Article July 6, 1929 Issue

The Two Great Commandments

BESS HEATON

When one of the scribes asked Jesus, "Which is the first commandment of all? he answered: "Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these." Could even the scribes, they who were always inclined to doubt the Master, fail to admit the truth and power of these words, whose deep spiritual meaning so overshadowed them that no one dared question him further?

To learn to love God and our fellow-man is, then, our essential life-work; for divine law requires that these two commandments be obeyed. To the Christian Scientist, striving to bring every thought, word, and deed into obedience to the law of God, these commandments are therefore vital.

Before the light which Christian Science throws on the Scriptures came to us, many of us tried earnestly to follow these commands. We tried to love God, but He seemed afar off and unknowable. Heaven—God's dwelling place—we may have thought of as a beautiful place in which we were promised a home if we lived a righteous life on earth; yet no one seemed to want to die and so reach this abode! And at times, after we had prayed long and had gained a sense of God's nearness and love, evil would again befall us, and we would regard it as God's will; felt that we must be resigned and that His ways were mysterious.

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