The scripture for February is Matthew 22:37 – 40.
37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
38 This is the first and great commandment.
39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
Challenge
The accompanying challenge is to love others as we are loved by the Lord.
Ideas for accomplishing the challenge:
- Make a list of all the ways in which God shows His love to you. Consider which of these ways you can use to show love to others.
- Choose one or two people to focus on for the month. Show love to them throughout the month in ways that will be meaningful to them.
- If there is someone with whom you have had conflict or about whom you have difficult feelings, make this a focus of your personal prayer. Ask the Lord to show you that person through His eyes so that you may develop a godly love for that person.
- Send loving notes or texts to people you know who may be feeling lonely or isolated.
Printable
We couldn’t find a free printable for this scripture, so we made one. Just click here or the image below to download the printable. It comes in six color combinations.
Family Home Evening Ideas
With Children:
For any of the ideas below, the game “Do You Love Your Neighbor?” can be played.
Idea #1
The Church’s FHE manual has a lesson on loving your neighbor based on this scripture block.
Idea #2
Parenting the Latter Days shares this lesson on loving your neighbor. It has a flannel board story ready to print, so you will need to prepare in advance if you want to do that part of the lesson. (You can email her to get a PDF of the lesson if you do not want to sign up for Scribd).
Idea #3
The Light Planet has a very thorough lesson with adaptations for young children. It also has adjustments for teens and adults.
With Teens:
Idea #1:
LDS Daily has a lesson on taking time for the Lord that does address families with young children, but scroll down to get to the lesson ideas for teens and adults.
Idea #2:
Watch The Greatest Commandment (Mormon Channel, Bible Series).
Read the verses in the scripture block (Matthew 22:37-40), slowly and carefully.
Discuss the verses with the following discussion questions:
37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
- Read Abraham 5:7. What is a soul? How do we worship God with all of our heart? What about our soul? What about our mind?
- What does it look like if someone loves God with their mind but not their heart?
- The Septuagint has “mind, soul, strength” instead of heart, soul, mind. How is that different? [Note: The Septuagint is a translation of the Hebrew Bible and some related texts into Koine Greek. As the primary Greek translation of the Old Testament, it is also called the Greek Old Testament.]
38 This is the first and great commandment.
- Why is this so? Why do we need to love God completely before we can accomplish any of the other commandments?
- “Great” means “of ability, quality, or eminence considerably above the normal or average.” Why do you think God calls this commandment “great”?
39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
- In what ways is loving our neighbor like loving the Lord?
- Can you sincerely love the Lord without loving your neighbor? Why or why not?
40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
- What happens if you keep all of the commandments except these two? Can you do it?
Compare the verses you read to the movie. The movie is from Mark’s account, while the verses are Matthew’s. What differences do you see?
Have everyone think of a way they can develop their love of God and a way they can deepen their love for their neighbor. Explain that you will follow up each day during scripture study, and share experiences the following week for Family Home Evening.
With Adults:
Idea #1:
Idea #2 for Teens (above) works well for adults as well.
Idea #2:
Watch or read President Monson’s talk, Love, The Essence of the Gospel.
- President Monson is well known for his ability to tell stories effectively. Which of the stories in the talk struck you the most?
- What are the barriers we have to showing love to others?
- Can you think of a time when you behaved like the woman who made her neighbor walk the long way around the property?
- Consider the quote by Dale Carnegie about the ability we have to raise the sum total of goodness in the world by being kind to others. The quote ends, “Perhaps you will forget tomorrow the kind words you say today, but the recipient may cherish them over a lifetime.” What is something kind someone has said to you that you remember from a long time ago?
- What do you feel inspired to do or change as a result of seeing/reading this talk?
For Lessons and Talks
This scripture block needs to be read in context with the previous two verses (22:35 and 36):
- The clauses referring to heart, soul, and mind in verse 37 are to be taken cumulatively, as meaning love to the uttermost degree; with “all that is within” us. (Expositor’s Greek Testament)
- Jesus is quoting Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18. When Jesus was tempted by Satan, he quoted Deuteronomy in two of the three answers he gave. The lawyer questioning Jesus had this verse in the phylacteries he wore during morning prayer. Consider why Jesus may have gone to familiar verses to respond to his accusers.
- The words “all the law and the prophets” are put together as a couplet as in Matthew 5:17 and Matthew 7:12 to indicated all of the revelation of God in the Old Testament. Christ is telling the lawyer here that the scriptures all hinge on these two laws. The verb translated “hang” in Greek [????????] reads that if you take away either of these two things, you take away all of the law. In other verses, it is translated in a way that literally means hanging or suspended. The image Christ creates here is of the whole law dangling from these two principles. If they fall, it all falls.
- The New Testament Seminary Teacher Manual has some interesting insight and ideas that would be useful to teachers or those giving talks. Scroll down to get to the appropriate verses.
- One important idea in these verses is that the law assumes that we will love ourselves. We can’t love our neighbor as ourselves unless we love ourselves. This doesn’t mean that we should indulge ourselves in sin and selfishness, but we should take care of our physical and spiritual selves. Any religious practices that advocate self-hate or loathing are contrary to these fundamental, critical commandments.
Main Page
If you would like to see the resources for all of the monthly scriptures, visit this page.
Be sure to visit our Scripture Memorizing Ideas page for ideas and general help on memorizing scriptures.