When preaching about Joshua and the people of God obeying the Lord by following His clear and precise but not really explained orders to march around the city of Jericho once a day for seven days and to do a certain number of exact things that seventh day, the preacher at my church Sunday also said this:
"Partial obedience is total disobedience."
Not having the Hebrew orders really explained to me very well, I shrugged when remembering to obey totally and impartially:
ואהבת את יהוה אלהיך בכל־לבבך ובכל־נפשך ובכל־מאדך
and
לא־תקם ולא־תטר את־בני עמך ואהבת לרעך כמוך אני יהוה
Fortunately, Matthew's translation of that other Joshua's summation of all this precisely sums it all up in all its parts:
Ἐν ταύταις ταῖς δυσὶν ἐντολαῖς ὅλος ὁ νόμος κρέμαται καὶ οἱ προφῆται
And my own father had gotten me to memorize all that totality this way:
"On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."
Later I heard that, at the very same time in another church, someone had shot George Tiller presumably because he'd been a baby killer like the people of Jericho must have been and the leader of Nazi Germany certainly was. "Hang all" sure had a sad meaning yesterday.
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