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Love God and love your neighbor (Great Commandment)
Mark 12:28–31 (Deut. 6:5; Lev. 19:18)· Teaching or doctrine· Church, doctrine & the world
Mostly agreed by scholarsMost historians agree; some details uncertain.
Asked which commandment is greatest, Jesus answered with two: love God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself.
See it on the Bible & Christianity map →What it is
Mark 12:28–31 tells how a scribe asks which commandment comes first. Jesus joins two verses of the Torah: the Shema, 'love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength' (Deuteronomy 6:4–5), and 'love your neighbor as yourself' (Leviticus 19:18). Matthew 22:40 adds that 'all the Law and the Prophets hang on these two'. In Luke 10 the exchange prompts the question 'who is my neighbor?' and the Good Samaritan.
Why it matters
It boiled the whole Law down to two lines and became the backbone of Christian ethics for Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants alike.
Think of it like
Like a company's two-line mission statement: every policy in the handbook is supposed to serve it.
Sources and history
Found in Mark, Matthew and Luke. Jesus drew on Jewish teaching: a generation earlier, Rabbi Hillel summed up the Torah as 'what is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor' (Talmud, Shabbat 31a).
Questions and debates
Whether pairing the two verses was Jesus' own move or already known is debated; the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, of uncertain date, pair them too.
Connections (3)
▸Ten Commandments and the Law at Mount Sinai are summed up by Jesus in Love God and love your neighbor (Great Commandment)Mostly agreed by scholars
The connection
Asked for the greatest commandment, Jesus answered from the Law given at Sinai: love God (Deuteronomy 6:5) and love your neighbor (Leviticus 19:18). Christians read the Ten Commandments the same way: the first commands concern God, the rest concern neighbors. Paul says 'love is the fulfilling of the law' (Romans 13:10).
When and where
Mark 12:28–34 and Matthew 22:34–40, in the Temple courts in Jerusalem during Jesus' last week, about AD 30 or 33.
How do we know?
Explicit in the Gospels, which quote both Torah verses. Romans 13:9 lists several of the Ten Commandments and says they are summed up in 'love your neighbor'.
Questions and debates
Whether Jesus' summary replaces the detailed Law or keeps it in force ('not to abolish but to fulfill', Matthew 5:17) has been argued since Paul's day.
▸Parables of Jesus (Good Samaritan, Prodigal Son) illustrate, in the Good Samaritan, Love God and love your neighbor (Great Commandment)Mostly agreed by scholars
The connection
In Luke 10:25–37 a lawyer recites the two great commandments, then asks, 'And who is my neighbor?' Jesus answers with the Good Samaritan: a priest and a Levite pass by a beaten traveler, but a Samaritan, from a people long at odds with Jews, cares for him. The neighbor is whoever shows mercy.
When and where
Luke 10, set on the steep, dangerous road from Jerusalem down to Jericho; only Luke's Gospel records this parable.
How do we know?
The link is explicit in Luke, who frames the parable with the commandment question; Mark and Matthew have the commandment but not the parable.
Questions and debates
Whether the question and the parable were originally joined, or Luke put them together, is debated; some scholars think the parable first circulated on its own.
▸Love God and love your neighbor (Great Commandment) inspired the work of Mother Teresa and the Missionaries of CharityHistorical record
The connection
Jesus' command to love God and neighbor (Mark 12:28–31), joined to his words 'whatever you did for one of the least of these... you did for me' (Matthew 25:40), was her motive. She saw Jesus 'in the distressing disguise of the poor' and served the dying as she would serve him.
When and where
Calcutta (Kolkata), from her 1946 'call' onward; repeated in her 1979 Nobel Peace Prize lecture in Oslo and in the rule of the Missionaries of Charity.
Historical evidence
Her speeches, letters and the order's constitutions cite these texts directly; Jesus' words 'I thirst' (John 19:28) are painted beside the crucifix in every Missionaries of Charity chapel.
Questions and debates
Critics ask whether loving the neighbor also required better medical care and tackling poverty's causes; she answered that God called her to be faithful, not successful.