Matthew 22:38 identifies love for God as the greatest commandment in the Jewish law. Jesus gives this answer when a lawyer asks him which command matters most, so the verse ranks the entire law by the single priority of wholehearted love for God. It is Jesus speaking, in reply to a question posed by a lawyer who was testing him in front of the Pharisees.
This is the first and great commandment.
Matthew 22:38 (WEB)
What Matthew 22:38 Means
The phrase “first and great commandment” tells you two things at once. “First” means it sits at the top of the list, the command that everything else in God’s law rests upon. “Great” means it carries the greatest weight, not merely a place in order. Jesus is not inventing a new rule here. He is picking out the center of what the Hebrew Scriptures already teach, drawing it from the words of Deuteronomy 6:5 that his listeners knew by heart.
The verse is a statement of priority, not a full description of love. It does not spell out what loving God looks like day to day, and it does not promise that anyone will feel a certain warmth toward God on demand. What it does establish is an order: whatever else a person does in faith and obedience should flow from a heart that is first turned toward God.
The Context of Matthew 22:38
Matthew’s Gospel was written for a community steeped in Jewish law and expectation, and this exchange belongs to the final days of Jesus’s ministry in Jerusalem. The question is a debate that was common among rabbis, who often tried to summarize the hundreds of commandments in the Torah. Jesus answers the lawyer directly from the Shema, then immediately pairs it with a second command from Leviticus 19:18, love for your neighbor.
Read in that setting, verse 38 is not a stand-alone slogan. It is the first half of a two-part answer, and verse 40 adds that “the whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.” So the verse teaches you to see love for God as the foundation and love for others as its outworking, rather than treating the two as competing demands.
Key Phrases in Matthew 22:38
Deuteronomy 6:5
You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.
(WEB)
This is the Old Testament passage Jesus draws upon when he names the great commandment. Reading it alongside Matthew 22:38 shows you that his answer was rooted in the Scriptures his listeners already treasured, and that the call to love God wholeheartedly has been central to God’s people all along.
Matthew 22:39
A second likewise is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
(WEB)
Here Jesus adds the second great command, love for your neighbor, and the two are presented together. Reading verse 39 with verse 38 helps you see that love for God is not meant to remain private devotion but spills out into how you treat the people around you.
A Short Prayer From Matthew 22:38
Lord, you are the first and greatest love of my life, and I confess that other things often rise above you in my heart. Teach me to order my days around you, so that my choices, my worries and my hopes begin with trust in your goodness. Where my affections have drifted, draw me back gently, and let my love for you shape the way I love the people you have placed around me. Amen.
