With all your strength
First Baptist Church invites the entire community to the Prineville Fitness Clinic
A man once came to Jesus and asked him a difficult question: Which commandment is the most important of all? (Mark 12:28)
In Jewish tradition, the Torah (or Law) contained 613 commandments. This is, of course, child s play compared to something like the U.S. tax code, but it was a weighty amount of rules, nonetheless. With so many, it would be to anyone s benefit to understand which are the most important.
Jesus answers the man with a stunning summary of Jewish Law: The most important is, Hear, O 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. The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these. (Mark 12:29-31)