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The biblical authors teach us how we should respond to the God who made us and redeemed us. For example, we should trust, obey, fear, and praise the Lord. These are not recommendations from the biblical authors. They are commands.
Christians also know from Scripture that we are to love the Lord. This, too, is a command. But do you know when the Scripture first commands us to love God? In Exodus 20:6, the Lord spoke of his steadfast love to those who love him and keep his commandments, but that isn’t framed as a command. In Leviticus 19:18, we are commanded to love our neighbor as ourselves, but that is not an explicit command about loving God.
The first command to love the Lord is in Deuteronomy 6. Moses has just reiterated the Ten Commandments to the Israelites (Deut. 5:7–21), and now he gives this instruction: “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” (Deut. 6:5). Here is the first time in the Bible where we are called to love the Lord.
This command in Deuteronomy 6:5 is probably familiar to you. It comes right after the opening Shema language in 6:4: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.”
The content of the love command is more than just, “Love the Lord.” Moses calls the Israelites to a whole-life response. He says, “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” The phrases denote a person’s internal reasoning and will and affections and energy.
Deuteronomy 6:5 is about loyalty, covenant faithfulness, allegiance. What kind of people should the Israelites be? They should be loyal to God who had redeemed them from Egypt and who (in the context of Deuteronomy) had carried them to the border of the promised land. Their love for God would take the shape of obedience—internalizing and walking according to God’s commands.
As a people redeemed by God, the Israelites were to be a people who loved God. And their whole self—heart, soul, and might—should submit to his wisdom and authority. Loving God was more than feelings. Loving God was walking in the fear of the Lord and in submission to his Word.
Deuteronomy 6:5 was not only the first command in the Bible to love God, it was also a command which Jesus quoted when he answered a lawyer’s question.
On the week Jesus died, he spent some days in the temple teaching and answering questions. During one of these encounters, a lawyer asked Jesus, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” (Matt 22:36). That question mattered because the Law of Moses (which was Genesis through Deuteronomy) contained hundreds of commands. Was there a command that rose above them all as the most important, the greatest?
Jesus answered him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment” (Matt. 22:37–38). His words were straight out of the Old Testament—from Deuteronomy 6:5.
The Bible’s first command to love God was also the greatest commandment of all.