The Great Commandment

Read Luke 10:25-28.

Note first what the Great Commandment tells us about loving God.

• Loving God with your HEART means giving him your AFFECTION.

• Loving God with your SOUL means giving him your ADORATION.

• Loving God with your STRENGTH means giving him your ABILITIES.

• Loving God with your MIND means giving him your ATTENTION.

In the Great Commandment, the Bible places comparable emphasis upon loving my neighbor as myself. Other Bible verses make a similar point:

1 JOHN 4:20. If any one says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.

MATTHEW 5:44, 46. Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you...For if you love those who love you, what reward have you?


For the church, we put this into practice through what we call "RADICAL HOSPITALITY."


Read what Bishop Janice Riggle Huie of the Texas Conference had to say about radical hospitality:

Remember blind Bartimaeus crying out for mercy, annoying everyone. Jesus said, “Call him here.” (Mark 10. 49) Remember the Samaritan woman. (John 4.1-15) She asked Jesus directly, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” Jesus not only spoke with her, he also gave her the water of eternal life. The disciples wanted to push the children away. (Matthew 19.13-14) Not important enough. Jesus welcomed them. “Let them come to me,” he said, “Do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs.” Remember the parable of the wedding banquet. (Matthew 22.2-10) Jesus said, “Go into the streets and invite everyone you find.” I could go on and on.

The first movement of disciple-making is radical hospitality. A hospitality that reaches across economic, racial, age and gender lines. A hospitality that focuses on the stranger and those outside the community of faith. A hospitality that reaches out to people who don’t look like or act like us. A hospitality that ministers to children not its own.

A congregation making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world is a congregation actively engaged in radical hospitality.

A year ago, churches had major opportunities to practice radical hospitality, as noted in this article.


In the 4th century, Chrysostom wrote: "This is the summit of virtue, the foundation of all God's commandments: to the love of God is joined also love of neighbor."

In the 8th century, Bede wrote: "Neither of these two kinds of love is expressed with full maturity without the other, because God cannot be loved apart from our neighbor, nor our neighbor apart from God. Hence as many times as Peter was asked by our Lord if he loved him, and attested his love, the Lord added at the end of each inquiry, 'Feed my sheep,' or 'feed my lambs'..."


Father Gerry Pierse suggests in this article that loving God and loving neighbor is also connected to our ability to love ourselves.