Love and the Messiah

Jesus Answers Traps and Teaches · Mark 12

Story guide: A lawyer lowering a blank scroll while Jesus gestures from his heart toward diverse neighbors and gathered leaders. This shared image is not a scene-for-scene rendering of Mark 12:28-34.

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28And one of the scribes came up and heard them debating, and seeing that he had answered them well, he asked him, “Which commandment is the first of all?”

29Jesus answered, “The first is: Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.

30And 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.

31The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.

32And the scribe said to him, “Well said, Teacher. You have spoken truly that he is one, and there is no other besides him.”

33and to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself, is more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.

34And Jesus, seeing that he had answered wisely, said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And no one any longer dared to question him.

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