Surprising Insights from What Jesus Actually Told Us to Do
Reflections based on studying all 147 of Christ's commands
The gospels tell us a similar story in Matthew 22, Mark 12, and Luke 10. A teacher of the law or law expert asked Jesus what the greatest commandment in the Torah (the Law) was. Two of the versions also point out that the motive of the law expert was to test Jesus. In response, Jesus quoted Deuteronomy 6:5, saying, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind." He then adds a second command to the greatest command, ensuring we apply this love of God also to others, by quoting Leviticus 19:18, "Love your neighbor as yourself."
These are not the only commands Jesus gave us, of course. He delivered dozens and dozens of commands, some of which echoed those of the Hebrew Bible, like these two, other times they were entirely new, and at other times they gave a new twist or nuance on the old commands (often making them more difficult).
These commands from Jesus have been fascinating me for many years. So I have been engaged in a study for some time of all the commands of Jesus. I think we can learn a lot from the things Jesus told us to do. Along the way I've done some research on the question, "What did Jesus tell us to do?" and was surprised to discover that not enough work had been done on the question. The absence convicted me to lean in on it all, and the result was writing a series of devotionals on all the commands of Jesus that readers have been using in their spiritual walk in 2025.
In the process of writing those 147 individual devotionals about the commands of Jesus some patterns emerged. I want to reflect on those now with you. What, in fact, can we learn from the things Jesus told us to do? The main things I learned are that something is lost in over-simplification, Jesus talks a lot about things we don't talk about, context matters, and while his commands are a minimum, they are not the whole story. Let's talk about each of those.
Something Is Lost in Over-Simplification
The common bumper-sticker summation of the commands of Christ, "Love God and Love Others," is an adequate slogan to represent Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18. In fact, "Love God and Love Others" has only 25 characters in it, while just those two scripture references alone have 33 characters. So if you're looking for brevity, the super simple slogan works. However, something is truly lost in over-simplification.
Luke is the only version that tells us what happens after Jesus talked of these commands. Luke explains that the law expert, "…wanted to justify himself," so he also asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" Isn't this the way human beings work? We hear a clear command from God and we want to parse it, to clarify just who we might need to love, and who we might not need to love. Luke knew what was up. Long before anyone came up with the term, "confirmation bias" Luke knew we all want to justify ourselves.
The answer to the question for Jesus came wrapped up in a convicting story about the Good Samaritan, which not so subtly contrasted the unloving actions of people like the law expert, and the loving actions of someone that law expert no doubt saw as the scum of the earth, someone who should be shunned, an outcast, someone, you might say, he would have preferred to see deported immediately.
This is why we need to talk more about what Jesus actually told us to do without oversimplifying all that he said into a bumper sticker. Yes, it can be complicated, so much so that I itemized 147 clearly defined different things Jesus commanded us to do. Could you summarize it with "Love God and Love Others?" Sure. Even Jesus did. But we need to go deeper because something is lost in over-simplification, even in the exact moment when he told us we should indeed love God and love others.
Jesus Talks About Things We Don't Talk About
In the process of obsessing over all the things Jesus told us to do, I've come to realize that Jesus talked a whole lot about things we don't talk much about at all. By we I mean Christian communicators and leaders, or those who prepare sermons and write books, even those who write articles for publications and write the curricula at universities.
By pulling the scope out and seeing the whole for what it is, the entire list of the commands of Jesus, the contrast is compelling. His commands may have been deeply counter-cultural back when he uttered them. But they are likewise just as counter-cultural today, even counter to Christian sub-culture that purportedly is being taught to obey those commands.
Speaking of obedience to commands, that's part of how Jesus talks differently than we do. We don't enjoy this emphasis in the slightest. It rarely shows up anywhere in our teachings. But Jesus repeatedly talked about obeying the things he commanded us to do. Perhaps we are reticent to talk about obedience and commands because so much of the Church is running away from legalistic over-reach? But for whatever the reason these themes are largely absent in our communication today.
Nor do we speak of disciple-making overmuch. We tell people to bring people to Church, and hope that the services we hold and sermons we preach will do the disciple-making for us. That is a risky hope, and doesn't seem to align with the many commands of Jesus which provide a clear expectation to make disciples.
Jesus commanded us to commit acts of service, kindness, and justice that might be derided by many in Christian churches today who are skeptical of empathy and feelings as namby pamby weakness. He told us to love enemies and run from money, while our subculture loves nothing more than hating enemies and embracing the economics of our systems. He told us not to fear and we meanwhile build our entire motivational systems on fear. We are told to forgive and meanwhile we harbor not only individual grievances but also collective grievances against Christians.
We clearly don't think much of the commands of Jesus, and by avoiding talking about them we subsequently look a whole lot like the un-humble hypocrites he delivered so many commands warning us about.
Context Matters
Every time I wrote on one of these commands in the devotional, I was struck by how the context of that command came out of a specific event or required further investigation. Yes, many of the commands need not be explicated in a complicated way and we should take them at face value. However, there was often a context of the command that gave it a particular nuance or meaning. The gospels are narratives, after all, and while it was fun to think of the commands as grammatically isolated and important because they were indeed imperatives, that doesn't mean they can be lifted wholesale out of their context.
For illustration, consider this line: "Her book is incredibly difficult to read," said John Doe, "but worth every second." The latter half is important for understanding the intent of the first. The same can be said of this line: "He makes me very uncomfortable," said Jane Doe, "or, at least he does in an intellectual sense as his way of communicating challenges my assumptions."
Context may not be everything, but it's always something. Dismiss the context of what Jesus said at your own risk.
His Commands Are a Minimum, But Not the Whole Story
Finally, I have to admit that while I've emphasized the commands of Jesus in my work and writings, I do not think they are the whole story. I see the commands as a matter of the minimum information, not the maximum.
In the Great Commission, Jesus said to take those we are baptizing and teach them to "obey everything I have commanded you." So we need to take the commands very seriously indeed. And of course I do think they are under-represented in our Christian content, considering Jesus explicitly told us to teach everyone we baptize what they are. (And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? Romans 10:14b) So we must start there, assuredly.
However, while the commands cover many of the most important things, they do not cover everything. The commands miss the epic and preeminently consequential narratives of the redemptive story itself: pre-existent Son, the Trinity. The gospel narrative accounts of incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension. The story of the church and our expectation for the coming of Christ again. The commands don't adequately cover these and so cannot be used in isolation from them. The commands are foundational, but not comprehensive for all of the Christian life and thought.
The commands don't include the Parables, of which Jesus was known to use at every turn so much that people wondered why (see Matthew 13; Mark 4). The commands are not found in the epistles or the accounts of the early church in Acts, much less the Hebrew Bible including the original commands of the people of God, called "The Law," of which Jesus said he had come to fulfill.
Nor do the commands include the rich theological textures that came to us from the early church's teachings, councils, and creeds. And they don’t include the ecclesiology that nurtures the entire faith and helps us become the only hermeneutic of the gospel: congregations of men and women who believe it and live by it (see Lesslie Newbigin). We cannot use the commands as a sort of recipe for Jesus ethics and consider that enough for the abundant life Christ offers in The Way.
So, the commands are important, but they are a part of a larger whole, albeit the part of the larger whole that we seem to have so often overlooked, and that is my point.
If you have interest in diving into the commands of Christ I've offered them all to paid subscribers and the best place to start is with the free introduction found here while you decide whether to jump in.
If you would like to hear what I learned about writing itself by writing a daily devotional, I recently reflected on that process here.
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