I have been reading the Bible front the beginning and have settled on a chapter a day pace. I wanted to read it quickly and see how things jump out at me since I last read it through, but I realized quickly, many, many things are jumping out. Earlier this year, I read the ten commandments and the detail in the first few really stood out.
Exodus 20:1-17
1And God spoke all these words:
2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
3 “You shall have no other gods before[a] me.
4 “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.
7 “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.
8 “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping 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, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
12 “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land 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 give false testimony against your neighbor.
17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”
I always wondered how, if there was only one God, that someone could have other gods before Him. Having grown up in a Christian home, it just never made sense. I still think of only God as any kind of deity and everything else as a figment of someone’s imagination. I saw the Figment character at some Disney excursion and while I know nothing of it, I do like the concept the word represents. I used to want to do a piece about only it, but the drive seems to have slipped my mind.
So idol is something I could understand. It was something we made that we elevated above its real place in the scheme of things. We could make a statue (or the French could), we could place it in a harbor, and we could raise it up to be something we treasured. I like the statue of liberty, but I think of it as an idol that takes away from the drive to maintain liberty for the people. Liberty is something to be treasured, not a statue.
One thing I gathered from art history was that at some point in time the church forbid people from making images of all kinds of things. The one idea I remember most was that no one was to make an image of God Himself. It did not stop anyone from making innumerable images of Jesus, but there are not too many images of God the Father out there in the art world relatively speaking. In the end I think back to Jacob’s wife stealing the “gods” from her father. These “idols” were a big deal to them, but just trash to me. I could see how stupid it was to worship a little clay figure, but never got my head around the use of the cross and how it fits with in this commandment.
I do like that God shows love to a thousand generations of those who love Him and follow His commandments. Following his commands is a great investment for your descendants.
Misusing the name of the Lord is an update on not taking His name in vain and puts a bigger context to it. Many, many, people use the Lord’s name in vain and the tolerance for it in the world today is not pleasing. I always wondered how the swearing to God with your hand on the Bible fit into this commandment. I gathered that telling the truth was enough and swearing to God was not needed and maybe not acceptable. I have yet to testify, so its still theoretical, but maybe someday I will need to figure this out. The possibilities for misusing God’s name are endless and it was probably a good idea when the Jews decided not to say His name out loud at all.
Remember the Sabbath. The amount of detail here is a reminder from the other day when I wrote about getting rest. I remember not being able to buy toys at the grocery stores on Sunday as a kid. I like the aspects of Hobby Lobby and Chick Fil A being close on Sunday, but we each can decide to not shop on Sunday and accomplish the same thing in our own lives.
Since my parents have both passed, I do not know what to say about number 5 anymore.
Murder, adultery, stealing, and false testimony are also topics to pass on this go around.
The level of detail in covet has always had a soft spot in my heart as I never understood the meaning of the word as a youngster. I always had to look up the definition to make sure I knew what it meant. I figured it out at some point, but I like the breadth of the examples from houses, to spouses, to servants, to things. The remaining gap of course is how to know when wanting something is acceptable and when it crosses to coveting. I want a 911 and having one is acceptable. Wanting the blue turbo that Fred has would be little much unless you were going to buy it and Fred was willing to sell it. There is a line there somewhere.
A short run down memory lane and a little more appreciation for the depth included in the “simple” ten commandments. The ten commandments have a huge place in our society even as “they” try to push them out of the court system. The laws that God handed down to Moses and that Moses wrote down into the Bible are sometimes simple and sometimes befuddling, but they give a picture of how God created the intent of society to work. It was never intended to work without HIm and 40% of the ten commandments is about only HIm. In every analysis of what the world could or should look like, the reality is that without God, people do evil and any society has to take this into account.