Love God. Love your neighbor. That’s it. That’s the “Bible for Dummies.” How much simpler this must have been to the common folk who were being manipulated by the complexity coming from their teachers and leaders.
These two commandments are from the Old Testament (Lev. 19:18; Deut.6:5). The first — to love God with all of our hearts, souls, and minds — means that we must love God with our whole being — totally and completely.
Quite intentionally, Jesus then linked the second greatest commandment to the first by saying, “And the second is like it…” In other words, loving our neighbor is like loving God with all of our being.
So then, Jesus equated loving our neighbor with loving God. The two are fully interconnected and intertwined.
The Hole in Our Gospel
Richard Stearns