Mark 12:29-31
Have
you ever had conflicts in your priorities, needing to do two very important
things at the same time, but struggling to figure out how to do it? Most of us
have had to figure this out at one time or another in our lives. The most
difficult task, at least for me, comes when there are more than two of these “must
do’s” on the list. And since I am a man, and they say men can’t multitask as
well as women, I am really stuck. And then you add some Attention Deficit Disorder
into the mix, and I don’t stand a chance of pulling it off!
But
even the best multitaskers can get pulled in too many directions. If two of the
tasks are in different locations at the same time, failure will happen. If this
has never happened to you, you probably aren’t pulling your share of the world’s
weight. Those of us who have failed would probably label you a ‘slacker’, since
you haven’t yet failed.
Jesus
is questioned about which of the commandments in the Old Testament Scriptures
are the most important. This could be a tricky question to answer. Weren’t they
all given by the LORD and mandatory? And since there are ten in the list of God’s
Top Ten, then aren’t these ten all the same priority? I mean, shouldn’t the
LORD have weighted each one with a point value, so we would know which were at
His top?
In
Jesus’ answer He doesn’t even use God’s Top Ten. He instead goes to Deuteronomy
6 instead of Exodus 20 or even Deuteronomy 5. So He skips the Top Ten! Now for
an answer given to those who were teachers of all these laws, this might seem
like a shortcut. If we only need to get these two right, then what is the role
of all the others?
So
some Bible students could see in Jesus’ answer an error in theology. Since all
of the Scripture is God’s Word, shouldn’t we be paying attention to it all, not
just certain parts? And if only certain parts, who is the one who determines
which parts are more God’s Word for
us today than other parts? Is the Sermon on the Mount more important than
Leviticus?
Jesus
gives us Moses’ summary statement after he had already given them the Top Ten recorded
in the previous chapter. Jesus knows that if we love the Lord with everything
we have, and then love others with the same intensity that we love ourselves,
all the other things that the Lord demands will be covered. After all, even the
Top Ten are divided into four laws about the Lord and six about our
relationship with other people.
So
how are you doing on the Really Top Two! If our performance on these two
measures determined our eternal status, I know we would all be on the down
escalator. Even when the list is just two things, we can’t perform them
perfectly. Our sin still gets us every time. We still fail.
Grace!
As
Jesus answered this teacher, He spoke to all of them. They all were concerned
about keeping a vast array of laws, both big and small. They all had their eyes
on rule-keeping as a means to acceptance before the LORD. So by prioritizing
down to two, Jesus made it simple for them to see that they were failing, just
like we are failing. No matter what we do, we fail at this task. But grace
given in Jesus makes acceptance with the LORD possible.