How Much Do You Love? (Matthew 22:34-40)

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Mt 22:37-40).

1. What event immediately preceded this encounter (Mt 22:34)? How does knowing that Jesus had just "silenced the Sadducees" inform the Pharisees' motivation for gathering together?
2. In context, have the Pharisees, Herodians and Sadducees already attempted to trap Jesus (Mt 22:15-33)? How would the question by the "expert in the law" be a test and a potential trap for Jesus in first century Judaism (Mt 22:35-36)? [Consider that there are 613 laws in the Torah, and that rabbis often debated their relative weight.]
3. How does Jesus' answer [by quoting Dt 6:5 and Lev 19:18] (Mt 22:37-39) challenge the religious leaders' focus on ritual purity and legal minutia over "justice, mercy and faithfulness" (Mt 23:23)? How does it expose their superficiality and hypocrisy?
• Why does the entire Old Testament "hang on these two commandments" (Mt 22:40)? Why is it impossible to separate them (Mt 25:31-46)?
• Immediately after this exchange, how does Jesus' authoritative answer to the "expert in the law" set the stage for his unanswerable question about David's son and David's Lord (Mt 22:41-46)?

• In what ways can/do we, like the religious leaders, know the Bible well yet miss the fundamental call to love God and neighbor?
• Is Biblical love primarily a feeling? If not, what is it?