Jesus Quoted Shema: Love God With Everything
Daily Scripture
Deuteronomy 6:4-9, Mark 12:28-31
Deuteronomy 6
4 Israel, listen! Our God is the LORD! Only the LORD!
5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your being, and all your strength. 6 These words that I am commanding you today must always be on your minds. 7 Recite them to your children. Talk about them when you are sitting around your house and when you are out and about, when you are lying down and when you are getting up. 8 Tie them on your hand as a sign. They should be on your forehead as a symbol. 9 Write them on your house’s doorframes and on your city’s gates.
Mark 12
28 One of the legal experts heard their dispute and saw how well Jesus answered them. He came over and asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” 29 Jesus replied, “The most important one is Israel, listen! Our God is the one Lord, 30 and you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, with all your mind, and with all your strength [Deuteronomy 6:4-5]. 31 The second is this, You will love your neighbor as yourself [Leviticus 19:18]. No other commandment is greater than these.”
Daily Reflection & Prayer
Rabbi Michael Zedek, author of Taking Miracles Seriously, preached at Resurrection on September 7. In this week’s GPS, we read and reflect on six Scriptural passages that Rabbi Zedek spoke to specifically in his excellent book.
Asked about the most important commandment, Jesus did not offer an original composition. Instead, he quoted the Hebrew Scriptures with which he’d grown up. “The Bible… includes passages that focus on the many names for and the unique designation of what we often simply refer to as ‘God’…. the parallel in biblical tradition is the extraordinary number of names that the text and subsequent tradition assign to Deity…. Why so many names? The best explanation is that the Hebrew experience… was of a God-intoxicated or, to use less-provocative language, a meaning-obsessed environment…. shift from the plethora of names for experiences with Deity to Jewish tradition’s other assertion. Namely, one appellation stands alone in bringing us closer to the meaning in and a meeting with the divine. That declaration may capture the core spirit of a New Testament episode in which Jesus responds to a question about what constitutes the most important commandment…. Known in Jewish tradition as the Shema, the statement does not present itself as a commandment or order but rather as a call to awareness.” *
- Importantly, despite subsequent centuries of tragic suspicion, hatred and persecution, we know that Jesus identified the affirmation central to Hebrew faith as “the greatest commandment.” What Rabbi Zedek called the “God-intoxicated” environment of Jewish faith is also the ground on which our Christian faith resides. “These foundational commandments are at the center of Jewish theology and life. They make it clear that to love God and to practice justice by loving neighbor are much more important than performing religious rituals or cultic sacrifices. This is hard spiritual work for even the most mature Christians among us, but by loving God and neighbor we most faithfully fulfill the whole law of God.” ** In an often novelty-obsessed world, how can learning and valuing the historic roots of your Christian faith deepen and enrich your connection with God? How can you practically live out that connection in your daily life?
Prayer
Lord Jesus, your life, death and resurrection were not an exception in a world where God was absent, but an expression of God’s presence with me at all times and in all ways. Keep my spiritual senses attuned to the wonder of your miraculous presence with me. Amen.
GPS Insights
Penny Ellwood
Penny Ellwood serves as the Location Pastor for Resurrection Blue Springs in Blue Springs, MO.
I was struck listening to Rabbi Zedek’s sermon about the great Shema with its similarity to John Wesley’s idea of “Christian perfection.” My husband and I recently got back from the British Isles with the third Resurrection group taking the Wesley Heritage trip. Naturally I’ve been thinking quite a bit about John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, and his teachings.
In Rabbi Zedek’s sermon he emphasized that the Shema (“Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One”) is not just about reciting words, but about orienting one’s whole life—heart, soul, and might—toward God. It’s a call to love God fully and to embody that love daily through action, ethics, and devotion. In Jewish thought, the Shema is both a confession of faith and a lifelong practice, shaping every aspect of who you are and what you do.
I have struggled in the past with John Wesley’s idea of going on to perfection (or “Christian perfection”), but I now understand it doesn’t mean being flawless or sinless. Instead, it means continually growing in holiness—being so filled with the love of God and neighbor that love becomes the ruling principle of one’s life. It’s about a life increasingly aligned with God’s will, moving toward maturity in love.
Both Rabbi Zedek (via the Shema) and Wesley call for a total, all-encompassing commitment to God—not compartmentalized, but touching every aspect of life. For the Shema, love of God with all your being is the highest command. For Wesley, perfection is “perfect love”—loving God and neighbor completely. For Jews the Shema is recited daily as a lifelong practice of reorienting oneself to God. As Methodists, Wesley speaks of sanctification as a continual journey, not a one-time event. Both insist that belief must be lived out—through obedience (Shema) and through holy living and service (Wesley).
So, you might say: Rabbi Zedek’s understanding of the Shema and Wesley’s teaching on going on to perfection converge in their vision of faith as a lifelong journey of love.
A journey where the heart, soul, and strength are directed toward God, shaping every thought, word, and deed. In both traditions, the call is clear: faith is not a moment but a journey, not just words we speak but a love we live, every day, with our whole being. Thinking of it as a journey makes it seem more possible to me, and I’m grateful, here at Resurrection, to travel this journey with such amazing companions. Thank you!
© 2026 Resurrection: A United Methodist Church. All Rights Reserved.
Scripture quotations are taken from The Common English Bible ©2011. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
References
* Zedek, Michael, Taking Miracles Seriously: A Journey to Everyday Spirituality (pp. 87-89). Sutherland House Books. Kindle Edition.
** Kimberly Clayton Richter, study note on Mark 12:28-34 in The Renovare Spiritual Formation Bible. HarperSanFrancisco, 2005, p. 1868.
