I actually only see one "command" in the NT as belonging to Jesus and all the other "commands" are really just manifestations of what obeying the one command should look like.
That one command is to love one another. Loving one another shows we love God and fulfills all the Law, because it does no wrong to another.
Now if you want to know should we be teaching people how to love others, then yes we can use examples in scripture about marital relationships, family, church gatherings, interactions, etc as teaching points. But again, Jesus came to fulfill and really simplify our walk with God.
1 command: love one another
It has several manifestations though
I agree with this assessment, that Love is the New Commanadment, and that all the others must be saturated in this One... But Christ's words here specify ALL Commandments... And 'one' is not 'all'...
And look at what Christ commands His Apostles to actually DO with these commandments which He GAVE to them:
διδασκοντες αυτους τηρειν...
instructing them to observe...
Now remember, the very next word is
ALL
And that term glossed as "to observe" is an ongoing Greek infinitive...
Here is some of its meaning:
to attend to carefully, take care of
- to guard
- metaph. to keep, one in the state in which he is
- to observe
- to reserve: to undergo something
Here is Strong's definition:
to guard (from loss or injury, properly by keeping the eye upon;
and thus differing from G5442, which is properly to prevent escaping;
and from G2892, which implies a fortress or full military lines of apparatus),
that is, to note (a prophecy; figuratively to fulfil a command);
by implication to detain (in custody; figuratively to maintain);
by extension to withhold (for personal ends; figuratively to keep unmarried):
- hold fast, keep (-er), (ob-, pre-, re) serve, watch.
So this is a very big little word, tyrein...
Before the followers of Christ were first called Christians in Antioch,
they were called the People of the Way, and the Way IS Christ...
What was this Way that IS Christ? It was a whole way of being in the
world that was not OF the world... It was a daily life of and in the Faith which Christ gave to His Discipled, and which they in turn discipled to their disciiples.
It was intensive and pervasive, having the times of the prayers each day
specified as the Services of the Hours, and the Midnight office, and the
Service of Vespers each evening, and that of Matins, or Orthros, each
morning... The Hours were prayed at the 1st Hour, the 3rd Hour, the
6th Hour and the 9th Hour... And not only each day, but each week and
each month and each year were laid out in the liturgical cycle of the Services.
And these were
meticulously kept, which is what that big little word tyrein
means, and were kept by ALL the Apostolic Churches of the first thousand
years of this faith... Even Paul's Churches... And in the main, across two
thousand years, they are still being kept in the Apostolic Churches, partially
in the local parishes, fully in many of the monasteries... This is what Christ
instructed His Apostles to disciple in all the Nations...
This is, in large part, and to the degree that one is able to embrace it, what
is meant by the praxis, the practice, the discipling, of the Body of Christ for
Her members of that Body... It is a massive, all-in, consecration of one's entire
life to the pursuit of a total relationship with God, while still functioning to some
degree in the world...
That is why Paul had to remind his flock that Salvation is by Grace, and not by
works, "lest any should boast"... The danger of boasting is apparent from the
extensive quantity of the works entailed by the praxis of the Faith of Christ...
Exhaustion in labors, prayer, fasting, all night vigils, alms-giving, sleeplessness,
and on and on, all these might make one think Salvation is a reward for all the
labors...
It is not...
And guidance is needed every step of the process, because the way is easily
strayed from, so that those who have walked the narrow and straited way
guide those who are walking it for their first time, (or 7th or 20th mind you!)
The prayers of a righteous man avail much... Paul was one such, a Father to
his Faithful... The mortification of the flesh unto deification by God in the Marriage
of the Lamb is a prolonged crucifixion of the Old Man on the part of the person
entered into in the Mystery of Baptism, for we are Baptized into Christ's Death,
that we find His Life...
When God moves with the Gift, it does not take long at all...
The idea is total saturation in Christ...
Total immersion in Christ's Holy Way of being in the world...
Enough for now...
Arsenios
