The Ten Commandments.  Those three words have been the source of humor, anger, consternation and questions.  Of course, if there is a God, He must have the right to tell us what to do.  But is that what this part of the Bible is really about?  Or could it be that we have misunderstood God’s intent?

The first thing to understand is that a command in most languages, including both English and Hebrew (the original language of the Old Testament), is given in what is called the imperative voice.  In English we usually omit the second person pronoun (you) and put an exclamation point at the end: Don’t do that!  But in the original the ten “sayings” are not in the imperative voice.  Rather, they are in the indicative, the voice of simple statement.  And, they are in the future tense.  What does this mean?  Just that what God is doing here is much more than just giving commands to the human race.  Rather, he is describing what the good life looks like to those who choose to enter into relationship with Him.  You see, God knows that telling people what to do is just a way to make them want to do the opposite.  The Apostle Paul understood this when he said that the law just raised the desire to do what it forbade.  But I believe that what God was really doing in Exodus chapter 20 was telling His people how to live if they wanted all of the blessings that life in relationship with Him brought.

You see, God knows that our natural desires are not always for our benefit.  So He gave to Moses ten areas where people have a particular tendency to mess up, beginning with their relationship with God and continuing with their relationships with each other.  Now, I won’t go over each commandment in this blog, but when you look at it that way, you can see just how important these sayings are.  Let me give just one example.  God begins by telling us that those who enter in relationship with Him do not worship any other Gods.  Why?  Well, for two very basic reasons.  First, because you are in relationship with Him – why would you worship any other God?  Wouldn’t that have a tendency to break relationship with Him?  But much more important than that is the simple fact that there are no other gods!  To spend time trying to relate to a non-existent god is the very definition of a waste of time!  And if you can’t see that, then you don’t know God!  And so you don’t have a relationship with Him.  So, the saying doesn’t apply to you yet – you need to meet the one true God who sent His own Son to live and die for you before you are ready for this or any of the other sayings.

I challenge you, then, with that in mind, to revisit the “ten commandments,” and see if they don’t begin to make a whole lot more sense!

 

Pastor Ken