Lets jump a little further in the chapter of John cited in the previous post.

This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you. You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you. This I command you, that you love one another.

John 15, 12-17

If anyone has any doubts that Jesus had commands he told us to follow the above verses should strike down that doubt. Again and again in these verses Jesus used the word “command”. I’m sure there are some of the ever-present theologians out there that will somehow take the word “command” and turn it into something else. After all they have had almost two thousand years to hone in on that task.  But for me I take the word command to be what the current dictionary says it is:

com·mand      [kuh-mand, -mahnd]   verb (used with object)

1. to direct with specific authority or prerogative; order

2. to require authoritatively; demand

3. to have or exercise authority or control over

4. to deserve and receive (respect, sympathy, attention, etc.)