Friday, July 8, 2016

Loving God Should Be Over the Top!

“To love God, then, with all your heart and with all your soul, means with your whole self, including your rationality, mental capacity, moral choices and will, inner feelings and desires, and the deepest roots of your life.  To this profound pair the Shema adds a third, remarkable item: (literally) ‘and with all your very-muchness’….   This word is everywhere else used adverbially, meaning ‘greatly,’ ‘exceedingly.’….  It may even be that this third word is simply intensifying the other two as a climax.  ‘Love the Lord our God with total commitment (heart), with your total self (soul), to total excess!’   Loving God should be ‘over the top!’ “ 

– Christopher J.H. Wright  “Deuteronomy:  Understanding the Bible Commentary Series” p. 99 

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