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The Greatest Commandment · The Rhett Palmer Show

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Surely said to Abraham, I am that I am.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Hallelujah.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: Well, good morning, Rhett.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: Good morning, Michael Bagby.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_02: How are you?
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_02: Good, sir.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: Good.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: I'm back in Vero Beach.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: You're still up in Stowe, Vermont this morning.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, about 62 degrees here.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's pretty consistent temperatures.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: And uh yeah, I got back from Util on Monday night, and uh it's been a busy day yesterday, and so this morning we're going to have a discussion about the greatest commandments.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: Now, Rhett, when you think about those term, that term the greatest commandment, uh what uh what do you think is uh uh what do you think about that when you when you asked you?
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I think love the Lord thy God.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_02: I find it very hard because I'm constantly in the car as an older guy now.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_02: And by the way, you know, I look at the I look at the video here and I go, you know how you used to have a bad day when you were younger, but then you knew you'd be better in a few days.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_02: It's like now you look at the thing, it's like it ain't gonna get any better, you know.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_02: But anyway, you look pretty good though for 75.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, please, no.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_02: Please, please.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_02: Happy birthday.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_02: Happy birthday.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_02: But um, but you know, I will say in all sincerity and all honesty, I drive around and go, what can I do that's pleasing for you?
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_02: I just want to I wanna I want to laugh with you.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_02: That's what I want.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_02: I want to laugh with Jesus, but I want to know what what can we can we do?
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_02: Anything really that would be pleasing with when you think about infinity, what can we really do to touch God?
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, he's been around for like forever.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_02: And um he made us for for fellowship.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_02: And according, according to Beth, you know, Beth uh Beth who's married to Donald, she said he's crazy about you, right?
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_02: You know, she says that to people, you know.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_02: But anyway, so what do I think?
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_02: How do you love how do you love God, really?
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_02: You know, especially when he says, If if you put wife or children or anything before me, you're not worthy of me.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_02: And Jesus said that, right?
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: Well, um one of the scribes came to Jesus and he said, What is the greatest commandment of all?
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus answered, The greatest is here, O Israel, the Lord our God is one, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind, and with all your strength.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: And the second is like this you shall love your neighbor as yourself.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: There is no other commandments greater than these.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: And Luke records Jesus saying, All the prophets and all the law are summed up in these two commandments.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: So uh that begs us to really uh dive into what these commandments actually mean.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: And the quote that Jesus is giving is from Deuteronomy chapter six in Leviticus 19.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh let me just read those uh to you just for context here.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_02: Hold on, we're on Seek the Lamb if you want to join us, folks.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, uh by the way, folks, uh for the last few years uh I've been compiling on our ministry website, seekethelamb.com.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: S-E-E-K-T-H-E-L-A-M-B.com.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: I've been compiling lessons that we've learned from our time living uh in Israel and traveling in the biblical sites in Greece and Turkey and Italy and Israel.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so these are all on the seekethelamb.com site under a page called Biblical Places Spiritual Spaces.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh if you ever want to explore and see photographs of these sites and understand a little bit of the historical and geographical and political and cultural context that really makes the scriptures very rich, I would encourage you to go to our biblical places spiritual spaces page on our seekethelamb.com site.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: Now, today we are actually on the page for the Wadi Kilt, which is the ancient road from Jerusalem down to Jericho.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: It runs along a very uh windy canyon that has water, uh stream at the bottom of the canyon.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: And uh my family and I were there a few uh years ago on a hot summer day, and we were we were taking down, we were taken there by our friend Yair Pinto, who was, when he was in the army, was stationed down around that area.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: You can hear Yair's uh daily reports on TBN uh Israel, the uh podcast, and on the YouTube channel.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: He is very much up on what's going on in the Middle East and gives daily reports, uh, something worth tuning into.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: But Yair took us down and we really enjoyed the day, but it caused me later to use this as the backdrop for the Pharisees asking Jesus uh which is the greatest commandment.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so if you want to follow along with us for these next few episodes, we're gonna be referencing uh the scriptures that are on uh this particular page of our website.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_02: What does Wadi kelp mean?
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Wadi is is a canyon, it's a valley, it's uh it's the erosion uh-produced valleys of the Jewish Judean highlands running down to the Dead Sea.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: These are Wadis, these are curvy roads, and and Jesus uh uses this to tell the story of the Good Samaritan, the man who was robbed on the road to Jericho, and everybody uh who's walked up and down that road sees has seen all the places where thieves can hide and attack you, and you're pretty much out in the Judean wilderness.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, it's it's not the best place to find yourself uh bloody and robbed on the side of the road, okay?
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_02: Oh wow.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_02: So uh so listen, so uh you just got back from uh uh and is it Antilla where you have your road?
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_02: Honduras, Bay Islands.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_02: And that's where you've been had a missionary uh uh coffee shop for 15 years, but you've been going down there with your wife and four children as a missionary for over 40 years.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_02: When you see these pictures of Israel and you've actually lived there at times, when I see this, I was only there once.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_02: That makes me want to get on a plane and just be there.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_02: I guess it's I guess it's sort of sort of a yearning for anybody that's really had a uh an experience with the Lord and gotten close to him.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_02: That you want to, it's it's it's at least it's an attempt to feel like we're closer to walk where he walked.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and uh actually you point out, you make a really good point.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: Being in the airspace of the biblical story, and actually imagining that you're there in the place where Jesus heals uh that uh paralyzed guy where he walks on water, where he feeds the 5,000, uh, where just these biblical stories that we've all heard, and you're suddenly you're on the spot, you're in Capernaum, where the woman that has been bleeding for 12 years is healed.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: And you understand that because of Jairus uh having his daughter raised from the dead, and the centurion in uh Capernaum having his uh servant healed, and the royal official in uh, as recorded in John uh having his son healed while Jesus was up at Cana, you realize all of a sudden why Jesus was safe in Capernaum because the military authority, the civilian authority, and the religious authority were all friends and of Jesus and had been touched by him.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: And all of a sudden the story becomes even more meaningful when you're in Capernaum.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_02: But let's go, let's go.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we've been fortunate over the uh years to work with uh Dr.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: Randy Smith.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: Since 1997, we took three of our Mosquito Indian leaders from our school project in Honduras and Nicaragua to Israel.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Randy at the time was training all the Ministry of Tourism guides.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: He's a graduate of Hebrew University.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and Randy is one of the most foremost experts in biblical culture.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: If you wanted to be a guide in uh Israel, you had to be trained and certified by Randy.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: So we found ourselves with the very best.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: Rem de Lakrim.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh Randy's uh ministry is called Christian Travel Studies Program, CTSP, and Randy does study tours in Greece, in Turkey, and and in Israel.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: So if you've ever wanted to go to any of these places, I would highly recommend going with Randy Smith and maybe going with us on our next study tour with Randy Smith.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_02: I would I would I would love that we need to get a group together.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_02: Uh yeah.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: I guess if I can get so many people to go, that'll pay my cost.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_02: Is that what you do?
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_02: We can get a big enough group going.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: Well, there are some benefits to uh being a group leader.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: That's we have uh we have some benefits.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but uh Randy doesn't have to I'd like to go, I gotta tell you.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know, it's maybe it's the romance.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_02: People probably wonder why when people get born again they get so wacky.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_02: Well, when you've been touched by a living God, you're you just can't keep it within you.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_02: And so uh, you know, we have to pull back a little bit.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_02: Like you say, you have to earn the um, what does it say when you like you have to earn the what?
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um the equity.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_02: I love the fact that you said that you have to earn your equity and you shouldn't jump all over people, but when you've been touched by a living God, you just want to tell all the world about Jesus.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: Well, uh let's look at these two commandments.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: Remember, in the uh Hebrew scriptures, in the Torah, there are 612 or 613 laws that God gives his people.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: And remember, these laws were given because the Hebrew people had been living in Egyptian culture for 400 years.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: Remember the biblical narrative here is that Jacob has uh sons, and the youngest son is named Joseph, and Joseph is has dreams, and he um sees himself with his brothers all bowing down before him.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: He's kind of a smart elicky kid.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: He's probably a bit obnoxious.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: His uh brothers are tired of hearing him say it wa uh that one day all of you will be bowing down to me.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: They get really upset with him and they decide to sell him as a slave to a caravan going to Egypt.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: And the result of that was he ends up in prison, and he uh uh but he's a man that has uh able to uh tr uh interpret dreams, and finally the Pharaoh has a dream and no one can interpret it, but one of uh Joseph's former cellmates in the prison who's been freed, uh, tells Pharaoh, and Joseph uh explains the vision, and it's all about famine coming into Egypt, seven years of uh harvest, seven years of famine, and and Pharaoh makes him second in command of uh of Egypt.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: And historically, we know that a group of non-Egyptian people called the Hiscops migrated down the coast from Phoenicia, and in about the middle of the second millennium BC, they overthrew the Egyptian uh uh pharaoh.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: He was forced to retreat south on the upper Nile, and now we have a non-Egyptian Pharaoh, and so Joseph was also non-Egyptian, and so this kind of gives us a little background as to how this story actually came about.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: But eventually, uh 400 years later, as the scripture says, there came a pharaoh who did not know Joseph.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: Remember, Joseph brought his father Jacob and all of his brothers, and they became royalty in Egypt.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: And then 400 years later, the original Egyptians come back up uh down the Nile, actually come from the south.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: They kick out the Hiskops and they take over, and now they enslave the Hebrews who were the allies of their enemies, and now it's slavery.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, Moses is sent to free them from their slavery.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: But they've been 400 years in Egypt, and they've become very Egyptian in their thinking and in their culture.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: So as God is brings them out through a series of signs and miracles, and especially the crossing of the Red Sea, now they are traveling in the Sinai on their way into the land, and God gives them all of these 612 or 13 laws that have to do with hygiene.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: Like if you're going to um do your daily uh, what's the word I can use here on the air, pooping, then go outside the camp and uh take a shovel and cover it up because uh that will cause sickness in the camp.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: If you have a rash uh that uh could be contagious, uh then go to a uh Levite and he will uh check you.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: And there's certain stay away from pe the other people uh till the rash goes away.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: There's some dietary laws like uh, you know, we I know from living in uh Honduras and Nicaragua that if you eat pig meat that has not been properly cooked, there's a worm called trichinosis that uh can actually uh infect your body and actually bring serious harm to you.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a commandment not to eat pigs.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh there's also a commandment not to eat bottom fish, uh, and uh because they're like lobster and shrimp, because they're the cockroaches of the sea.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_02: They're the vacuum cleaners of the sea, yeah.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: Right, and I have a friend that if he eats shrimp, his throat uh swells up and he can't breathe.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_02: So so there's these looking, that's shrimply very bad.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_02: Sorry.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: So uh there's a uh uh very uh strict dietary laws.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: There's uh sexual laws because remember, God created uh the husband, wife, and uh children as the family unit that he was going to build human civilization on.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: So there's many prohibitions uh regarding sexuality to protect the family unit, and that's why he created male and female so that they would uh share intimacy and have children and populate the earth.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: So those commandments about don't have sex with your mother-in-law, don't have sex with your aunt, don't have sex with uh your uh stepsister, uh men don't have sex with men, women don't have sex with women, and by all means don't have sex with animals.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: That's really gross.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, these were all laws to protect.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_02: I just can't imagine who would ever even think of these things, but whatever.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm you know well, remember, Rhett, during uh that time in Egyptian and Canaanite culture, gods were uh represented by various animals.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: And oftentimes in the worship of these gods, the priest or the priestess would actually have sex with the animals.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_02: Let's not talk about it.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh God says, don't do these things.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's an abomination.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_02: You know the one thing I do ask this, and this is gonna sound silly, but you know, David had many wives, right?
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_02: Abraham had many wives, right?
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_02: Solomon had many wives.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I think if I get to heaven and find out you could have had a bunch of wives, I'm gonna be really disappointed because the one good thing about if you have one wife, she picks on you continually.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_02: But if you have two wives, then you pick on each other.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: Wait, wait, wait.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: First of all, okay, understand it was God's intention always that intimacy would be shared between a man and a woman, they would become one.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's what the Jesus even quotes this.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: I know, but the idea that of having multiple wives or concubines was a very cultural thing.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: It was never commanded, and what we see is people got in trouble with their multiple relationships.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, Solomon got in big trouble because of the women that he had uh uh in his palace.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: Anytime he made a treaty with one of the neighboring uh kingdoms, uh wives were exchanged, and now Solomon's got a bunch of wives, and that guy started off asking for wisdom, which the Lord gave him, became the wisest guy in the whole neighborhood, uh one of the wealthiest guys, and yet he went off the path.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_02: And why do you think he went off the path, Red?
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_02: Let me ask you this, though.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_02: In the days of old, let's say I was very wealthy like Abraham, and then I wanted to hire a secretary.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_02: It may not involve sexuality, but I would I not marry her so she was under my protection.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_02: So maybe that meant a whole different thing because women had no authority back then.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_02: They had nothing.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: It could be, it was never commanded to take multiple wives.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: It was, uh seems like the custom of the time.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, remember, there's a difference between narrative scripture and instructional scripture just because it's done in the Bible, uh, just because David uh went up on the roof of his uh uh home, his palace, and he sees Bathsheba over uh bathing, and he brings uh her to the palace and he has sex with her and he has her her husband killed.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh that's not a commandment.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: That's a narrative of what happened.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: Uh David got into a lot of trouble.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: It cost him a lot for that act.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_02: Sin can blind you, and his love for Bathsheba obviously uh blinded him until Samuel the prophet comes to him and said, What would you say about one man who had multiple sheep?
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's another man who only had only had one sheep, and the one with multiple stole the one who had the one.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_02: He said, Surely that man should die.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_02: And that's when, of course, Samuel said, Thou art the man.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because you took uh Uriah.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh when Nathan the prophet said that to him, he immediately uh repented.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but see, that's the thing.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_02: That's hold on, that's the secret, is that he he he had been blinded by the greed or by the sin.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_02: And so then he quickly fell to the ground and said, Am I going to die?
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_02: And of course Nathan says, No, but the sword shall never leave your household.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_02: And the thing is, there's a consequence to the sin, but the most important thing to God is he said, This guy loves me.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_02: He has a heart after me.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: And uh if we truly repent and mean it, um other laws that uh God gave uh through Moses had to do with community organization with justice, and so you had a plethora of six hundred and thirteen laws.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so of all of these six hundred laws, when Jesus was asked what are the most important, he quotes Deuteronomy chapter six in Leviticus 19.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: I love Deuteronomy six.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: Now, that is the opening of uh every synagogue service, and I just like to take a sidebar and point out that this Hebrew uh translation of this is Yahweh Elohim, Yahweh Echad.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's Lor it's Yahweh the Lord.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: Elohim.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: Elohim is God's plural, and then it says Yahweh again, and then it said Ichad, which is the word one, but Ichad.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: Echad.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's the word translated one, but one is a collective noun.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: It you you you can use it to describe a cluster of grapes.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: So what is uh being declared here in I believe the opening of this chapter six is God is a multi-personality character.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: And we now know, of course, that that involves God the Father, God the Son who came to earth, and God the Holy Spirit.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_02: Is there one that has the final say, or do you think they're all equal?
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: Let's just uh uh s uh dwell on the fact for the moment that there are three uh personalities.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Of our uh Creator, uh Yahweh, who we call God the Father, uh, we call uh Jesus God the Son who came on uh earth, and we have the Holy Spirit.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: And we see this in Jesus' baptism that Jesus came to the Jordan, John baptized him.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: He said, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the earth.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: And as Jesus is being baptized, John sees the Holy Spirit descending upon him, and then a voice comes out of heaven saying, This is my son in whom I'm well pleased.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: So we actually see all three personalities of our uh our Lord uh in one scene here at the baptism of Jesus.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: But now you're making me think that God's a cluster of grapes.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: God is a multi-personality character.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: We know of three: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: How do I know which one likes me the best?
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_02: So I can go and get favor.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: Might.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: These words which I'm commanding you shall be on your heart.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_01: You shall teach them diligently to your sons, you shall talk to them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, they shall be as frontals on your forehead, and you shall write them on the doorpost of your house and on your gates.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: Now, this is a real uh this is a commandment for us fathers to teach our sons, and I'm talking about not only our biological fathers, but our spiritual fathers, that we are to teach them and be diligent to teach them when we're sitting in our house, when we're on our journey, when we lie down, when we rise up, pretty much all the time.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: And binding them as a sign on your hand.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I was camping up by Tel Dan uh one, and uh when I woke up one morning and I stepped outside, the guys in the tent next to me were standing there, and the sun was coming up, and they were had these leather bands they were winding around their forearms.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_01: They had a box that they were tying to their forehead, and now they put their prayer shawl on and they were having their morning prayer.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: So literally, they take this as literal of binding them on their hands and arms.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_01: These leather straps had scripture written on them, and this phylactery here had it was a box with scripture in it tied to their forehead.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: And if you go into a religious Jewish home, you'll see on the doorpost this thing called a medusa, and it has scripture inside of it.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_02: But Jesus said to the lady at the well, he said, There's coming a time when this will be written on the heart.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so loving God with all your heart, all your soul, all your might.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Luke transl translates this as your mind.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um we have three areas of loving God.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: And then Jesus says the next greatest commandment is from uh Leviticus chapter 19, it's verse 18, you shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so why do you think these are the most important commandments, Red?
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_02: Well, which one?
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_02: Love your neighbor as yourself?
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_02: Both.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus says these two are the greatest commandments, and they sum up all the law and all the prophets.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_02: So Well, I know I know that he said uh if you say you love the father whom you've not seen, and don't love the brother whom you have seen, ye are a liar and no truth dwelleth in you.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_02: So, and then and if you love your neighbor, you're not gonna sell him food that has preservatives in it that will harm him.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_02: If you love your neighbor, you're not gonna covet his wife.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_02: If you love your neighbor, you're not going to uh use uh charge him usury.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you make a great point here because it's all about the relationship you have with your neighbor, right?
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: And this first commandment is about a relationship that you have with your heavenly father.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: Both of these commandments are about relationship.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_02: That's a whole relationship.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: And um and my wife, uh Laura, uh, she often says there's only two things that we leave this planet with.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: One is relationship with our Heavenly Father, and the other is the relationship with the people around us.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_01: Relationship is the only eternal thing.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_01: And these two commandments focus on relationship.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I think uh we get a theme in the Bible that God created mankind for fellowship with him, he's invited us to be part of his family, he's given us a position a place in his mission to all humanity, and he's given us an inheritance and a and a future that's indescribable.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: Our biblical narrative is all about God and relationship with his people.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I think probably, Rhett, that's probably why these are the the two most important commandments.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: Because, you know, I mean, we can not eat shrimp, we cannot eat lobster, we cannot eat uh pig.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we can always flush the toilet when we uh uh have to do that.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we can keep so many of these laws.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: We cannot steal from our neighbor, we cannot lie uh to our uh neighbors.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, these are things that we by our will we can do, but to actually love somebody that's something that you can't fake.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: Either you love the person or you don't.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think it focuses uh all our attention on what's going on in our heart.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_01: And as I read the gospels, uh I see Jesus over and over again saying, It's all about what's going on in your heart.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: And then Mark uh after the Pharisees come and ask him for more signs, and he's already done it some incredible signs, he says, you know, these guys just don't have it going on in their heart.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: They're outwardly, they're obeying all of their their laws, but what's going on in their heart is what's defiling them.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so God's always pointing out uh heart issues here and challenging us to look inside in our heart because these outward religious uh actions really have no benefit in the kingdom of God.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I'll tell you just a little analogy here, and that is order truth.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_02: That if I go out to to break bread with somebody and they say they're a Christian, but they're rude to the waiter or waitress, or they even have a a proud look or an attitude, uh, they won't know, but I will never break bread with them again, because that's not the way you treat people, you know.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_01: So uh Red, I I think we can just uh take a moment just to think of all the laws that God gave his people, and we find them in How many?
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_01: Six hundred and twelve or thirteen, depending on how you read them.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_01: But uh remember, these were laws were all for the benefit of the people.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um they explained uh a lot about what God thought, what he valued most.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um they uh pa painted a portrait of uh of God that was far different than the Egyptians and the Canaanites gods.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: And he gave uh the people an opportunity for their for them to express their faith in him by obeying when at times they didn't really want to obey.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: You know, um my relationship with my children when they were growing up, I could I could determine what my relationship with them was based on their willingness to do what I told them to do.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: If they were uh trusting in me and believing that I had their best interest at heart, then when I said don't cross the road, stay on this side of the street, don't walk over by that ditch, look out, there's a car coming, or in me in my lifestyle, I was traveling so much with four children, uh in very uh uh faraway places in Central America in dugout canoes, in airplanes, and even uh our travels in the Middle East.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh there were many times when our children had to obey me instantly to stay safe.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I found that they trusted me.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_01: But when they started being disobedient, that's when I knew that their trust in me and their belief that I had their best interest at heart um was fading.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_01: And amazingly, now all of my children are adults, and they are very thankful for those moments uh that I was uh directing their actions and keeping them safe.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_01: And they've realized that when they've stepped off the path in their teenage and 20 years, uh that uh there's consequences when you step off the path.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_02: You know, the children of uh missionaries uh tend, if you follow this historically, tend to prosper and have blessed lives.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_02: It's God blessing the next generation.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_02: You know, someday I'd like to interview your four children.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_02: I'll tell you why.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_02: What a marvelous opportunity to have been brought up in these various traveling around the world as missionaries.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_02: It had to have its challenges, but can you imagine they have a whole different perspective on this world than the average individual, that they might share some what what what wisdom did they glean from that experience, you know?
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_01: Well, last night we celebrated my birthday, and my children uh all wrote me cards.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_01: And it's funny that you uh what you just said, uh, each of them thanked me for the world life experience that I gave them as they were growing up as children.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um they're very well it's just this is what God uh gave us the opportunity to do.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we stepped out in faith.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we uh didn't hesitate to uh raise our children in the swamps of the Coco River on the Honduran-Nicaraguan border.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't hesitate to travel with them um to the places that we went, especially in the Middle East.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I just think uh I'm a blessed man to have uh children that are now as adults that love me and really care for me.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm a blessed man.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_01: I really am.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_02: You are.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_02: You're uh you're more wealthier than the the the wealthiest billionaire I know.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_01: So, Rhett, let's uh let's uh take uh a few moments uh in our next episodes here to actually examine closely what does it mean to love God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind, and what does it look like to love your neighbor as yourself?
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_01: So uh we're gonna finish up this episode of uh A Cup of Friendship, just focusing on these two greatest commandments, and they're all about relationship because this is what God so desires with us is relationship.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_01: And many of us grew up uh with uh perhaps our parents taking us to church, and it never really clicked in because it's easy to think Christianity is all about the rules and being good.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, perfunctory uh perfunctory obedience to some rules, religiosity.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: But but here Jesus is pointing out the two greatest rules all have to do with our relationship with our Heavenly Father and our relationships with the people around us.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I think this is a good sign that the whole story of the Bible is is on this issue of relationship.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I have to say, uh Rhett, when I went to Maui in 1981 and my cousins uh had become part of a church plant called Hope Chapel, and the first Sunday that I was there, I heard their next door neighbor, uh Craig Englert, who was the pastor of the church.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_01: He said something I never heard that having a personal relationship with Jesus is the most important thing that you can have in this life.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_01: I was astounded, Rhett.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_01: I had never heard that before.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_01: I thought it was all about the rules and being good, and I wanted to have fun.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_01: So these two laws focus on relationships.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_01: So in our next episode, we're going to be talking about loving God with all your heart and what that actually means.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_01: So until the next time from Stowe, Vermont, and Vero Beach, Florida, this is a cup of friendship.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_01: Aloha.