Window in English Anglo Catholic Church

Jesus said that love for God is the first and greatest commandment, and that the second most important is to love our neighbor as ourselves (Mark 12:30-31).

Moses anticipates such faithfulness to God when he says, as a matter of first importance, that Israel was to have no other god but the One who rescued them from Egypt (Exodus 20:1-3).

Then comes Paul. He seems to move the 2nd law of Israel and his Lord to 1st. In his letter to the Galatians he writes that all of the law is fulfilled in one word: love your neighbor as yourself (Gal 5:14).

Yesterday, we talked about a book I read on self-deception. The author’s point was that we betray our own lack of virtue when we fail to do what we can to help someone else. Since the book seems to take a more humanistic approach (without mention of God), are we to conclude that, in a similar way, Paul may have taken a more “modern” approach than Jesus or Moses?

Or, as some have suggested, did Paul just find another way of saying the same thing? Or is Paul’s point to the Galatians different than that of Jesus and Moses?

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