I read through this passage and camped out on the penultimate sentence.

Mark 12:28-34 — And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” And the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher. You have truly said that he is one, and there is no other besides him. And to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength and to love one’s neighbor as oneself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” And when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And after that no one dared to ask him any more questions.

Jesus tells the scribe, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”

It seems to me that understanding and knowing some basic principles about God are key. It is important to understand that there is only one God. It is also important to know that we are to love God with everything we have. And the manifestation of that love is best described in how we love our neighbors. But even as we understand and know all three of those things we are then considered “not far from the kingdom.”

But, of course, we do not want to be close to the kingdom — we want to be IN the kingdom. And here another passage brings light:

John 3:16 — For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

It is the receipt of the free gift of God — His Son, Jesus — that gives us entrance into the kingdom. It is then that we can fully love God with all of our heart, all of our soul, all of our mind and all of our strength. It is then that we can fully love our neighbors as ourselves. And we are no longer “not far from the kingdom of God” but rather in the kingdom. Sweet victory.

Tags: Jesus, john, Kingdom, mark

This entry was posted by zac on Sunday, June 7th, 2009 at 5:32 pm and is filed under Weekly Jib Jab. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.