The Most Important Commandment

We discussed Jesus’ response to the scribes when they asked him what was the most important commandment; love God first and, second, love your neighbor was his response. The scribe agreed but we wondered if, when the scribe agreed that you should love your neighbor, did he mean only Jewish neighbors? This lead us to reconsider Jesus response to the Gentile woman who asked Him to help her, to which he responded Mark 7:27, "First let the children have their fill," He said. "For it is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to the dogs.” It would seem the Gentiles weren’t originally in the scheme of things yet he does say “FIRST let the children have their fill.” It should be noted that in Matthew 15:26 the phrase is: “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.” The verse in Mark, at least, signals that the Gentiles may come next which, in fact, they did.

Chuck Kinney pointed out that this was a rare instance when Jesus didn’t answer a religious leader's question with a question, which led our group to wonder if Jesus dealt differently with Priests then he did with Teachers. A quick study shows that Teachers of the Law, Scribes, and Rabbis were essentially the same and usually Pharisees and highly revered by the people while Priests were typically Sadducees and aristocrats; ancestors of Aaron. It is said that there was no love between the Priests and the Rabbis.