Teaching about the Law

 Today's Reflections

                                                  

 

     

 

Teaching about the Law 

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Mt 5:17-19

[Jesus said to his disciples,] ¹⁷“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. ¹⁸Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place. ¹⁹Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do so will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever obeys and teaches these commandments will be called greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”

Reflection:

I have come to fulfill. Jesus has come not to abolish the law or the prophets but to fulfill them. Indeed, he is their fulfillment. Jesus fulfills the law and the prophets in a way that the fruit fulfills the flower; he brings the law and the prophets to their perfection and achieves their purpose. He observes the Sabbath, but he makes clear that the Sabbath is made for man and not man for the Sabbath. He knows the commandments, but he also teaches that the law and the prophets are summed up in the command to love God with all our mind, with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our strength, and the command to love our neighbor as ourselves.

In thus fulfilling the law and the prophets, Jesus teaches us to be obedient and free. As the apostle Paul will later write, “Love is the fulfillment of the law” (Rom 13:10).

Obey the commandments

and teach others to keep them,

and you will be great in God’s kingdom.