The Greatest Commandments

[ElishaElijah]

“Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.””
‭‭Matthew‬ ‭22:37-40‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

If you agree with these commandments how do you personally live out these verses?
Who is the one to determine if you are in fact living these out, should we look at someone else and say if you love me you would do or live like this? Or
Is this something each person is responsible to determine and accountable for before God?
What are your personal or biblical views/opinion?

 

[AlexanderG]

1. The first commandment is inherently personal. I think it's vague, too, because the act of loving someone who you've never actually met becomes a metaphorical, abstract, interpretive exercise. Can various people agree on what that sort of love would actually look like in practice? I doubt it. Also, no one else can know if you actually love your god, and you can never know in your lifetime if you love your god in a way that it truly finds sufficient, if that god even exists. It seems very unfalsifiable and untestable, but I suppose it's still a working aspiration or guiding principle.

2. The second is a variation on the Golden Rule, which was independently voiced prior to Jesus' time by other great thinkers like Confucius. It is intuitive; it is an expression in words of the empathy that most of us feel towards each other. It is an admirable goal, and one that would lead to healthy societies and happy, cooperative people if implemented to a significant degree.

As an atheist, I can't tell if Christians are following the first commandment, nor is it meaningful to me at all since I can't love something that I don't believe exists. However, for the second commandment as an outsider looking in at Christianity in the US (and based on my admittedly selective presentation of Christian leaders through the news media) I would "determine that they are not in fact living this out" as you say.

In Christian politics and activism, which are the only parts of Christianity that touch upon my life, it seems like Christians are following a different commandment:
3. Compel your neighbor to love the things that you love, by legislation or force if necessary, so that you can then love your neighbor as yourself.

I would be happy letting Christians live their own lives according to the values that they embrace for themselves. That is what tolerance is. If they could just extend the same courtesy to the rest of us in turn, and mind their own business without making our personal choices their concern, then there would be so much less conflict, rage, grief, and harm. So yes, I would like to see that second commandment followed much better.

 

[sun rise]

If you agree with these commandments how do you personally live out these verses?

That is the central goal of my life. How do I live them out? Sometimes not so badly and sometimes I don't. I am imperfect.

Who is the one to determine if you are in fact living these out, should we look at someone else and say if you love me you would do or live like this? Or
Is this something each person is responsible to determine and accountable for before God?

I am responsible to myself. Life offers feedback and lessons for me to learn.

 

[Lain]

“Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.””
‭‭Matthew‬ ‭22:37-40‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

If you agree with these commandments how do you personally live out these verses?
Who is the one to determine if you are in fact living these out, should we look at someone else and say if you love me you would do or live like this? Or
Is this something each person is responsible to determine and accountable for before God?
What are your personal or biblical views/opinion?

(All the below is my opinion.)

The primary ways I try to live out these Commands are prayer and other acts of religion (studying the Scriptures and Saints, going to Mass, paying tithes, etc) for the first, and trying to help my neighbor in practical ways for the second. Trying not to sin in general also is a means of achieving both.

God is the one who determines if you are living them out at an at least acceptable level (no mortal sins), but He has also made His standard external and internal to you. He does this by Scripture, Saints, the Church, and so on outside of you, and the conscience inside of you.

These commands are also infinite and we will grow in them forever, for the One who gave them is infinite, and it says in the Psalter I believe "Your commands are exceedingly broad," so that even the most perfectly divinized Saints are still growing in love with God and so by extension with others.

(All the above is my opinion.)

 

[halbhh]

“Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.””
‭‭Matthew‬ ‭22:37-40‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

If you agree with these commandments how do you personally live out these verses?
Who is the one to determine if you are in fact living these out, should we look at someone else and say if you love me you would do or live like this? Or
Is this something each person is responsible to determine and accountable for before God?
What are your personal or biblical views/opinion?

The 2nd, in that everyone really is unique, and even loves in at least a somewhat unique way.

If you just picked 10 people at random, you are very likely to get not just 10 distinctly different ways of loving, but 10 very different ways.

So, the wording helps us about this question!

Consider: "as yourself" -- it means here as you love, in the way you yourself love. (The golden rule wording, which is a how-to-do wording, helps illustrate: "In everything, do to others as you would have others do to you" -- as you would want if you were in their shoes, in their situation, like being a single mother with 2 small children (even if you are so different from that, etc.))

 

[sun rise]

1. The first commandment is inherently personal. I think it's vague, too, because the act of loving someone who you've never actually met becomes a metaphorical, abstract, interpretive exercise. Can various people agree on what that sort of love would actually look like in practice? I doubt it. Also, no one else can know if you actually love your god, and you can never know in your lifetime if you love your god in a way that it truly finds sufficient,

You conceptualize the divine as a person following the Western idea that puts God as an old man on a cloud. That's not the only possible perspective.

Meher Baba unified the two commandments into one:

To love God in the most practical way is to love our fellow beings. If we feel for others in the same way as we feel for our own dear ones, we love God.

If, instead of seeing faults in others, we look within ourselves, we are loving God.

If, instead of robbing others to help ourselves, we rob ourselves to help others, we are loving God.

If we suffer in the sufferings of others and feel happy in the happiness of others, we are loving God.

If, instead of worrying over our own misfortunes, we think ourselves more fortunate than many many others, we are loving God.

If we endure our lot with patience and contentment, accepting it as His Will, we are loving God.

If we understand and feel that the greatest act of devotion and worship to God is not to hurt or harm any of His beings, we are loving God.

To love God as He ought to be loved, we must live for God and die for God, knowing that the goal of life is to Love God, and find Him as our own self.

 

[Subduction Zone]

“Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.””
‭‭Matthew‬ ‭22:37-40‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

If you agree with these commandments how do you personally live out these verses?
Who is the one to determine if you are in fact living these out, should we look at someone else and say if you love me you would do or live like this? Or
Is this something each person is responsible to determine and accountable for before God?
What are your personal or biblical views/opinion?

The first commandment is an indication that God is not good. If God was all loving all powerful, etc. and so on there would be no need for such a commandment. It would happen naturally. The second one is not bad. Sadly it is followed by very few self proclaimed conservative Christians.

 

[ElishaElijah]

The first commandment is an indication that God is not good. If God was all loving all powerful, etc. and so on there would be no need for such a commandment. It would happen naturally. The second one is not bad. Sadly it is followed by very few self proclaimed conservative Christians.

Would rather hear your personal convictions and ideas as this subject pertains to you personally.

If you agree with these commandments how do you personally live out these verses?
Who is the one to determine if you are in fact living these out, should we look at someone else and say if you love me you would do or live like this? Or
Is this something each person is responsible to determine and accountable for before God?
What are your personal or biblical views/opinion?

 

[Subduction Zone]

Would rather hear your personal convictions and ideas as this subject pertains to you personally.

If you agree with these commandments how do you personally live out these verses?
Who is the one to determine if you are in fact living these out, should we look at someone else and say if you love me you would do or live like this? Or
Is this something each person is responsible to determine and accountable for before God?
What are your personal or biblical views/opinion?

I only agree somewhat with the second. But I try my best to treat everyone well. I am even far more concerned with the lives of science deniers than they care about themselves or others. You have seen how I try to explain to vaccine deniers that what they are doing breaks this commandment

 

[ElishaElijah]

I only agree somewhat with the second. But I try my best to treat everyone well. I am even far more concerned with the lives of science deniers than they care about themselves or others. You have seen how I try to explain to vaccine deniers that what they are doing breaks this commandment

That’s good so are you saying that other people like yourself are the ones who are able to judge if a person is walking in love or not, in the example you are using the vaccinations and how in your view breaking the commandment to love their neighbor, how so?

 

[Subduction Zone]

That’s good so are you saying that other people like yourself are the ones who are able to judge if a person is walking in love or not, in the example you are using the vaccinations and how in your view breaking the commandment to love their neighbor, how so?

We can sometimes judge accurately. Sometimes we can't.

It is not a black and white world out there.

 

[Lain]

The first commandment is an indication that God is not good. If God was all loving all powerful, etc. and so on there would be no need for such a commandment. It would happen naturally.

Or: it is an indication that man is evil. But the matter devolves from there into theodicy and creation which is not the point of this thread.

 

[URAVIP2ME]

“Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.””
‭‭Matthew‬ ‭22:37-40‬ ‭NKJV‬‬..........What are your personal or biblical views/opinion?

Yes, while Jesus was under the Law (Leviticus 19:18) Jesus taught that at Matthew 22:40.
For Christians Jesus set up a New commandment found at John 13:34-35.
We are to have the same self-sacrificing love for others as Jesus has.
In other words, we are Now to love neighbor MORE than self, more than the Golden Rule.

 

[ecco]

“‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment.

That seems like a pretty good formula for becoming brain dead.

 

[ElishaElijah]

That seems like a pretty good formula for becoming brain dead.

How so? It takes a great strength to live out both of these commandments, they aren’t for the weak and faint hearted.

 

[ElishaElijah]

Yes, while Jesus was under the Law (Leviticus 19:18) Jesus taught that at Matthew 22:40.
For Christians Jesus set up a New commandment found at John 13:34-35.
We are to have the same self-sacrificing love for others as Jesus has.
In other words, we are Now to love neighbor MORE than self, more than the Golden Rule.

Ok so how would you personally apply this in answering these questions:
If you agree with these commandments how do you personally live out these verses?
Who is the one to determine if you are in fact living these out, should we look at someone else and say if you love me you would do or live like this? Or
Is this something each person is responsible to determine and accountable for before God?
What are your personal or biblical views/opinion?

 

[ecco]

How so? It takes a great strength to live out both of these commandments, they aren’t for the weak and faint hearted.

Uh huh.

 

[ElishaElijah]

That seems like a pretty good formula for becoming brain dead.

Well yes, in my opinion some people could use a good brain washing due to being polluted.
“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭12:1-2‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

 

[URAVIP2ME]

That seems like a pretty good formula for becoming brain dead.

I find nothing brain dead about John 13:34-35 to have the same self-sacrificing love for others as Jesus has.

 

[URAVIP2ME]

Ok so how would you personally apply this in answering these questions:
If you agree with these commandments how do you personally live out these verses?
Who is the one to determine if you are in fact living these out, should we look at someone else and say if you love me you would do or live like this? Or
Is this something each person is responsible to determine and accountable for before God?
What are your personal or biblical views/opinion?

To have the same self-sacrificing love for others is basically to put the interest of the other person ahead of yours.
Jesus put a spiritual life ahead of a material life style. - Luke 4:43; John 13:34-35
In Jesus' illustration about the neighborly good Samaritan that man put the needs of a stranger in distress ahead of his own comfort.
In other words, to broaden out, widen out in showing practical love on a one-on-one basis for someone in trouble.
We are all free to act responsibly toward God, and Jesus taught Not to make personal judgements about others.
In other words, we should Not just impute a bad or wrong motive to another.
Jesus gave instructions at Matthew 24:14; Acts 1:8 to live out, so to speak, telling as many as possible about the good news of God's Kingdom ( Daniel 2:44 ) that the reason we are all invited to pray the invitation of Rev. 22:20 for Jesus to come !
Come and bring actual Peace on Earth among persons of goodwill.