One Commandment to Rule Them All

I attend a Deaf branch (congregation) where I live. I do so to support my wife, who is an ASL interpreter by profession, and is therefore heavily involved in the Deaf community.

I'm not good at learning new languages, but I'm trying really hard to pick up some ASL. Last Sunday, I was asked to bear my testimony during Sacrament Meeting. Due to my lack of ASL knowledge, I came up with something simple that I hoped my wife could easily teach me to sign. A direct translation of the testimony I gave went something like this:

Hello. Name Stu.
 I'm thankful for all of you. I feel welcome here.
 I thinking scripture Christ says, "If you charity, I am pleased."
 Charity same love. I believe love greatest commandment. I love more, I happy more.

As you can see, I have a lot more learning to do when it comes to ASL. But I think I got the basic concept across. I truly believe that the commandment to love one another is our most important commandment.

I remember years ago giving a lesson in Sunday School, and discussing how Jewish Rabbis had counted up the number of commandments in the Old Testament. I don't remember the number, but it was a lot. This is why Orthodox Judaism is not for the faint of heart.

How is it possible to keep up with every last commandment? With hundreds of commandments we are expected to follow, it's easy to believe that it's pretty much impossible to get into and stay in God's good graces.

But here's the thing: there is actually only one commandment. To love one another is not just the greatest commandment, but the only one we need to be concerned about. Have love, show love, be love, and you will always be doing work that is pleasing to God.

1 Corinthians 13:13

And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

2 Nephi 26:30

…all men should have charity, which charity is love.

Moroni 7:47

…and whoso is found possessed of [charity] at the last day, it shall be well with him.

Okay, so there's a bunch of verses telling us to be charitable, and even one that supports my idea that charity (love) is our greatest commandment. But how do I get the crazy idea that loving one another is the sole commandment? Basically it's that if you have "the pure love of Christ," then all other commandments will be followed in the course of acting out of love. Kind of like if you follow only the first gun-safety rule of "Treat every firearm as if it's loaded," the other rules are automatically followed.

Peter 4:8

And above all things, have charity ... for charity shall cover the multitude of sins.

And there you have it. God's immense and incomprehensible complexity summed up in a single word: love.

That is all God asks of us, to love one another. If we do that, everything else is covered. And I suspect many people will be surprised in the next life to see how many atheists inherit the Kingdom of God and how many Christians do not.