Shema Means LISTEN! (and GET TO WORK!)

This morning, I listened to a devotional on YouVersion about the Shema, found in Deuteronomy 6:4-5, which says, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind.” The YouVersion devotional speaker shared a heartfelt anecdote about his love for his wife. It was touching, not just because he loves his wife, but because he was trying to think more deeply about God’s love and how it applies to his life.

Inspired by that, I decided to apply the Garden Heart Nations treatment to this verse. Scriptural wisdom isn’t just for personal relationships; it’s meant to guide and build civilization, even by fallen Humanity, and even in a fallen world.

The Garden Heart Nations Approach works like This:

1. START WITH THE NEW TESTAMENT – Focusing on Jesus and the fullness of His greatness is a good place to start, as a general rule.

2. EXPLORE THE OLD TESTAMENT – Understand how these principles were applied in the context of human civilization, and specifically, how Israel dealt with God’s wisdom, both good and bad.

3. DIG INTO THE ROOTS – The roots are found in the Garden of Eden narrative, where I uncover the philosophical foundations of these principles.

4. FULL CIRCLE – Finally, we revisit the New Testament with new insights, applying what we’ve learned for a better understanding of our calling as Garden Heart Nations.

The New Testament Use of Shema

Jesus invokes the Shema when He is asked about the greatest Commandment of God, in Matt 22:37-39; Mark 12:29-30; and Luke 10:27.

The English translation of Jesus’ words (from the Greek) is a little different from the original Hebrew. The original Hebrew of the Shema brings a slight twist to how we understand the three components of a human being. In English, we translate "heart" to refer to the emotional center of a person, but in Hebrew, the “heart” is more aligned with our understanding of the “mind.” Further, the Hebrew word used in Deuteronomy for the third component is "strength," not "mind." But don’t get too caught up in these details—when Deuteronomy says, "love God with all your mind, soul, and strength,” and when Jesus quotes it “heart, soul, and mind” they mean the same thing: all and every part of our beings are to be fully devoted to following God, the one true God.

When Jesus sums up the law by saying that the greatest commandment is to love God fully and solely, and the second is to love your neighbor as yourself (from Leviticus 19), He is giving us the key to interpreting the sometimes difficult laws of the Old Testament. What's interesting is that in Mark 12, when a Jewish expert of the law agrees with Jesus’ interpretation, Jesus tells him, “You are not far from the Kingdom of God.” This suggests that those who interpret the Old Testament law rightly understand God better than those who don’t. It also indicates that some first century Jews whose primary job was to help their nation interpret and apply Shema to daily life already understood the deeper meaning of the law, before Jesus explicitly taught it.

Which leads us to the second step of the Garden Heart Nations treatment: the Old Testament’s civilizational  understanding of the Shema.

The Old Testament Context

The Shema is a prayer recited by observant Jews every morning and evening. However, the statement in Deuteronomy 6:4—“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is One”—is more of a statement than a prayer; it’s an exhortation to remain faithful to God alone. Loving God isn’t just about putting Him first among other gods—it’s about total, unwavering loyalty to God. This statement ties back to the First Commandment in Deuteronomy 5, which says, “You shall have no other gods before Me.” The First Commandment begins with a reminder that God alone delivered Israel from Egypt, proving that He alone deserves loyalty and worship.

Here’s why God freed Israel from Egypt the way that He did.  The first nine plagues in Egypt targeted the Egyptian gods, and the final plague struck at the heart of Egypt’s power: the Pharaoh, who was considered the son of the god Osiris. God demonstrated through His actions that He was the one true God, and Israel’s worship should be devoted to Him alone. The rest were phonies. They offered no true love, because none of them were true Gods.

Thus, the Shema leads Israel to the First Commandment, which leads to the fact that God has already defeated any of the other false-god competitors. The Love of the Shema is a call to faithfulness to Monotheism. As far as we’re concerned, loving God and believing in Monotheism are one and the same.

The Challenge of Perfect Love

The idea of loving God with all your heart, soul, and mind raises an important question: How can anyone, Israelite or otherwise, truly claim to love God with all their being? Let’s be honest—it’s impossible. We all fall short. A quick conversation with your spouse would prove the point. This is where God’s grace comes in. The Shema sets a standard that is unattainable, thus requires God’s grace. The First Commandment reminds Israel that it was only by His gracious intervention that Israel escaped slavery in Egypt. Israel couldn’t save themselves.

Since we can’t fully live up to even the first of the 10 Commandments without God’s grace, His grace must be the foundation of the entire Law. I believe this is why Jesus speaks so highly of the Law in Matthew 5—Jesus understands it as it was intended to be understood.

Another interesting traditional Jewish use of the Shema is that the Shema is recited at the end of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, just before the shofar is blown to signal the remission of sins. This connects the love we are called to express to God— with all our heart, soul, and mind— with the love that God has already shown to us. Not just our “deliverance from Egypt”, but through His grace, we have the confidence that He will forgive us of our very sins. Hebrews 8-10 explains this beautifully, showing how Jesus’ sacrifice fulfills the law and opens the way for our reconciliation with God.

The Garden of Eden: God’s Purpose for Humanity

Now, let’s move to the third step of the Garden Heart Nations approach. In Genesis 1, we learn that everything in the universe exists because of God. There is no room for any other claim to divinity. There can be only One, because there was only One, even before time itself existed.

Genesis 2 also reveals God’s purpose for Humanity: we are meant to reflect His nature and character on Earth as His Image-Bearers. We can love because He is love. We can work because He works. We can care and provide for others because He is the Provider. This is the essence of the Shema—to love God with all our being, living in a way that reflects His purposes for all of Humanity. The Shema is an exhortation to be an Image-Bearer.

Reciting the Shema twice a day serves as a reminder to keep God’s purposes in mind and to trust that, despite our failings, our fallenness, His plans will be accomplished. But the Creation story also makes it clear that such faithfulness is only possible through God’s grace!

Humanity’s Fall and Redemption

In Genesis 3, through Adam and Eve, Humanity rejected God’s intended purpose for our existence. We tried to redefine our role as His Image-bearers. In other words, we wanted to bear our own Image. As a result, we faced the consequences of our disobedience—banishment and suffering. But even in this horrifying moment, God revealed His grace.

After the Fall of Humanity in Genesis 3, God killed an animal to use its hide as a temporary cover for Adam and Eve’s shame. Though they were judged as sinners and cast out of the Garden, God was still making a way for His relationship with Humanity to continue. No human “payment” could restore the perfection of His Image. But He would accept His own atonement in the place of our death.

This is why Jesus’ sacrifice fulfills the rituals of Yom Kippur (see Leviticus 16). When the High Priest enters the Holy of Holies and survives unscathed, even though everyone knows Israel’s High Priests were sinners, God’s offer of gracious forgiveness was made plain to the entire nation. That’s why I believe it is fitting that the Jews recite the Shema at the completion of God’s gracious act of remitting our sins. We should recite the Shema every time we remember that Jesus has forgiven our sins.

In Jesus, God has restored our original purpose as His Image Bearers.  In Jesus, by the sole grace of God, we are now able to Love God with all our mind, soul, and strength. Shema, complete.

I think it’s a good time to blow that shofar…

Back to the New Testament

Now, when you read Jesus’ answer to the Jewish lawyers in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, you realize that Jesus’ answer is the tip of an iceberg. His questioners thought they were asking a legal question. Jesus wanted them to grasp the fullness of God’s Kingdom purpose on Earth; His restoration of His Garden Heart plan for all Nations of the Earth.

Paul understood the “iceberg”. In Colossians 1:15, 20 Paul writes “He [Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation….For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in the Son, and through him to reconcile all things to himself by making peace through the blood of his cross—through him, whether things on earth or things in heaven.”

My hope for you is that, in the future, every time you hear a teacher refer to the Shema, the “iceberg” of God’s Image-Bearing plan for Humanity through Jesus will suddenly turn, churning the waters, to reveal the fullness of the reconciliation of Heaven and Earth. If you’re like Paul— or me— you will experience a peace that surpasses understanding.

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How’s that for a YouVersion devotional?