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hear

Mark 12:28&29
"28 And one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, and perceiving that He had answered them well, asked Him, Which is the first commandment of all?
29 And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord:"

The Law is a gift from God. It is good to think of The Law as a "nanny." It is there to help raise us to maturity. Guide us to good habits. Make us functional and civil members of our community. It gets us to a point where we no longer need a nanny to guide us. And, Jesus explained the secondary purpose of the law, to show us our sin and make us realize we NEED a Savior. Jesus, the Son of God, is the ONLY person to achieve personal obedience to The Law. This, along with His death on the cross, gives us our Salvation. We are saved by God's grace. This does not diminish the Law. Instead, it magnifies the Law! The Law demonstrates to us that we cannot personally save ourselves. We need Jesus.

In today's verses, we read about a scribe getting the opportunity to ask Jesus "Which is the first commandment of all?" Is this the right question? Are the commandments to be ranked? Are they arranged in a order?

"And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord:" This is The Shemà (the Hebrew for “Hear”), it was taught to every Jewish child. We can read it in Deuteronomy 6:4. The Israelites call it the passport into Paradise for any child of Abraham. It's an easy answer, it's an obvious answer, and it's an answer that the scribes would think is too simple. The more we study the Holy Scriptures, it becomes tempting to look for complexities when simplicity is the best.
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