the Jesus Creed

On Sunday we talked about Jesus' answer to the question, "What is the most important commandment?" in Mark 12.28-34.  Jesus' answer, you will remember, was to combine a passage from Deuteronomy 6 and Leviticus 19, saying,  “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O       Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 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: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12.29-31)

Several years ago, after I had begun to wrestle with this most important commandment in my own understanding of what it means to follow Jesus, I discovered that Scot McKnight had written the book, The Jesus Creed, exploring the same question.  As a follow up to Sunday's message, I would like to encourage you to read The Jesus Creed, if you have not already done so.  It's a powerful treatment of Jesus' own version of the Shema and a book that has much to teach us about what it might look like if we, too, began to allow it to transform our lives today.

McKnight believes that Jesus' earliest followers, who were Jewish, may have actually used his version of the Shema as a part of their daily prayers, each morning and evening.  In this way, he argues, Jesus shaped his newly formed band of disciples and he continues to want to form us today, as well.

How might it shape you to make loving God and loving others the foundation of your interaction with the world in which you live?