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Which is the Greatest Commandment?

Which is the Greatest Commandment?

Last updated on: October 20, 2026 at 9:49 pm by Herb Montgomery

Which is the Greatest Commandment? 2026-10-20T21:49:16-04:00 Herb Montgomery

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Our reading this week is from the Gospel of Matthew:

Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

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This is Part 1 of the series Questions That Reach Beyond Religous Debate

While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, “What do you think about the messiah? Whose son is he?”

“The son of David,” they replied.

He said to them, “How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him ‘Lord’? For he says,

“ ‘The Lord said to my Lord:

“Sit at my right hand

until I put your enemies

under your feet.” ’

If then David calls him ‘Lord,’ how can he be his son?” No one could say a word in reply, and from that day on no one dared to ask him any more questions. (Matthew 22:34-46)

Our reading this week begins with two prominent and powerful Jewish groups in the Jesus story: the Sadducees and the Pharisees. During the time reflected in Matthew’s Gospel, the Sadducees and Pharisees they differed significantly in their beliefs, social position, and relationship to Roman rule.

The Sadducees were closely connected to the Jerusalem Temple and the priestly and wealthy elite. They held considerable political and economic influence and generally favored maintaining stability within the existing order. They accepted the authority of the written Torah but rejected some beliefs that had developed within broader Jewish tradition, including the resurrection of the dead (Matthew 22:23). They were the more theological conservative party, and their leadership was therefore closely tied to the Temple system and its structures of power.

The Pharisees, by contrast, were a religious movement with a broad presence among the Jewish population. They emphasized careful observance of the Torah and traditions of interpreting it. Unlike the Sadducees, they affirmed beliefs in resurrection, angels, and spirits, and they were the more theologically liberal party. Contrary to how they are often portrayed today, the Pharisees were not a group of hypocrites or villains. Many of them were deeply committed to religious faithfulness and preserving Jewish identity under Roman occupation.

Matthew portrays both groups as sometimes opposing Jesus, and they did so for different reasons. Jesus challenges the interpretations of both groups and, more importantly, confronts how religious authority can become entangled with exclusion, status, and power. Jesus’ criticism of these leaders in the Gospel stories is rooted in whether political, economic, social and religious leadership produces justice, mercy, compassion, and liberation for ordinary people.

In last week’s reading, Jesus silences attempted entrapment by the Sadducees. This week our attention points toward the Pharisees. As a test, they ask Jesus which commandment is the greatest. His answer would have been familiar to the Pharisees of the School of Rabbi Hillel, and that answer still has profound justice implications today.

In his answer, Jesus refuses to separate love of God from love of people: the two greatest commandments are inseparable. For Jesus, devotion to the Divine cannot be measured simply by religious belief, worship, or obedience to religious regulations. Genuine love for God becomes visible in how we treat our neighbors, particularly those who are vulnerable, excluded, or pushed to the margins.

This has enormous implications for Christians endeavoring to follow the Jesus of this story. If we claim to love God while tolerating systems that exploit, exclude, impoverish, or dehumanize our neighbors, Jesus challenges the authenticity of that claim. We should not use love of God as an excuse for failing to love people. Religious devotion that produces indifference toward human suffering has missed the heart of the Law and the Prophets.

The phrase “Love your neighbor as yourself” also moves beyond private feelings. In Jesus’ teaching, love is not merely an emotion or an attitude. Love asks what another person needs in order to live, flourish, and experience dignity. To love our neighbors means becoming concerned about the conditions in which those neighbors live. Are people hungry? Are they safe? Do they have adequate housing, healthcare, education, and meaningful opportunities? Are some of them being excluded because of their race, gender, sexuality, economic status, immigration status, disability, or social location? Love does not simply notice when these unjust realities exist. Love seeks to change them.

This is why justice is often understood as love made public. Compassion can become justice when we move beyond feeling sorry for people and begin addressing the structures, institutions, and systems that produce their suffering. Charity may help someone survive an unjust situation, but justice asks why that situation exists in the first place and what must change so that people are no longer forced to depend upon charity simply to survive.

Jesus’ answer to the Pharisees in the story also challenges religious communities to examine their priorities. It is possible to become deeply invested in religious arguments while neglecting the people standing directly in front of us. We can wax eloquent in our apologetics for certain doctrines while ignoring people’s suffering. We can proclaim holiness while participating in exclusion, and we can speak passionately about loving God while remaining indifferent to the neighbor whose life is being diminished by unjust systems.

But Jesus places love at the center of everything. The Law and the Prophets, he says, hang on these two commandments. In other words, every religious practice, doctrine, tradition, and interpretation must ultimately be measured by love of God as expressed through love of neighbor.

The question for us, then, is not simply, “Do we love God?” Jesus invites us to ask a more searching question: “What does our love of God produce in the way we treat our neighbors?” When love produces dignity, solidarity, compassion, equality, liberation, and justice, it reflects the heart of Jesus’ teaching. When it produces exclusion, domination, fear, or indifference, injustice and harm, it contradicts the very commandments upon which Jesus says everything else depends.

Next in our reading, Jesus asks the Pharisees a question. We’ll pick up here in Part 2.

Begin each day being inspired toward love, compassion, justice and action. Free.

General Christian

Politics and Religion

About Herb Montgomery

Herb Montgomery, director of Renewed Heart Ministries, is an author and adult religious educator helping Christians explore the intersection of their faith with love, compassion, action, and societal justice. You can read more about the author here.

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