Passover to Pentecost – The Basic Package       Week 4 Day 2

“You are not far from the kingdom of God.” Mark 12:34 (NIV)

The teachings of Jesus in the Gospels were geared to the crowds.  He was trying to pull them out and up from their circumstances and speak life into a very static religious experience.  Jesus using parables allowed every academic level of listener to get something from His public ministry.  He started shifting toward the end of His life from public to private time with His disciples.  Why?  He was training His leaders.  After the crucifixion it was all private time.  He had built the ground work for His Kingdom in their lives.  He upped the training before Palm Sunday and now He was fine-tuning His commanders.

Great training courses add material while connecting it to the basics.  Jesus’ base package was just two things: Love God and Love Your Neighbor (Matthew 22: 37, Mark 12:28).   The other things were still there but these two things were Jesus.  The Torah has 613 commandments; Jesus condensed that rich volume of information to just two commandments!

Go forward many years, how is this base package now looking?  Love God, love your neighbor, Jesus is Lord, and Hebrews 6:1 +2.   I think the training worked!