4, which was consistently recited by worshipers who are Jewish, though it is
often expanded in current day Jewish liturgical worship.
Deuteronomy 6:5, which is
really a continuation of the purpose of Deuteronomy 6:4, is “Love the LORD your
God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength” (NIV). In the Scripture passage of Matthew 22:34-40,
Jesus answered the Pharisees by quoting Deuteronomy 6:5 and then gave the
command found in Leviticus 19:18. Love
God! Love people! These are the core commandments of God. Love.
Last weekend I wrote about the sand sculpturing ministry at Ocean City, Maryland, a subject I
have thought about writing for years.
Now I get into an uncomfortable Ocean City subject following those nice
childhood memories at the beach: I have some dark memories from my later teen
years. No, I never got into sinful
actions which are prevalent in such an environment, such as sex outside of
marriage and drunkenness. Yet just being
there a few times in my late teen years, I was around such wrong doings. And even in my heart there was some sin.
For high school students
in Northern Virginia, the popular thing to do after graduating was, and may
still be, to spend a week at Ocean City.
One week before graduation, I was asked by a kind student at my high
school, Paul, if I would join him for a week in a condo his parents had as a
“time share.” Fortunate to receive
this invitation by a genuinely nice guy, a few days after graduation we drove to
the beach. Putt-putt golf and smiling at
cute girls was the extent of our big evenings on the town. Yet one night, while Paul went out with some other
friends of his, I spent the evening at a beach house rented by a group of guys
from our high school. There were a bunch
of students there. Most of them were
drinking beer and either playing cards or watching students play cards. With most focused on the
card game or each other, no one even seemed to care I was there.
To skip some details, at
one point I sat on a chair in the living room feeling awkward and alone among a
crowd. Then I went outside on the back
balcony, which overlooked a bay. It was
extremely dark out, and the water of the bay was dark. The only light came from a few lights far in
the distance towards the beach, which gave a slight reflection on the
water. I stood on the balcony for a long
time thinking. Deep down in my soul, I
had the realization that high school graduation celebration for some is actually
“darkness.” I also realized that even
though I was not involved in debauchery, I also needed a light. I needed and wanted to be delivered from darkness. Though it would be years before I would learn
that Jesus is the Light, and then a process from there to learn to walk by His
guidance, it was a step in deciding I did not want to do that which seems
attractive, yet which inhibits love.
I now have lived twenty-four
years bonded with Jesus, the One who is Love.
I finally know how to carry out these two commandments of God: Receive
the true love of Jesus, and then live by His love. With the love of Jesus, you are enabled to
love God and your neighbors. I can give
a pertinent example of the love of Christ; sometimes I pray for people from my
high school, most of whom I have not seen since 1985 or since the one reunion I
went to in 1995. I sometimes pray for
people from my youth, whom I have not seen for years, that they would know
Jesus as their Savior and Lord. For people
I did not love when I was in high school, God now has me caring about and wanting
them to know Jesus, even though I am far away from most of them. People whom all these years later I could
easily ignore or even have disdain for, who themselves might ignore or have
disdain for me, I now have love for. If
you want to carry out the “Great Commandments,” ask Jesus for His love. Then you will be able to live by true Love!
Hunter Irvine
