Love the Lord your God with all your heart.
Jesus repeats the greatest commandment and adds the second.
The episode in a glance.
- 01Heart, soul, and mind — the whole person is called to love God.
- 02The second commandment is like the first — love your neighbor.
- 03Love for God and love for neighbor cannot be separated.
- 04On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.
Read along.
Matthew 22:37 — Jesus says, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'
Heart, soul, and mind — that's the whole person. Not part of you. Not just the religious part. All of you. Your affections, your identity, your thoughts. Everything.
And then he adds the second commandment. Love your neighbor as yourself. Which means love for God and love for neighbor are inseparable. You can't love God while hating the people he made.
'On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.' The entire Old Testament is an expansion of these two commands. Love God. Love people. That's the whole thing.