Daily Gospel XII: Mark 12: 28b-34

The scribe in this Gospel is so cool, and very much a picture of how we are meant to interact with the Word of God.  Jesus gave a clear presentation of what the commandments are and what it means to live a life free from sin, and the scribe delved into what Jesus said and clued in on even deeper implications.  He was able to recognize truth AND apply it to his own life.  This is one of the biggest goals of growing in the spiritual life...to not only start making connections within Scripture itself, but also learning to make our lives subject to what the Word teaches.

The crux of this Gospel is to "love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength."  I think this is probably how the scribe can even come to his conclusions from what Jesus spoke in the first place.  The scribe sees how natural it is to love one another if your first love is God.  There is a natural conclusion that occurs.  One doesn't make sense without the other.  Further than that though, if the scribe is able to be enlightened to the teaching of Jesus, it shows that he is at least in the process of learning to love the Lord with his mind.  His understanding honors God, in a way.  And Jesus is like the proud teacher who is excited when a student pays attention in class and catches on to the material.  Maybe it just pleases God that we pay attention.  If we don't pay attention to Scripture and how it might affect us in the first place, then we'll never be able to start making the connections, as did the scribe.