Complicating Things
Sometimes we make things too complicated.
When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. ‘Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?’ He said to him, ‘ “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’ - Matthew 22:34-40
Leave it to a lawyer to try to get you to complicate the situation and get you to say something you don't mean.
And leave it to Jesus to turn the tables, offering a simple answer that says it all.
All the laws can be reduced to two. That's what he said making one primary law the greatest, to love God with all your heart, mind and soul.
If we do this, how can we fail to obey all the other laws, the lesser or more complicated and detailed laws based on this and the other, to love your neighbor as yourself?
Why do we think another, more precise law will change people's behavior, if the greater law fails to do so?
The more specific we get, the easier it is to cite exceptions, where the law fails to apply. Then we need more specific laws to cover those exceptions.
If we want to come to know God, we just have to keep Him foremost in our minds, hearts and souls. Everything we do should be through Him, and then we won't have to worry about the law.
Who can argue with that?
More to come...