One day an expert in religious law stood up to test Jesus by asking him this question: “Teacher, what should I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus replied, “What does the law of Moses say? How do you read it?” The man answered, “‘You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.’ And, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” “Right!” Jesus told him. “Do this and you will live!” – Luke 10:25-28 NLT
The Most Important Commandment
When Jesus teaches about the most important commandment, He tells us to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.” His commandment is a nearly word-for-word pull from an important Jewish prayer called the Shema.
How can we live out the greatest commandment? It starts with understanding what it means to love the Lord in the ways Jesus and the Shema tell us to––with our hearts, souls, strength, and mind (sometimes the last two are combined into one: might). While the heart was viewed as the essence of a person, the deepest part about them, the soul was understood as the entirety of one's being—both spiritual and physical.
What Exactly Is the Soul?
To the ancient Hebrews, the idea of a soul (nephesh in the original Hebrew) was the entire living, physical being of a person or creature. The Bible talks about all living creatures being formed by God, with humans receiving the neshama––or breath––of God.
While traditional forms of thinking might differentiate the physical and the spiritual through statements like, “People are souls with a body,” to the ancient Hebrews, the ideas were indistinguishable; a soul was the entire essence of a living creature, including their physical body. So rather than viewing living creatures as souls that have bodies, it’s best to understand living creatures as being souls, which includes the body.
For humans, the breath of God is a special part of our soul where we get our character, emotions, and personality. It’s what makes us who we are, so to speak. And this helps us understand how to love God with all of our souls.
What Does It Mean to Love God with Our Souls?
When Jesus tells us the greatest commandment is to love God with all of our hearts, souls, strength, and minds, the intention of commanding us to love God with all of our souls was to indicate the need to be fully invested with our entire selves.
Too often, people can compartmentalize parts of their lives––separating home from work from school from friends––and acting, speaking, and thinking differently in each area. But we can’t keep God to certain parts of our lives. When we love God with all of our soul, we are loving Him with every aspect of the life He has given us through His neshama.
How Does the Greatest Commandment Lead to Eternal Life?
Apart from our soul, we are literally nothing in the minds of the ancient Hebrews. It defines who we are. God is the giver of life and the one who forms our entire beings. When we love the Lord with all of our soul, we’re keeping ourselves connected to the source of life. Rather than viewing Jesus’ teaching as one on transactional salvation (i.e. follow this commandment and you will receive eternal life), we should view it as a guide to holistically get closer to the heart of God––and this is where we will find eternal life for our souls.
