Jesus was asked in St. Matthew 22, “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?” He replied with two, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbour as yourself. All the Law and Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (St. Matthew 22:36–40).

The Christian community celebrated that Jesus reduced 613 commandments found in the Old Testament to only two under the New Covenant. As I meditated on this, I realized that we were missing something, and while loving God, and loving people may seem straight-forward enough, it was not quite evident in the lifestyles of many Christians. While we get some part right, in other areas we were not doing so well. The Words of Jesus kept resonating in my soul, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” (St. John 14:15 — ESV). The part I think we missed is, “All the law and prophets hang…”

I went on a personal retreat to revisit the New Testament and extract everything that would look like a command from Jesus. I numbered them as I went along, and was very surprised to see that when this journey ended, the number was 613 — the exact number of commands given in the Old Testament. I knew then that this book had to be released.

C. Orville McLeish

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