Deuteronomy 6:5 states: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might."
Most, if not all, of us read this today and think of emotion and warmth and tenderness. I would suggest, however, that while that can certainly be spoken truly about love at times and it's definitely a good thing when it can be, that's not what the text meant to Moses' initial audience and it should not all all mean that to us as we read it.
The idea of love, expressed in this manner in that time period, was one of identity, alliance, faithfulness, and covenant relationship. For instance, Malachi 1:2,3 states:
“I have loved you,” says the LORD. But you say, “How have you loved us?” “Is not Esau Jacob's brother?” declares the LORD. “Yet I have loved Jacob but Esau I have hated. I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert.”
What God is telling Israel through this text is that He has chosen Israel, descendants of Jacob, as *His people* and has thus made a covenant with them that he will be faithful to.
Reference this text with Dueteronomy 7:7-10:
It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the LORD loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know therefore that the LORD *your God* is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations, and repays to their face those who hate him, by destroying them. He will not be slack with one who hates him. He will repay him to his face.
and Jeremiah 31:3
the LORD appeared to him from far away. I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.
There are many other versus that support this interpretation of love in this way, but I think you get the point. In short, what I'm saying is this:
From the earliest writings, the Scriptures do not simply call on us to hold and maintain a place of warmth in our hearts that makes us "feel good inside" or any other such thing as that. Specifically, what this calls us to is a personal and complete identification with the Holy God of all creation and that *our every desire would be only His desire*, regardless of what may come. There are no other alternatives and nothing less is expected of us.
The fact that we're to hold this attitude with body, soul, and might, directly implies that it will not always feel very good or warm at all. After all, why would the Wisdom of the universe instruct us to gird ourselves for such a deep commitment if it's going to be easy and that thing that we're naturally inclined to do anyway?
No, there's nothing warm and fuzzy about it at all. It's hard and difficulty and everyone knew it when it was said.
This entry was posted
on Sep 27, 2011
at Tuesday, September 27, 2011
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Bible Study,
Love,
Old Testament
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