Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

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 22:37-40

“Q. 41. What is the sum of the Ten Commandments?
“A. The sum of the Ten Commandments is to love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength, and with all our mind; and our neighbor as ourselves (Matt. 22:37-40).”

• Charles H. Spurgeon, Spurgeon’s Catechism (Scripture proofs in bold above)

“Q. 42. What is the sum of the Ten Commandments?
“A. The sum of the Ten Commandments is: to love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength, and with all our mind; and our neighbor as ourselves.”

• The Shorter Catechism (Westminster Assembly)

The Larger Catechism breaks this question down into the grouping of the first four Commandments and the last six Commandments.  The Shorter Catechism and the Spurgeon Catechism are identical in wording and biblical proofs, only one reference.  Okay, the Spurgeon Catechism answer leaves out the colon.

Have you noticed that one denomination forbids drinking alcohol, even a sip?  Another forbids dancing?  A Bible college once would never allow a student to kiss on a date unless the student went inside the house and the couple kissed from on either side of the screen door, ensuring very little or no real kiss?

We keep making up rules, but Jesus summed up the Ten Commandments with only two rules.  Jesus simplified and we expand.  Jesus made it easier, and we complicate it.

We keep fretting over the Big Ten (Commandments, that is), the following chapters in the book of Exodus, all of Leviticus, some of Numbers and Deuteronomy, and never forget those manmade rules that the parents of parents added and have survived although no one knows why.

I suppose you have heard the joke about the woman who roasted the ham for a special holiday.  She followed the family tradition, but her husband was confused about why she cut the end of the ham off.  She explained that her mother had always done it that way.  He called his mother-in-law and asked why she cut off the end of the ham.  She said she followed the technique her mother had used.  So, since he was already on the trail of a mystery, he called his wife’s grandmother.  She said, “The ham was too big to fit in the roasting pan!”

I wonder how many of the rules that we seem to be unable to follow anyway are just like that.

Sometimes we get so fussy about following the legitimate biblical rules and the rules of the denomination or the individual church, that we forget to love God and our neighbor.

The rules are important, and we will be looking at each of them, but we should not forget the greatest commandment: to love.

And now let us sing.

The following song, Loving God, Loving Each Other is sung by the Gaither Vocal Band (Jonathan Pierce, Guy Penrod, Mark Lowry, and Bill Gaither, probably between 1995-97) at a Gaither Homecoming gathering.  It sums up the summing up of the Ten Commandments quite well.  It may or may not be familiar, but it is easy to sing along.

“Loving God, loving each other
Making music with my friends
Loving God, loving each other
And the story never ends

They pushed back from the table
To listen to His words
His secret plan before He had to go
It’s not complicated
Don’t need a lot of rules
This is all you’ll need to know

Loving God, loving each other
Making music with my friends
Loving God, loving each other
And the story never ends

We tend to make it harder
Build steeples out of stone
Fill books with explanations of The Way
But if we’d stop and listen
And break a little bread
We would hear the Master say

Loving God, loving each other
Making music with my friends
Loving God, loving each other
And the story never ends

Loving God, loving each other
Making music with my friends
Loving God, loving each other
And the story never ends
And the story never ends
Oh the story never ends.”

• Bill and Gloria Gaither, Loving God, Loving Each Other

Closing Prayer

Dear Lord,
We need You.  Give us wisdom. Give us courage.  Give us the mindset to love first.  We spend far too much time trying to figure out where the other person is coming from, which is part of loving them in the end.  But when we analyze too much, we may not show the openness and love that Your Son showed when He summed the Ten Commandments in the first place.
In thy Name we pray.
Amen

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.