ten into one equals 2

In this weeks passage Jesus is asked to identify the most important of the 10 commandments.  Reading his answer might cause you to go back yourself into Exodus 20 to discover where he is pulling this response from.  There are 10 commandments, he is asked to choose one, he gives two and neither of these two do you find in the reading of Exodus 20...at least literally.  Its like biblical "new math".  Look closer and you can understand the depth of what he is saying.  His response indicates that what we read as individual commands were never intended to be treated individually.  They are a wholistic lifestyle to which we've been called and in the midst of his response, if you are listening well, you hear the urgency in the admonition to put our lives and everything that comprises them under the umbrella of our undivided devotion to God.  Undivided... now there is a concept that we must and will begin to explore.  Jesus said that "a house divided against itself cannot stand".  Undivided in our loyalty to wholistic allegiance to God.  It's a life that is consistent in all its forms.  The Pharisee's had a tendency to compartmentalize the commandments into a check list.  We have a tendency to compartmentalize our lives with only one being truly given over to God.  I am of the opinion that Jesus attached his other "greatest commandment" to the first because our lives are not intended to be either spiritual or secular.  They are intended to be spiritual within the secular.  They are not compartments and no one is impressed when we trat them that way.  Anyone can look the part on a Sunday morning...that's the first commandment.  But that's only half of the "missional life".  Our key and calling is beyond that, to look the part on Monday morning...the second commandment.