Luke 10:27 "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart..."

"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself" (Lk. 10:27).

Question:

1. Am in conversation with a Unity minister regarding clarification of the concepts of the whole human being and holistic health, both concepts appropriate to an emerging spiritual health science research project.
   Research team assumption: The whole human being and holistic health concepts are generic and universal theological foundations for defining the person, defining personhood, defining wholeness and defining by extrapolation holistic health. Accurate?
2. Need to learn which Old Testament and New Testament texts you use to present the clarification/ interpretation.
3. Key point: One minister said "I have preached on Luke 10:27 for 40 years and never got beyond ‘honor the lord, your God ....’ Then I discovered the remainder of the text and developed a four-sermon series on the whole human being." The problem: the minister recorded the whb series, loaned it, never to be returned; it is now lost. Therefore, this request for an ASAP e-mail with theological and metaphysical clarification/interpretation.

Comment:

If you are in dialogue with a Unity minister about this passage, I'm not sure how much more I can offer. I certainly am not qualified to join in a scientific project such as you describe, nor to comment on its assumptions. I think what's important, however, is not to put one particular verse under a microscope, but to take a step back and appreciate the larger context in which it is placed.

  Jesus is traveling through Samaria en route to Jerusalem. He's attracting appreciative crowds and also a fair number of doubters and challengers. "Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus" (Lk. 10:25). So he's not speaking to a believing disciple, but to someone trying to trick him into saying something foolish.   Jesus does not, in Luke's version, directly answer the question. He skillfully turns the question back on the questioner, asking, in effect, "What do you think?" It is thus the lawyer, not Jesus, who paraphrases Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18 in verse 27.   Certainly the lawyer's version of this commandment is more inclusive than any version in the Hebrew Bible. Heart, soul, strength and mind pretty much encompass the whole human. So one point is that, unlike in earlier scripture, when external obedience was deemed sufficient to satisfy God, Luke understands Jesus' message as being more all-encompassing. It's not just actions, but thoughts, feelings and basic faith that must be aligned to the Allness of God if we are to "inherit eternal life." And it's not enough to commit our heart, soul, strength and mind to our own relationship with the divine. We must "love our neighbors as ourselves" and make the same holistic commitment to others as well.   This last seems to be the point that bothers the lawyer the most, because "wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, 'And who is my neighbor?'" (Lk. 10:29). And in reply Jesus turns to the power of story and shares what has come to be known as the Parable of the Good Samaritan. Again, Jesus never answers the question directly. He concludes by asking the lawyer which character "was a neighbor."   I think in this exchange we see the extent to which Jesus is trying to lift us above a limited understanding – of God, of ourselves, of the law, of the essence of this mortal experience. There is only God, and we have to see this Oneness in every part of our own selves, in each other, and in all the challenges of our lives.   Blessings!

Rev. Ed