We often talk about wholistic spirituality, a concept expressed in the Shema:
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
Here we see an indicative statement of theological truth, “The Lord our God, the Lord is one,” followed by an imperative, saying, “[therefore], you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart [mind] and with all your soul and with all your might.”
This passage shows that all of our being must express love and loyalty to God. It teaches that a mind that thinks correctly produces a soul (with its motivations and passions) that desires correctly, which expresses itself concretely in how we live. In the New Testament, Jesus added to the Shema the parallel commandment indicating that true spirituality includes loving our neighbor.
This a why we can also call wholistic spirituality authentic spirituality, because our love flows from who we really are. We express the Shema in all our individual distinctiveness.
So, this is the first purpose of the Shema: to produce authentic
individuals who honor God and love others with all of their being.
But there is a second purpose of the Shema. Within its Old Testament context, the Shema is, after all a command, what Jesus called the Greatest Commandment (Mark 12:28-30).
Below are six texts from Deuteronomy, God’s book of law or covenant. You will see several themes demonstrating the purpose of God’s law. Note the vocabulary in bold letters:
Therefore you shall keep his statutes and his commandments, which I command you today, that it may go well with you and with your children after you, and that you may prolong your days in the land that the Lord your God is giving you for all time.” (4:40)
You shall walk in all the way that the Lord your God has commanded you, that you may live, and that it may go well with you, and that you may live long in the land that you shall possess. (5:33)
Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey. (6:3; the verse that pecedes the Shema)
And you shall do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord, that it may go well with you, and that you may go in and take possession of the good land that the Lord swore to give to your fathers. (6:18; later on after the Shema)
Be careful to obey all these words that I command you, that it may go well with you and with your children after you forever, when you do what is good and right in the sight of the Lord your God. (12:28)
We can see clearly that God’s intention is benevolent. He wants his people to prosper. He wants them to flourish. In terms of John’s gospel, God wants us to experience real “life” by obeying his commandments, especially the Shema.
God desires that our religion be wholistic and authentic, so that we become a blessing in every way. So, we obey the Shema to honor God but also to flourish and serve others.
There is one other verse to consider from Deuteronomy. It is the passage from which I got the title of my book, Such a Mind as This. The context concerns the dramatic theophany on Mount Sinai and the giving of the Ten Commandments (Exodus 19-20). The people felt overwhelmed by God’s majesty and he commented about their outlook:
Oh that they had such a heart [mind] as this always, to fear me and to keep all my commandments, that it might go well with them and with their descendants forever! (Deut 5:29)
This verse shows what it means to love God with the mind according to the Shema: fearing God and obeying his commandments. It also shows that fear and obedience produce goodness and prosperity―that it “might go well” for us.
When we obey the Shema, therefore, we position ourselves to thrive and flourish. This is, at least in part, its purpose and a reason why we learn to love God intellectually.
Such a Mind as This 