Hi, welcome to the
Books of the Book series.
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We're exploring the
gospel according to Mathew.
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I am Glenn Russell, your host,
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professor of
religion, Andrews University,
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department of religion.
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It's a great joy to be with you
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and to be with my
friend Dr.Ranko Stefanovic.
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Ranko, you're professor
of New Testament at Andrews.
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You know, probably we
should pause for right now
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and ask you just a little bit,
you didn't grow up in Michigan,
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tell us a little
bit about your homeland?
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My heavy accent
indicates that actually
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I moved to the States in
the later stage of my life.
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I was born and I
grew up in the country
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what used to be Yugoslavia.
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That country split into
seven different countries.
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So, currently I am
a Croatian citizen,
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even though
currently I am U.S. citizen.
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Yeah, but I am coming from
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different part of the world
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and I love this country,
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I am really
happy that I am here.
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And, Ranko, you've gone through
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a change in the
world you grew up
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and compared to the
freedom you have now.
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Yes.
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You grew up under communism.
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You suffered, you were harassed
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for your Christian
faith, for your belief in God.
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Yes, It's so nice to
serve God in freedom.
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Yes.
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And this program
goes all over the world
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and we need to
always keep in mind
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those who were in situations,
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some of you do
not have the freedoms
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that they're in
other parts of the world.
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And we want you to
know you are never alone.
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There are
people in this building
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that pray everyday
for you in your situation.
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So don't ever feel you're alone,
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God is with you,
he'll be with you.
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Ranko, you faced ridicule,
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you faced opposition sometimes.
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These gospel, the story
of Jesus facing ridicule,
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you must relate to it
in a certain way then.
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Yes, we're going now to
a very interesting text,
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so lets go to that and--
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Before we get to it,
let's go to God and pray.
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All right, Ranko,
lead us in prayer,
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that God may guide us.
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Our heavenly Father,
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thank you for giving
us this beautiful book.
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and a special passage
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that is very,
very meaningful to us.
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Please, open our spiritual eyes
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that we can get
that full insight
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into the message
that Jesus Christ
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and the Holy Spirit
brings to our hearts.
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We pray all of this
in Jesus name, amen.
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We're in Mathew, Chapter 22.
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Yes.
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We should remember that we're
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in the last week of Jesus life.
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Yes.
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He's already entered
Jerusalem riding on a donkey,
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an example of humility a
different kind of Messiah
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than they were expecting.
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But He's facing opposition,
opposition, opposition,
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especially from the
two main religious groups
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the Pharisees and the Sadducees
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And as you look at Mathew 22,
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it's kind of a one and
then the other comes after them.
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Pharisees they
come to trap, Jesus.
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They were
unsuccessful, they leave.
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Sadducees jumped into situation,
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Sadducees are not successful,
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Pharisees are coming.
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Yeah
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Boy,Jesus had a hard
time, can you imagine that?
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What our Lord faced
is really something--
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verse 34.
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So we have one of
these now occasions.
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The Pharisees
now it's there turn.
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It's there turn to attack.
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Yeah.
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"But when the Pharisees heard
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that he had silenced
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the Sadducees,
they came together.
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And one of them, a lawyer,
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asked him a
question, to test him.
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Teacher, which is the
great commandment in the Law?
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And he said to him,
"you shall love the Lord,
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your God with all your
heart and with all your soul."
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with all your mind."
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This is the great
and first commandment
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and the second is like it.
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You shall love your
neighbor as yourself.
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On these two
commandments depend all the law
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and the prophets."
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Very familiar passage.
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I know that our
viewer's doesn't matter
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if they are too much
familiar with the Bible.
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But almost everybody is familiar
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with these two commandments
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that actually Jesus stated here.
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And this is probably the summary
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of the entire gospel.
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By the way, can I be,
can I be so frank and to say
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according to Jesus, this is
the summary of the entire Bible.
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The law and the prophets
is actually the Bible...
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of Jesus time.
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New Testament
was not in existence.
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Jesus today would say,
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on these two
commandments depend the whole,
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the whole law and the
prophet's Old Testament
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and the gospels.
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This is actually what
entire Bible is all about.
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So probably we should
take little bit more time
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to understand
because this is the summary
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of all biblical teaching.
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All right, so he
comes with the question,
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what is the
greatest commandment?
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What is the greatest
commandment in the law?
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This was a trap to Jesus.
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You know,
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if you ask a Pharisee.
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which is the
greatest commandment?
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they would say the Sabbath.
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And Jesus could say the Sabbath.
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you say that the Sabbath
is the greatest commandment,
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what about not to
kill Other human beings?
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If Jesus said, not to kill--
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Oh, what about the Sabbath?
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See, this also a trap.
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Sure, it's like asking a parent
who is your favorite child.
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Yes, yes.
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You know, you can't even say
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which of the Ten
Commandments is most important.
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And then Jesus
made the statement
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that there're two commandments
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and usually
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if you read it
superficially without notice
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how would Jesus said
was very paradoxical.
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And I will like us
to pay attention to that
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because the
beauty of Jesus' answer
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give us to
Christian a powerful message.
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Number one, is do
we notice something,
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Jesus said--
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what is that?
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"They said, which is
the greatest commandment?"
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Thirty seven.
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Thirty six and thirty seven.
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Jesus said, "You
shall love the Lord,
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your God with all your
heart, with all your soul,
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with all your mind."
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This is in Greek the
greatest and the foremost
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or Greek text says,
the first commandment.
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And nothing unusual.
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Glenn, can you imagine?
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I tell you-- you know,
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I am teaching my
class and in the class
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there is a student 6'.3" tall.
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He is the tallest in the class
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but you know,
there is another student,
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he's as tall as the first one.
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What would you say to him?
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that first
student that I mentioned
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he's not the tallest,
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if you have
another person who's tall?
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Here we have the first paradox.
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Jesus said this is
the greatest commandment
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but what do we have next?
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But the second
commandment is as great.
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I am paraphrasing, as
great as the first one
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and the second commandment is
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you shall love your
neighbor as yourself.
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We have here a kind of paradox.
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But actually, from the
stand point of the Bible
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and God's stand point
this is not a paradox.
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You know, we as a
people we apply that greatest
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and not as
great as the first one
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to many
different things in this.
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I like to point something,
you know, God created Adam
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that's why he's
greatest and Eve is the second
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that's why man--
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in the Bible, the fact
that something is first
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makes it great but does not put
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the second one on
the less importance.
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So you're not
talking about greatest
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and the other one is inferior.
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Is inferior.
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What Jesus is
talking here about,
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there is something that is first
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the first doesn't make it
greater than the second one.
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It means that
first must come as first
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and the second
is always the second
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it's never the first.
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So let's explain
what we have here.
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It means that
the two commandments,
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the first one, is
we shall love God,
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with all your heart it
means that this is the first
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All the relationships
they actually begin with this.
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We're talking here about
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that vertical
relationship with God, okay.
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Then there is the second
one, the second is second
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never the first
but it is not inferior
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it's not of less importance.
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It means the second
comes only after the first one
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Let's explain it.
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We can have a
proper relationship
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with fellow human beings.
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We can love our
fellow human beings.
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We can be on that
horizontal relationships
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only that after
we have established
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that firm vertical
relationship with God.
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You know, Glenn, as you mention
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I lived in
completely different society
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and that society was
completely atheistic.
00:09:31.93\00:09:36.00
There was denial
of God everywhere
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in newspapers, in the textbooks,
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everywhere in the denial of God.
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But there was a strong emphasis,
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we're all brothers
and we have to respect,
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we have to love each other.
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So they follow the
second commandment.
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The second commandment.
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There is no first.
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But they denied the
first one and I noticed,
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with that effort to
stick to the relationships
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on the horizontal level
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actually people
could not love each other.
00:10:04.53\00:10:07.70
They just tolerated each other.
00:10:07.74\00:10:10.47
This makes difference.
00:10:10.51\00:10:12.64
You see, only when we have
00:10:12.67\00:10:14.34
strong vertical
relationship with God
00:10:14.38\00:10:16.51
we can genuinely love
our fellow human beings.
00:10:16.54\00:10:20.58
If you deny God, if
you do not establish those,
00:10:20.62\00:10:24.89
that vertical
relationship with God
00:10:24.92\00:10:28.12
there's no love for
fellow human beings.
00:10:28.16\00:10:30.03
You can tolerate them,
how long do you tolerate them?
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As long as they tolerate you.
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That's what
happened in my country,
00:10:35.33\00:10:36.67
people stopped
tolerating each other
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the war came and civil war came
00:10:38.50\00:10:41.17
and this is actually
what happened in my country.
00:10:41.20\00:10:43.41
So this is the first
thing Jesus, emphasized.
00:10:43.44\00:10:46.01
You cannot, you cannot have
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a strong horizontal relationship
with fellow human beings.
00:10:48.81\00:10:52.38
if you do not have a strong
vertical relationship with God.
00:10:52.41\00:10:56.05
Distorted vertical
relationships with God,
00:10:56.08\00:10:59.52
leads to distorted relationships
with fell ow human beings.
00:10:59.55\00:11:03.29
I certainly hope we got that
because we see it's so often.
00:11:03.32\00:11:06.93
We become like
the God, we worship.
00:11:06.96\00:11:08.76
And if we don't
understand who God is
00:11:08.80\00:11:10.73
we have a distorted view of him,
00:11:10.77\00:11:12.47
it will come out in our
behavior towards others.
00:11:12.50\00:11:15.34
Actually we go to
the Old Testament.
00:11:15.37\00:11:17.57
the Old Testament,
whenever the people of Israel,
00:11:17.61\00:11:20.94
departed from God,
00:11:20.98\00:11:22.74
distorted that
vertical relationship with God.
00:11:22.78\00:11:26.58
What was the
message of the prophets?
00:11:26.61\00:11:28.52
You oppress the poor,
you make the widow to suffer,
00:11:28.55\00:11:32.65
you treat people in
that harsh way, it's always.
00:11:32.69\00:11:36.59
I would like another
case in the book of Romans,
00:11:36.62\00:11:40.50
we see from verses 18,
Paul talks about the Gentiles
00:11:40.53\00:11:45.10
who had opportunity to
know God They rejected God.
00:11:45.13\00:11:49.54
They didn't want to glorify God,
00:11:49.57\00:11:51.21
automatically there is all
kind of sins in their lives
00:11:51.24\00:11:55.11
against the
humanity that happens,
00:11:55.14\00:11:56.98
it's always.
00:11:57.01\00:11:58.35
Right relationship with God
00:11:58.38\00:11:59.71
leads to the right
horizontal relationships
00:11:59.75\00:12:03.62
with fellow human beings.
00:12:03.65\00:12:04.99
Distorted vertical
relationships with God
00:12:05.02\00:12:07.46
leads to the distorted
horizontal relationships
00:12:07.49\00:12:11.26
with fellow human beings.
00:12:11.29\00:12:12.63
This is the first paradox.
00:12:12.66\00:12:14.00
The second paradox is, Glenn.
00:12:14.00\00:12:15.80
He says, you shall love God,
you shall love your neighbor.
00:12:15.83\00:12:23.47
Do you see here any paradox?
00:12:23.51\00:12:24.84
Glenn, can you imagine
you are there in the classroom
00:12:24.87\00:12:29.01
and there are two
students, they're fighting.
00:12:29.04\00:12:31.15
They cannot stand each other.
00:12:31.18\00:12:32.78
You invite them
there to your office
00:12:32.81\00:12:34.55
and say, "hey, I
don't like your behavior."
00:12:34.58\00:12:37.69
If you do not change your
attitude toward each other
00:12:37.72\00:12:41.76
I am failing you the class.
00:12:41.79\00:12:43.86
You have to love each other
00:12:43.89\00:12:45.49
and they leave your
office hugging each other.
00:12:45.53\00:12:48.30
Now they love each other
00:12:48.33\00:12:49.66
because you
issue the commandment.
00:12:49.70\00:12:51.73
Can you force somebody?
00:12:51.77\00:12:53.27
can you command
to two human beings.
00:12:53.30\00:12:56.67
You have a
family, husband and wife.
00:12:56.71\00:12:58.27
They're fighting
against each other.
00:12:58.31\00:12:59.87
They come to the
court they want to divorce
00:12:59.91\00:13:01.68
and judge said, go home.
00:13:01.71\00:13:03.04
If you do not stop
fighting against each other
00:13:03.08\00:13:06.98
if you don't love each
other, you'll go to the prison.
00:13:07.02\00:13:09.58
And they are hugging each other,
00:13:09.62\00:13:10.95
now they love each other.
00:13:10.99\00:13:12.32
Does it work like that?
00:13:12.35\00:13:13.69
No, that's external.
00:13:13.72\00:13:15.06
So was, Jesus, realistic here?
00:13:15.09\00:13:17.56
You're asking questions
that I know you want answers.
00:13:17.59\00:13:20.16
Actually Jesus does
not say love each other.
00:13:20.20\00:13:23.10
You said, you shall love God,
00:13:23.13\00:13:26.63
you shall love your
fellow, fellow believer.
00:13:26.67\00:13:30.17
As that one person said, in
the book 'The Desire of Ages'
00:13:30.21\00:13:36.54
said that every
commandment of God
00:13:36.58\00:13:39.75
is actually God's promise to us.
00:13:39.78\00:13:42.62
He's bidding us his enabling.
00:13:42.65\00:13:44.39
The human
beings, it is impossible
00:13:44.42\00:13:47.42
but to God it's possible.
00:13:47.46\00:13:49.49
Actually what
Jesus tried to tell us,
00:13:49.52\00:13:52.46
the fact that we
realize that God exists,
00:13:52.49\00:13:56.10
what He did for us?
00:13:56.13\00:13:57.97
That I'm accepted by
God will make me to love God
00:13:58.00\00:14:02.10
When I know, when I
realize, what God did for me?
00:14:02.14\00:14:05.57
Will, make me to love
my fellow human beings.
00:14:05.61\00:14:09.24
You know that
text from first John,
00:14:09.28\00:14:11.88
we love because
he first loved us.
00:14:11.91\00:14:16.92
This is really the promise
not the real commandment.
00:14:16.95\00:14:20.66
So for our
marriages, for our churches,
00:14:20.69\00:14:23.76
for our places of work,
the way we increase our love
00:14:23.79\00:14:27.30
to one another is to
increase our love for God.
00:14:27.30\00:14:30.40
Thank you, Ranko.
00:14:30.43\00:14:31.80
We're gonna be
right back after a break
00:14:31.83\00:14:33.30
because we've got
some more to explore here
00:14:33.34\00:14:35.50
in this fast
ending gospel of Mathew.
00:14:35.54\00:14:37.47
We'll be right back.
00:14:37.51\00:14:38.84