This is VLX number 136. We are in Matthew chapter 22, verses 34 to 40, the First Commandment.

VLX stands for Video Lexi Divina, your patristic Bible study, and Ignatian prayer series online.

God give you his peace and nominate patrice Sifidi at Spiti, amen.

God, our Lord, we ask the grace that all of our intentions, actions, and operations be directed purely to the service and praise of your divine majesty.

And no many Pachis, Sifidi, at Spiti Tusi-Ti, amen.

But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one

of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him.

Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?

And he said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your

soul and with all your mind.

This is the great and first commandment, and a second is like it.

You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.

So in verse 34 right there we hear, but when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together.

And the verb for silence there in Greek is Ephemosen.

Ephemosen means silenced and is defined as to muzzle, to stop the mouth, to make speechless, to reduce to silence,

and to be kept in check. Keep in mind, we are within a week of Christ's crucifixion. And so you have

these two different groups of enemies, actually more than just two groups, but two main groups of

enemies circling Jesus, the Pharisees and the Sadducees. And we're noticing that it is Christ's

truth that's silencing them, not any magic tricks like they want to accuse him of doing.

You see, Jesus is the truth, capital T truth, and Jesus speaking the truth reduces them to silence, keeps them in

check. Hence that word in Greek right there, effemosen. You ever notice even in modern world history

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