Seriously, why the 10 commandments?
In light of this article I have to ask: what’s the big deal with the 10 Commandments?
Why do Christians obsess over this particular (and tiny) part of the Law? Why do large chunks of the Christian populace feel that taking down the 10 Commandments is a “war on Christianity”? Or that ignorance of the 10 Commandments is some sort of benchmark for holiness?
This line particularly struck me:
More Americans know the ingredients of McDonald’s Big Macs than they do the Ten Commandments. This would explain why American morals are going down and weight is going up.
Really? Is it really reasonable to expect that knowledge of the 10 commandments makes for moral people?
I guess I missed the big meeting about the 10 commandments. Because I’m honestly at a loss as to why this particular section of the law is treated as if it was the gospel.
October 10th, 2007 at 4:51 pm
If you desire to follow one part ofthe law, you are a debtor to the whole. There is a reason for the article, pride.
You would never find an article there that lamented “I should have witnessed to a store clerk today but I didn’t, I have repented”.
Instead you will find the author praising herself for reporting a clerk who did not treat her with the respect a capitalist should demand. And that store clerk probably didn’t know the Ten Commandments to boot!
October 10th, 2007 at 4:57 pm
Simply knowing the 10 Commandments won’t improve morality….but following them sure would.
And I think I am offended by the weight comment. I’m not fat…I’m big boned!
October 10th, 2007 at 5:10 pm
And here is the temptation. A long time ago I got rid of any TV in my home. And for two years I felt free to criticize everyone who had one. You understand what I mean?
Many times I am convicted of judging someone for doing something I used to do, or even do today. Pride must be the most vile sin under the sun, and we are most reflective of the devil when we are in pride. We all are weak and have no righteousness of our own, only his.
It is that self righteousness that so offends me that even if I agree with a persons or a blog’s perspective I cannot enjoy fellowship. Without exposing and confessing our own sins we cannot be redemptive in our correction of others, we are only fleshy in our comments.
And with all the serious problems we have in the church, people not knowing the ten commandments by rote is among the least, way behind the pride of some who know them!
October 10th, 2007 at 5:49 pm
As if other cultures without the tradition of the decalogue have no moral people or any sense of morality.
I didn’t know that anyone prided themselves on their knowledge of the McD’s menu…especially over and against the Bible.
But what a relief that things are going to “be quiet” on the Ingrid front for the next couple days. (According to her blog.)
If only such golden silence would prevail all the time.
October 10th, 2007 at 5:50 pm
next thing we’ll hear is it’s ungodly to eat at McD’s.
Those Chicken Selects must be emergent.
October 10th, 2007 at 6:58 pm
Deut 6:
4″Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
Lev 19:
18 You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.
Matthew 22:
34 But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36″Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38This is the great and first commandment. 39And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
Matthew 5:
17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. 19 Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
To love the Lord your takes in Ex 20:1-11
To love your neighbor as yourself takes in Ex 20:12-17
Ex 20:1-17 are the “big ten” in their entirety.
The Law has not passed away as all has not yet been accomplished, so iggy can spare me the preterist lecturing.
Interesting that Jesus quoted the OT when giving the greatest commandment. The “Sermon on the Mount” is Jesus’ exegeting the ten commandments
I say display the ten everywhere you can so that all may know which ones they are breaking. It won’t make the nation any better, but sin must be exceedingly sinful. What this blog needs is a good study in Romans.
Even in the laws of our nation ” ignorance of the law” is no excuse.
This follows off the fact that even when the law was not yet given, sin and death still reigned.
If the need for a savior is not preached then it is not the gospel that one is preaching.
In Navajoland, where I serve, the traditional Navajo has no need for a savior. The Dine’ language has no word for sin; the culture does not talk about blood, it is a taboo; they do not see the greatness of a God who sent His son to die. They actually view that as not very smart.
However a good friend of mine who is also a Mennonite learned the language and presents the Gospel by starting with Genesis and Exodus. Guess what; 99% of those that he approached this way came to Christ.
The Jesus is your buddy approach has more than likely been responsible for a majority of false conversions, just like the “sinners prayer” approach.
No one wants something that they do not need. Thank God for the law for without you have no need for Christ.
October 10th, 2007 at 7:04 pm
Chris P,
I agree with most of what you wrote, but none of that explains the attachment to the 10 commandments. In fact, all of the scriptures you quoted would be far better choices to obsess over than the 10 Commandments.
October 10th, 2007 at 7:11 pm
Pride is such a mircurial evil that exhibits such chameleonesque behavior that it can easily masquerade as good deeds while actually dishonoring God Himself. Motives are the arsenic that poisons much that we have become so adept into presenting as our success, illuminated against the darkness of other’s failures.
Our heart does not go out to lost people, it mocks their ignorance of the Ten Commandments. I find no Christ-like pathos in that type of observation that mocks a person who knows the Bog Mac ingrediants without knowing the Ten Commandments.
Let me take a guess, Ingrid knows the Ten Commandments, is not overweight, and is a good researcher about those who fall short in the catagories she has mastered. How wonderfully humble of you, the Bic Mac eating, chubby faced, ignorant little black kid born to a crack head in the ghetto wishes he was you.
Well done. It’s like placing a bet on the horse that won after the race had been run.
October 10th, 2007 at 7:24 pm
May I humbly ask what you have against the ten commandments?
May I also ask where in that article are overweight people mocked?
I think the author of that article was making a sort of comparison; sort of like saying more Americans recognize the “golden arches” more than they do the christian cross. I don’t think the author ever stated that the 10 commandments were the only verses in scripture to follow. The rest of the article seemed to be about a church book fair. So I’m sort of having a hard time understanding this article??
October 10th, 2007 at 7:32 pm
Merry,
The article cited was only done so as an illustration of Christians’ habitual elevation of the 10 commandments above other portions of the law. The only portion of it that is different from that is the assertion that simply knowing the 10 Commandments leads to a more moral person.
October 10th, 2007 at 8:05 pm
As for me and my house we post the Magna Carta in every room.
October 10th, 2007 at 8:33 pm
Not that it makes a person more moral or a better Christian than another, but I do think it’s sad that many people know more about wordly things than the Bible, e.g. the starting lineup for [insert favorite sports team here], etc.
October 10th, 2007 at 8:39 pm
Keith - I hope you are excluding Notre Dame because we are named after the Lord’s mother!
October 10th, 2007 at 8:43 pm
Rick: You are MORE moral because you were able to make a Biblical connection. We would also have to exclude the New Orleans Saints, St. Louis Cardinals, Los Angeles Dodgers to name a few. Hmmm.
October 10th, 2007 at 8:46 pm
Thank you Kith, we are the only sports team bold enough to display a mural of Jesus Himself. We are not ashamed!!
October 11th, 2007 at 12:26 pm
I think it’s really important for us to post the Ten Commandments, out of context, everywhere so that everybody knows them
1. Have no other God besides Jealous
2. Don’t make treaties with foriegners in your land because because you’re kids are going to end up as temple prostitutes.
3. Don’t cast Idols
4. Celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread
5. God calls dibbs on the first-borns.
6. Don’t go before God empty handed
7. Sabbath even during the plowing season
8. Celebrate the Feast of Weeks
9. God doesn’t want yeast in sacrifices
10. God wants your Firstfruits
Bonus: Don’t cook a Goat in it’s mother’s milk
(The Ten Commandments, Exodus 34)
Because everywhere I go it seems someone is boiling baby goats in their mother’s milk
October 11th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
if some folk understood the “plain meaning” of the text of Exodus 34 then we would see some interesting articles.
these are clearly agrarian rules. Paige Patterson’s “home economics” course is on to something!