Monday, 07 July 2008
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Keeping the Ten Commandments
A few nights back, my mental wanderings led me to wonder if I could remember all ten of the commandments given to Moses. After seven, I went to the Exodus account, and there had a sobering realization. I've broken eight of those, possibly nine, in my past. Worse, I still routinely break about three. You can have no other gods before me
You can not make any graven images and worship any graven image.
Do not take the Lord's name in vain.
Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.
Honor your parents.
Do not murder.
Do not steal.
Do not commit adultery.
Do not bear false witness against your neighbor.
Do not covet your neighbor's goods.There they are, all ten, and I'm happy to say that I did type them from memory...so the order may not be accurate. But if you reviewed them, I'm sure you're noticing how many you've broken and how many you still break. From our culture's perspective, I would say that every one of these is a joke.
Certainly our society places other gods over Jesus; we have our families, jobs, money, possessions, ambitions, and so on; and if those things are placed over Jesus, then surely we worship them. I've done both of these. Taking the Lord's name in vain...I've done it. Not keeping the Sabbath holy, done that too.
As for the laws that apply to people, they get broken because we don't respect each other. Do I honor my parents every day? How often do I lie? Do I ever get jealous of other people's lives? Those three are socially expected behaviour, and I think adultery may soon be also.
Stealing is bad, but murder, the one crime truly abhorred in most cultures, happens every minute, only those who are murdered aren't considered to even be a living human. Our society reports extensively on massacres and homicides, yet abortion is as commonly accepted today as speeding is on the freeways.
Jesus took two lines from the Pentateuch that seemed to condense the Law for his followers: love God, love others. We in the present-day church community often focus too much on just those, seeming to think if we do them, we're okay; but when I reviewed the Ten, I realized that if I'm still routinely breaking some of those, then I'm breaking both of the Two.
Perhaps we need to de-simplify the Law and take a second look at our lives and at what we consider acceptable.
Do you think we de-emphasize the Ten Commandments? Do you have trouble keeping them?
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Comments (15)
I think that the commandments are important.
Keeping them wont save you though. Only the blood of Jesus can do that.
But if we are saved we are supposed to follow God and do what He tells us to do. That would include trying to follow the 10 commandments.
I think that Jesus, in giving us those two commandments, was not negating the 10 commandments but rather expanding them. Notice that all the commandments can be placed either under loving God or loving others. I do think that these things are all recognized as unacceptable in a Christian life, but do we necessarily talk about them ast the 10 commandments, I don't know. The problem is, our sin nature keeps us from being able to follow them through our own efforts, and we need God's influence and help every day not to break them all. (some more than others) I break quite a few of these on a regular basis but I mostly struggle with keeping the Sabbath holy or at least setting aside a day or rest and focus on God.
I don't think we as Christians de-emphasize the Ten Commandments. But I do think there is a lack of in-depth spiritual understanding of the Commandments and also an overeagerness to apply them to others instead of ourselves. It's always much easier to use the standards of God to criticise and condemn others than to use them to improve ourselves, but to do the first is to end up breaking even more Commandments, to do the latter, is to worship.
I have trouble keeping the Commandments for sure... particularly, honouring my parents, and keeping the Sabbath holy. I need to prioritise setting a day aside for God and His Kingdom.
we shouldn't de-emphasize the 10 commandments... we should uphold it to the letter... not in the standpoint of pleasing God because we already have that through Christ Himself...
it's more along the lines of... ok now that Jesus is my Savior and my sins have been forgiven... I'm saved for the keeping of the 10 Commandments.... to where it's more of a desire to keep along the lines of righteousness in my heart and my life...
the Law doesn't save... Galatians says that the Law is our tutor to bring us to Christ.... it doesn't save, it reveals our need for the Savior.... which is the main intention of the Law... so we can see our need for salvation...
de-emphsizing it only demeans the value for which it's supposed to be... so we shouldn't...
i have never kept the 10 commandents... maybe that's what's so amazing about Grace... and it makes me value Jesus all the more
I think that the commandments are vital to keeping your relationship with Jesus. Without keeping them you are driving a divide between you and him. I try my best, but like everyone else, I don't always succeed! =)
As others have said, I think the Ten Commandments all fall under the two that Jesus gave. The problem is when we think, "I love God and people. I'm ok." Love doesn't just mean a fuzzy feeling in this case. Elsewhere the Bible tells us that if we love God, we will keep His commandments. If we really love God and other people, it will be shown by the fruit of our lives in the difficult, practical, day-to-day decisions we make, and those decisions will reflect adherence to the Ten Commandments.
I don't think it's helpful to read the Ten Commandments and then decided to keep them by our willpower. We will never be able to do it without Christ's life living through us. I believe we should emphasize loving God radically and completely, through surrender and adoration. Our of that will come adherence to His commands. If we try to keep them without that, we will always fail
I think that there are many things in the Bible that arn't enphasized enough but I also think that it comes down to us personally. If we don't have the desire to, say, keep the sabbeth, it won't happen. If we don't have the desire to learn to know God better, we won't. But then too, we can't do anything without God's help.
Romans 14:4-6
4Who are you to judge
someone else's servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he
will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.
5One
man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers
every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind.
6He
who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord. He who eats meat,
eats to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who abstains, does
so to the Lord and gives thanks to God.
I'm curious about people's thoughts about this passage in relation to the command about keeping the Sabbath. I assume that the man who considers every day alike believes that every day is the Sabbath, so he tries to keep every day holy. Any thoughts?
I think they're de-emphasized because Jesus said Love God and Love others. There's really no reason to try to remember those [I can't either, and I had to memorize them for CCD!] or any other laws.
If you ask yourself whether you're obeying the ten commandments, you're asking yourself the wrong question. That's great that you haven't committed adultery - but have you lusted? It's good that you haven't murdered, but have you gotten angry with your brother?
The law is done away with. Gone. Finished. In Galatians 4, Paul compares the law to a tutor. A child may need a tutor for help in math or English - but if that child still relies on the tutor when he's 25 years old, the tutor and the student have failed. Christ has come and fulfilled the law. Something that has been fulfilled is completed. If you fulfill the requirements of a class, you don't need to keep reading books and writing papers. You're done. That's what Jesus meant when he came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it! He didn't come to throw out all the requirements, he came to complete it on our behalf.
The law was set up for a purpose (Paul writes in Romans that the law is good), yet that purpose has passed. Paul also writes in Galatians 3:10 that cursed is the man who does not obey EVERYTHING written in the law. If we want to stick with the law, we better obey every single part. The parts about cleanliness laws, about not trimming your beard, about stoning people for violating the law. If you want to obey the law, you better obey all of it.
Paul also reminds us that God's promise to Abraham came 430 years before the law! God promised to send Jesus before any laws were ever in place. And one of the most beautiful pictures in the bible is Genesis 15, when God and Abraham do an ancient ceremony to 'seal the covenant.' Abraham falls asleep and misses the whole thing, yet God still goes ahead and makes a bunch of promises. Our inheritance was ALWAYS based on Jesus. Abraham never promised anything, or agreed to anything, because he was sleeping the whole time. What a beautiful picture of what we have in Jesus.
Therefore, we are under ZERO obligation to obey the Old Testament law. We have something much higher now - the law of Christ. It is actually much more difficult to fulfill than the old testament law. Jesus said "be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." We are instructed to love each other as Christ loved us. It's not that the law is bad, or that studying it does us no good - it's that our standard is no longer a bunch of minimum requirements (tithe 10%, don't murder, etc.), it is perfection.
I agree with those before me.
I think that the two commandments Jesus gave sum up the 10 commandments. The first four relate directly to God and the last six relate to people.
And why would you want to "de-simplify" the Law? What benefit would that give?
I suppose it isn't terribly helpful that I'm not Christian, but here's where I stand:
I worship my own mind, body, and spirit. I suppose if this pride and self-worship qualifies me as a "god before god," then I'm guilty of that one.
I've never made or worshiped a "graven image," so I'm clean there.
I take the Lord's name in vain all the time.
I really don't care about the Sabbath
I offer my parents exactly as much respect as they deserve: very little.
I've never killed anyone, though I have wished to (but surely any human, or even God, would forgive that under the circumstances, which were horrific)
I have stolen food as a starving child, but since I began to have enough food (and since I was old enough to work for myself), I have never - and would never - steal anything. I don't really count the stealing I did as a child, but most people probably would.
I suppose I have committed adultery, not in the sense of cheating on my spouse, but in the sense of the premarital kind of sex.
I will lie, but not against someone else. I will bear false witness, but not against my neighbor.
I don't covet. I'm not jealous of anyone.
So, from a "liberal" approach (not counting things I did before I was really self-aware or able to make my own choices), I have committed 5. From a more conservative approach, I have committed 8.
But really, everyone has broken at least one at some point, right? The point is to be forgiven.
I think nowadays the commandments are de-emphasized, but then again there's a reason-modern society, like you pointed out, is somewhat "okay" with a lot of these things, and living in this world it's hard not to break some of them or atleast adjust to that mindset.
And even though out of good old-fashioned morality and as part of being more like God everyday it'd be wise to keep following the commandments, I wouldn't say it's an error to take the "Love God, Love others" so seriously--in today's environment I'd say that's probably the most important thing to do and an excellent base to build upon :)
@la_faerie_joyeuse@xanga - Your end comment is correct. The point is certainly forgiveness. Those of us who are Christians, though, should see a change in our behavior as God works in us through our Christian life. But we can find full, loving forgiveness for every mistake.
I think we don't de-emphasize them enough. Personally, I trust on Jesus' commandments which are repeated fairly consistent and made to all of us rather than the ones for a specific group of people at a specific time that is not consistent between the two times it is mentioned.