Mark 12:30-31 The First Commandment

In Mark 12:30-31, Jesus summarized the 2 most important commandments in these verses: love God first, then love your neighbor as yourself.

If we followed the commands, our lives, our families, our world would be different.

 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  The second is like this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

Mark 12:30-31

If we focused on loving God as we should, it would change our behaviors, our thoughts, and how we treat others. If we truly practiced loving God, we would obey his commands and follow his word.

The second commandment is to love our neighbor as ourselves. When we think of neighbors, we usually think of the people who live near us and our like us.

But Jesus wanted us to think more broadly about our neighbors. In the parable of the Good Samaritan, it’s not the person like us or that we consider our friend that is our neighbor, but our enemy and people we don’t like.

In the story of the Good Samaritan, the Samaritan finds a Jew who has been attacked by thieves. Although the Samaritans and Jews are enemies for many hundreds of years, the Samaritan still helps the Jew. Jesus explains that even our enemies should be treated with kindness as a neighbor.

Jesus summarizes the 2 greatest commandments as love the Lord your God with all your heart and then love your neighbor as yourself. If we kept these two commandments, we would keep all 10 commandments. Think about it, we would treat God’s name as holy, we would have no other gods, we would honor God on the Sabbath, we would not steal, kill, lie, commit adultery or covet our neighbor’s things.

Love God first, then love others. Easy right?