November 1, 2026 – A Study of Matthew – Complete Love

Complete Love

Deuteronomy 6:4-12 – New International Version (NIV)

⁴ Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. ⁵ Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. ⁶ These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. ⁷ Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. ⁸ Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. ⁹ Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

¹⁰ When the Lord your God brings you into the land he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you—a land with large, flourishing cities you did not build, ¹¹ houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant—then when you eat and are satisfied, ¹² be careful that you do not forget the Lord, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

Who “is one” (verse 4)?

How is Israel to “love the Lord” (verse 5)?

Where are the commandments to be (verse 6)?

How are they to be impressed on the children (verse 7)?

Where are they to be tied (verse 8)?

In your opinion, why would they be written on the doorframes and gates (verse 9)?

Who had the Lord sworn to that He’d bring the Israelites to “the land” (verse 10)?

What had the Israelites not done in the land (verse 11)?

What were the Israelites not to do (verse 12)?

In your opinion, what is the basic message of this passage?

In your opinion, what does this passage teach us about love?

Matthew 22:34-40 - New International Version (NIV)

³⁴ Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. ³⁵ One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: ³⁶ “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

³⁷ Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ ³⁸ This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹ And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ⁴⁰ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Who had Jesus silenced (verse 34)?

What did the Pharisees do (verse 34)?

What was the one who tested Jesus an expert in (verse 35)?

How did Jesus answer the question, “which is the greatest commandment in the Law” (verses 36 and 37)?

How does Jesus describe that commandment (verse 38)?

What is the second commandment (verse 39)?

How do the Law and the Prophets relate to these two commandments (verse 40)?

In your opinion, what is the basic message of this passage?

In your opinion, what does this passage teach us about love?

In your opinion, how does Deuteronomy 6:4-12 help us understand what it means to follow what is the “greatest commandment” in Matthew 22:34-40?

Romans 13:8-10 - New International Version (NIV)

⁸ Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. ⁹ The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” ¹⁰ Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

What debt should continue to be outstanding (verse 8)?

Which commandments are “summed up” in the command to “love your neighbor as yourself” (verse 9)?

Why is love “the fulfillment of the law” (verse 10)?

In your opinion, what is the basic message of this passage?

In your opinion, what does this passage teach us about love?

In your opinion, how is the instruction to love expanded when Deuteronomy 6:4-12 and Romans 13:8-10 are read together?

In your opinion, how does Romans 13:8-10 help us understand why Jesus said in Matthew 22:34-40 that “all the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments”?

1 John 4:7-16 - New International Version (NIV)

⁷ Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. ⁸ Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. ⁹ This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. ¹⁰ This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. ¹¹ Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. ¹² No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

¹³ This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. ¹⁴ And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. ¹⁵ If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. ¹⁶ And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. 

Where does love come from (verse 7)?

Who does not know God (verse 8)?

How did God show “his love among us” (verse 9)?

What is love (verse 10)?

Why should we “love one another” (verse 11)?

What happens “if we love one another” (verse 12)?

How do we know “that we live in him and he in us” (verse 13)?

What had John seen that he testified to (verse 14)?

Who lives in God (verse 15)?

What do we “know and rely on” (verse 16)?

In your opinion, what is the basic message of this passage?

In your opinion, what does this passage teach us about love?

In your opinion, how does 1 John 4:7-16 help us understand how it is possible for us to be obedient to the command in Deuteronomy 6:4-12 to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength”?

In your opinion, what does it change when you realize that the One who commands us to love in Matthew 22:34-40 is also the One that “love comes from” in 1 John 4:7-16?

In your opinion, how does the concept that we have a “continuing debt to love one another” in Romans 13:8-10 become more understandable when we consider the description of love in 1 John 4:7-16?

In your opinion, what do these passages from Deuteronomy, Matthew, Romans, and 1 John teach us about God’s love for us?

In your opinion, how can we respond to God’s love for us today?

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