You can often read or hear that the Pharisees and their predecessors surrounded the 10 Commandments with 613 other laws – laws which strike us as odd when we encounter stories of Jesus healing on the Sabbath and the authorities respond quite negatively, challenging Jesus to keep holy the Sabbath. In our modern and Christian sensibilities, we cheer Jesus on as he “battles” for the Law of Love expressed in today’s Gospel. Continue reading
Matthew 22: 34-40 34 When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, 35 and one of them (a scholar of the law) tested him by asking, 36 “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” 37 He said to him, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. 38 This is the greatest and the first commandment. 39 The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.” Continue reading
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