10 WORDS (EXODUS 20:1-21)
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THIS MORNING WE WANT TO LOOK AT THE 10 COMMANDMENTS FOR A BIG PICTURE PERSPECTIVE. LET’S START BY READING THE WHOLE TEXT.
1 And God spoke all these words, saying, 2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 3 “You shall have no other gods before me. 4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. 7 “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. 8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. 12 “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. 13 “You shall not murder. 14 “You shall not commit adultery. 15 “You shall not steal. 16 “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. 17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.” 18 Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled, and they stood far off 19 and said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die.” 20 Moses said to the people, “Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin.” 21 The people stood far off, while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was.
WOULD IT SURPRISE YOU IF THE 10 COMMANDMENTS ARE NEVER CALLED THE 10 COMMANDMENTS?
10 COMMANDMENTS = aseret ha-devarim (“ten words”) instead of ʿasereth hamitsvot (“ten commandments”)
The Jews of ancient Alexandria in Egypt translated literally into Greek as deka logoi.
This gave rise to the more accurate English alternative DECALOGUE = DECA (10) lOGOS (WORD)
27 And the Lord said to Moses, “Write these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.” 28 So he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights. He neither ate bread nor drank water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.
WHAT ARE THE 10 WORDS?
REMEMBER: CONCEPTUAL BIG PICTURE - THE FOREST NOT THE TREES SERMON.
CONTEXT: YHWH IS MAKING COVENANT WITH HIS PEOPLE!
REMEMBER A COVENANT DEFINES THE NATURE AND SCOPE OF A RELATIONSHIP.
1 And God spoke all these words, saying, 2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 3 “You shall have no other gods before me.
YHWH IS MAKING COVENANT WITH THE PEOPLE.
Historically it is the first and only example of a covenantal relationship between a deity and an entire people. (sarna)
Follows the form of an Hittite suzerain-vassal treaty which is to be culturally expected but it is unique!
Such a claim is sometimes called a “hesed relationship,” from the Hebrew/Semitic concept of ḥesed, or “loyalty required in response to loyalty shown.
The 10 Words are simple, absolute and devoid of qualification.
Because the Ten Commandments are given by God, they are absolute. People can and should argue about how to apply any of these commandments in any given situation—such as what constitutes a violation of the Sabbath, what constitutes disrespect for a parent, or when taking a human life is to be defined as murder. But because they are decrees from God, only those types of debates make sense, not debates about whether they are binding. (Prager)
CONTRARY TO OUR RELATIVISTIC CULTURE
It’s not often I quote Adolf Hitler but:
“The day will come when I shall hold up against these commandments the tables of a new law. And history will recognize our movement as the great battle for humanity's liberation, a liberation from the curse of Mount Sinai, from the dark stammerings of nomads who could no more trust their own sound instincts, who could understand the divine only in the form of a tyrant who orders one to do the very things one doesn't like. This is what we are fighting against: the masochistic spirit of self-torment, the curse of so-called morals, idolized to protect the weak from the strong in the face of immortal law of battle, the great law of divine nature. Against the so-called ten commandments, against them we are fighting.”
10 WORDS DEFINE THE COVENANT RELATIONSHIP
10 WORDS DICTATE CHARACTER REFLECTION
DICTATE HOW WE BEHAVE WITH GOD AS INDIVIDUALS AND HOW WE BEHAVE WITH OTHER INDIVIDUALS
THE "YOU" IS SINGULAR NOT THE EXPECTED PLURAL.
WHY WOULD GOD WANT THE ISRAELITES CHARACTER TO BE SHAPED IN A CERTAIN WAY?
THE OPENING STATEMENT ESTABLISHES GOD'S RIGHT TO DEMAN OBEDIENCE OF THE PEOPLE AND YET GOD DEMANDS NOTHING FOR HIMSELF.
KINGDOM OF PRIESTS - THEIR CALLING DICTATES THEIR CHARACTER.
THEIR CHARACTER (BEHAVIOR) IS TO BE A REFLECTION OF THEIR COVENANT.
THE LAW WAS NOT GIVEN FOR SALVATION IT WAS A SIGN OF SALVATION.
THESE WORDS WERE RELATIONAL EXPECTATIONS THAT DON'T PRECLUDE OR EXCLUDE THE NECESSITY OF FAITH.
MORE OF THIS NEXT WEEK BUT FOR NOW...
MODERN CARICATURE: NOW IT I OBEY THE LAW I EARN SOMETHING - GOD IS IN MY DEBT.
GOD IS NEVER IN YOUR DEBT!
IF YOU LIVE THIS WAY IT SHOWS THAT YOU BELIEVE THAT YHWH IS YOUR GOD - THE GOD THAT HAS ALREADY SAVED YOU!
THIS IS HOW YOU FUNCTION AS A KINGDOM OF PRIESTS. YOUR FAITH IS DEMONSTRATED IN YOUR OBEDIENCE.
THE SAME IS TRUE FOR US.
6 But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. 7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second. 8 For he finds fault with them when he says: “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, 9 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. For they did not continue in my covenant, and so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord. 10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 11 And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. 12 For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.” 13 In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.
15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.
22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. 23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. 24 For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. 25 But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.