This simple phrase will judge all Christendom in that day when the coverings of men are finally disposed.  This utterance, and these metaphors -- the rock and the sand -- makes of Christianity a house built on sand.

A common device among Christians, to relieve themselves of keeping the commandments of Jesus, is to assert that Jesus validates the Law and the Prophets as condensed in the Ten Commandments as his commandments.

The commandments of Jesus are spread throughout the gospels. He introduces them in the Sermon on the Mount, and it is there that they appear the most unreasonable.  Who among us can take this seriously:

And yet, he made obedience to these commandments the condition for receiving his blessing at the Judgment.  Hearing his commandments, including these, and not doing them is the sure prescription for eternal disaster.

Here is my thesis: Jesus makes of agape-love the essence of all commandments of God.  I want to establish this as factual, then investigate this love's significance.  We first examine the most basic resource texts.  Others will follow, but this is where we begin, for this is where we will establish the essence of the commandments of Jesus.

Do you love yourself?

Do you know what that means, or rather, what Jesus means by it in his Second Commandment?

This is the concluding paper of the series of six papers on the commandments of Jesus.  We will briefly discuss several things -- assembling the basic components of the Gospel of the kingdom -- but primarily I hope to show how His commandments fit into the Truth as key components of the Gospel.