The First Commandment First | D. Todd Christofferson | March 2022

Описание: Click “Show more” to find the links to the speech and podcasts.

We must remember to keep the first commandment first by making sure our relationship with God is central to our life.

Read the speech here:
https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/

Learn more about the author:
https://speeches.byu.edu/speakers/

More BYU Speeches here:
https://speeches.byu.edu/

Subscribe to BYU Speeches:
   / byuspeeches  

Follow BYU Speeches:

Podcasts: https://speeches.byu.edu/podcasts/
Facebook:   / byuspeeches  
Instagram:   / byuspeeches  
Twitter:   / byuspeeches  
Pinterest:   / byuspeeches  

Each of the three synoptic Gospels—Matthew, Mark, and Luke—recounts a question put to Jesus about the greatest commandment in the law. In Matthew, the questioner is a lawyer of impure motive, tempting the Master.1 In Mark, it is a scribe asking the question, but one who sincerely seems to want to know.2 In Luke, we are back to “a certain lawyer [who] stood up, and tempted him.”3

Despite my professional background in the law, it is difficult for me to defend the lawyer in this account. But I will at least give him credit for asking, despite his motive, because the Savior’s answer is so wonderful and profound. I have to thank him as well for his follow-up question—“And who is my neighbour?”4—that led to the Savior’s moving parable of the good Samaritan.5 The lawyer got more than he wanted, but we got something priceless.

Matthew’s account of Jesus’s answer is familiar to all of you:

Master, which is the great commandment in the law?

Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

This is the first and great commandment.

And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.6

To loving God with all one’s heart, soul, and mind, Mark and Luke add “and with all thy strength.”7

I ask you to consider the majesty of the two great commandments on which “hang all the law and the prophets” and also why the first commandment is first. What is the significance of that order for us?

The second commandment is a brilliant guide for human interaction. Consider what the world would be like if the second commandment were universally accepted and followed. Think of what would not happen. Among other things, there would be no violent crime, no abuse, no fraud, no persecution or bullying, no gossip, and certainly no war. The second commandment is essentially the Golden Rule: “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.”8 As disciples, we should be deliberate in living this second commandment by reaching out in love and empathy to those the Lord defines as our ­neighbors—that is, everyone.

To support “the law and the prophets”—that body of truth and commandments established by God and taught by the prophets—both the first and second commandments are needed, working in tandem. But why is the first commandment the overarching priority? At least three reasons come to mind.

First is the foundational nature of this first commandment. Wonderful and essential as the second commandment is, it does not provide the necessary foundation for our lives, nor is it intended to. Obeying the second commandment makes us nice people, but to what end? What is the point of our existence? For purpose, direction, and meaning, we must look to the first and great commandment.

Putting the first commandment first does not diminish or limit our ability to keep the second commandment. To the contrary, it amplifies and strengthens it. It means that we enhance our love by anchoring it in divine purpose and power. It means that we have the Holy Ghost to inspire us in ways to reach out that we would never have seen on our own. Our love of God elevates our ability to love others more fully and perfectly because we in essence partner with God in the care of His children.

Second, ignoring the first commandment, or reversing the order of the first and second commandments, risks a loss of balance in life and destructive deviations from the path of happiness and truth. Love of God and submission to Him provide checks against our tendency to corrupt virtues by pushing them to the extreme. Compassion for our neighbor’s distress, for example, even when the suffering is brought about by his or her own transgression, is noble and good. But an unbridled compassion could lead us, like Alma’s son Corianton, to question God’s justice and misunderstand His mercy.9

© Brigham Young University. All rights reserved.