Mat 22:34-40
Which commandment of the law is the greatest?
Comment
They are at it again. They enlist a lawyer to do what lawyers do best- ask a question designed to put a person on the hot seat. “Which commandment of the law is the greatest?” (Mat 22:34-40). If the law were only the Ten Commandments, this would be tough enough. But the written “Torah” included many more moral, ceremonial, and dietary prescriptions.
Jesus, of course, is a radical. A “radical” is one who goes to the “radix” or root of the issue. The root problem was that these Pharisees majored in the minors. They loved to strain out gnats and swallow camels. They missed the forest for the trees, going to great lengths to observe the letter of the law while totally missing its spirit.
So Jesus fires a broadside. Splicing together two passages from the Torah, he sinks them.
“You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, with your whole soul, and with all your mind” (Deut 6:5). “This is the greatest and first commandment.
The second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ (Lev 19:18).”
This sinks them for a couple of reasons. First it brilliantly sums up the entire law because every single precept is an expression of these two commandments. Read the Ten Commandments (Ex 20:1-17) and you’ll see that the first three are about loving God and the other seven are about loving your neighbor. If you read every line of the Bible, you’d be able to put each command in column A (love God) or column B (love your neighbor). So these two commandments are indeed the root of them all.
But the other reason his answer sinks them is that these two root commandments are precisely the ones the Pharisees keep breaking. Observance of the law for them is not an act of divine worship but rather of self-promotion. Rather than their observance of the law leading to love of neighbor, it leads to scorn of neighbors who fail to live up to their standards (see how they treat the blind man in John 9:24-34). Note what Paul, the converted Pharisee, says: “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal (1 Cor 13:1).” Paul knew this from experience–he spent years as a gong. On the positive side, St. Augustine says “love and do what you will.”
Yet Jesus did not say just to love. He said we must love the Lord with our WHOLE heart and soul and with ALL our mind and strength. I made a discernment retreat at the Trappist Abbey of Gethsemane when, at age 21, I felt torn between a desire for religious life and marriage. As I walked into the retreat house, I shuddered to see this phrase inscribed in the stone over the entryway: “God Alone.”
Does wholehearted love of God leave no room in your heart for a spouse or children?
If that were the case, there would be no second great commandment in this story. In fact Jesus says the second commandment is like the first. That’s because the kind of wholehearted love Jesus is talking about is charity (agape), which means loving God for his own sake and all others for his sake, and doing so not by human strength, but with the divine love that is poured into our heart by the Holy Spirit (Ro 5:5) When we love others with charity, we are loving God through them. Our every loving act towards them becomes an expression of our love for God.
So at bottom, the two great commandments are just two sides of the same coin. Jesus says to render to Caesar what is Caesars and render to God what is God’s. The two-sided coin of charity is the only legal tender we can use to pay the obligation that’s even more important than taxes–the one owed to the Creator.
Source: www.crossroadsinitiative.com
Showing posts with label Marcellino D'Ambrosio. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Marcellino D'Ambrosio. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
1 Cor 11:2 Passing on True Teaching
Matt 28:19-20
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age."
1 Cor 11:2
I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I have delivered them to you
Quote
But Polycarp also was not only instructed by apostles,
and conversed with many who had seen Christ,
….., having always taught the things which he had learned from the apostles,
and which the Church has handed down, and which alone are true.
To these things all the Asiatic Churches testify, as do also those men who have succeeded Polycarp down to the present time,—a man who was of much greater weight, and a more stedfast witness of truth, than Valentinus, and Marcion, and the rest of the heretics. He it was who, coming to Rome in the time of Anicetus caused many to turn away from the aforesaid heretics to the Church of God, proclaiming that he had received this one and sole truth from the apostles,—that, namely, which is handed down by the Church.
Source: Irenaeus - Against Heresies: Book III – Ch III
Who was Polycarp?
Polycarp was the bishop of Smyrna on the West Coast of Asia Minor (now Turkey) in the first half of the second century.
He reportedly sat at the feet of the apostle John and knew St. Ignatius of Antioch.
On account of this, he is one of the apostolic fathers, the earliest group of the fathers of the church who play a special role in transmitting to us the teachings given to us from the apostles themselves (also referred to as apostolic tradition).
Polycarp was apprehended by the Roman authorities when in his eighties, around the year 155AD.
Source – www.crossroadsinitiative.com.au
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age."
1 Cor 11:2
I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I have delivered them to you
Quote
But Polycarp also was not only instructed by apostles,
and conversed with many who had seen Christ,
….., having always taught the things which he had learned from the apostles,
and which the Church has handed down, and which alone are true.
To these things all the Asiatic Churches testify, as do also those men who have succeeded Polycarp down to the present time,—a man who was of much greater weight, and a more stedfast witness of truth, than Valentinus, and Marcion, and the rest of the heretics. He it was who, coming to Rome in the time of Anicetus caused many to turn away from the aforesaid heretics to the Church of God, proclaiming that he had received this one and sole truth from the apostles,—that, namely, which is handed down by the Church.
Source: Irenaeus - Against Heresies: Book III – Ch III
Who was Polycarp?
Polycarp was the bishop of Smyrna on the West Coast of Asia Minor (now Turkey) in the first half of the second century.
He reportedly sat at the feet of the apostle John and knew St. Ignatius of Antioch.
On account of this, he is one of the apostolic fathers, the earliest group of the fathers of the church who play a special role in transmitting to us the teachings given to us from the apostles themselves (also referred to as apostolic tradition).
Polycarp was apprehended by the Roman authorities when in his eighties, around the year 155AD.
Source – www.crossroadsinitiative.com.au
Phil.4:1-3 Clement of Rome
1Cor.15:1-2
Now I would remind you, brethren, in what terms I preached to you the gospel,
which you received,
in which you stand, by which you are saved,
if you hold it fast
-- unless you believed in vain.
Phil.4:1-3
Therefore, my brethren, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm thus in the Lord, my beloved. I entreat Eu-o'dia and I entreat Syn'tyche to agree in the Lord. And I ask you also, true yokefellow, help these women, for they have labored side by side with me in the gospel together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life.
Quote
But not to dwell upon ancient examples, let us come to the most recent spiritual heroes. Let us take the noble examples furnished in our own generation. Through envy and jealousy, the greatest and most righteous pillars of the Church have been persecuted and put to death.
Let us set before our eyes the illustrious apostles. Peter, through unrighteous envy, endured not one or two, but numerous labours and when he had at length suffered martyrdom, departed to the place of glory due to him. Owing to envy, Paul also obtained the reward of patient endurance, after being seven times thrown into captivity, compelled to flee, and stoned. After preaching both in the east and west, he gained the illustrious reputation due to his faith, having taught righteousness to the whole world, and come to the extreme limit of the west, and suffered martyrdom under the prefects. Thus was he removed from the world, and went into the holy place, having proved himself a striking example of patience.
Source: The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians Ch 5
Who was Clement?
Around the year 95 AD, a letter was written by the Church of Rome to the Church at Corinth that is attributed to Saint Clement.
This document is the earliest Christian writing besides the New Testament documents.
In fact, the Gospel of John is likely written around the same time as this document.
This "first letter of Clement" was copied by the Corinthian Church and circulated all over the empire.
It was so highly regarded by the universal church that for several centuries the Church in Egypt and elsewhere regarded it as one of the New Testament scriptures.
Source: www.crossroadsinitiative.com
Early Church Father
The Early Church Fathers are important Christian writers after the New Testament era who, because of closeness to that New Testament era, witness to the authentically apostolic way of interpreting the Scriptures handed on to them by the Apostles themselves or by someone who was taught by the Apostles (and so on).
They are the ones who identified for us the particular writings that should be regarded as inspired Scriptures well before the final list of books were defined as making up the Bible as we know it today.
Clement is one person who has been called an Early Church Father.
These early Christian writings are THE source where we find out about the early church, the heresies, the persecutions etc.
To read more about the Early Church Fathers
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/index.html
or google “Early Church Fathers”
Now I would remind you, brethren, in what terms I preached to you the gospel,
which you received,
in which you stand, by which you are saved,
if you hold it fast
-- unless you believed in vain.
Phil.4:1-3
Therefore, my brethren, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm thus in the Lord, my beloved. I entreat Eu-o'dia and I entreat Syn'tyche to agree in the Lord. And I ask you also, true yokefellow, help these women, for they have labored side by side with me in the gospel together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life.
Quote
But not to dwell upon ancient examples, let us come to the most recent spiritual heroes. Let us take the noble examples furnished in our own generation. Through envy and jealousy, the greatest and most righteous pillars of the Church have been persecuted and put to death.
Let us set before our eyes the illustrious apostles. Peter, through unrighteous envy, endured not one or two, but numerous labours and when he had at length suffered martyrdom, departed to the place of glory due to him. Owing to envy, Paul also obtained the reward of patient endurance, after being seven times thrown into captivity, compelled to flee, and stoned. After preaching both in the east and west, he gained the illustrious reputation due to his faith, having taught righteousness to the whole world, and come to the extreme limit of the west, and suffered martyrdom under the prefects. Thus was he removed from the world, and went into the holy place, having proved himself a striking example of patience.
Source: The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians Ch 5
Who was Clement?
Around the year 95 AD, a letter was written by the Church of Rome to the Church at Corinth that is attributed to Saint Clement.
This document is the earliest Christian writing besides the New Testament documents.
In fact, the Gospel of John is likely written around the same time as this document.
This "first letter of Clement" was copied by the Corinthian Church and circulated all over the empire.
It was so highly regarded by the universal church that for several centuries the Church in Egypt and elsewhere regarded it as one of the New Testament scriptures.
Source: www.crossroadsinitiative.com
Early Church Father
The Early Church Fathers are important Christian writers after the New Testament era who, because of closeness to that New Testament era, witness to the authentically apostolic way of interpreting the Scriptures handed on to them by the Apostles themselves or by someone who was taught by the Apostles (and so on).
They are the ones who identified for us the particular writings that should be regarded as inspired Scriptures well before the final list of books were defined as making up the Bible as we know it today.
Clement is one person who has been called an Early Church Father.
These early Christian writings are THE source where we find out about the early church, the heresies, the persecutions etc.
To read more about the Early Church Fathers
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/index.html
or google “Early Church Fathers”
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