GREAT THINGS ENTERPRISE
CLAUDE BLACK
Mark 12:32
Repeat
Sometimes teachers say, “Repeat after me” to make sure the student has grasped a concept. On the first day of a language class, my professor told us to have a look at the alphabet. In the second class, she began by asking the students to repeat the alphabet, and they said, “Alpha, Beta…,” and that was about as far as we got. To emphasize her point, she said, “When I say, ‘Have a look,’ I mean HAVE a look.” We got her message. In the next class, we made it all the way through Omega. Sometimes parents will say to their children, “Repeat after me,” to emphasize the importance of the lesson they want to teach.
In answer to the scribe’s question about the most important command—most important out of the hundreds that scribes at the time taught—Jesus coupled two: “The first is, Hear, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the second: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is not another commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:29-31) In answer to this, “And the scribe said to him, ‘Well said, Teacher. Truly you said that He is one, and there is not another except Him.’” (Mark 12:32)
Writers debate the scribe’s motive in presenting his original question to Jesus, but when interpreted in its best light, the scribe may have heard Jesus’ earlier response to the Pharisees and the Sadducees and sincerely presented Jesus with a question that was troubling him. Some writers attribute to the American writer Mark Twain the statement that “It’s not the parts of the Bible that I don’t understand that trouble me, but the parts that I do understand.” Whether Twain actually said those words, the point clearly illustrates the scribe’s position—he was likely troubled by the volume of commandments taught by his teachers, each of which seemed to have the same level of importance.
Jesus’ answer to the scribe bears repeating daily—the Lord our God is one, and we are to love our neighbors as ourselves.
Previous
Next
Directory