Day 62 – The Ten Commandments

Before you read the passages, get out a piece of paper and write down as many of the Ten Commandments that you can remember. Having bible passages in your head is really helpful, and whilst you won’t know them word-for-word, you should be able to have a good go at remembering most, if not all, of the commandments.

How many did you get?!

• Exodus is full of famous passages, and none more so than today’s giving of the ten commandments from God to His people. This is the start of “the Law”; a period from which God sets His people, these recently-freed Hebrews, apart from other nations with unique laws and expectations about how they to live, and how to relate to God and each other.
• One of the most important things to note today is what God says before He starts giving the commandments. It’s in Exodus 20:2. What does God remind the people that He has already done? Why is this important to bear in mind when considering the rules that were to follow?
• Each of the ten commandments is focused on either our relationship with God or our relationship with others. Go through each commandment and decide its focus.
• God spoke these words, and did so above the ongoing spectacle of the thunder and the lightning from the last chapter. Everyone would have been able to hear. Just imagine being there for a moment. Perhaps close your eyes for 30 seconds to do so. It would have blown their minds!
• What was the people’s collective response to God’s voice? Why would God tell the people to only build Him an altar from the earth, without altering or sculpting any of the stones? If you know this part of the bible well, you’ll know that even whilst this command was being given to Moses, the people at the bottom of the mountain were already making plans to create an idol – an image of a calf – from gold. We’ll read about that soon.
• The commandments are as important now as they ever were, even though we come to them with a slightly different lens now that we know the risen Lord Jesus. Romans 13:9 shows Paul focusing these commandments towards a call to love, but Jesus’ coming hasn’t changed these moral laws.
• Jesus talks about the commandments in Matthew 22:34-40 and sums them up, as Paul would later remind us, to “love God and love each other”. How can loving each other and God be linked to each of the commandments?
• What extra thoughts does James, in his practical letter about faith in action, provide about how we consider the commandments?
• Which commandment is hardest for you to obey? Why? Are there any you casually ignore?

These ten commandments, and some of the other Law that God gave, have formed the bedrock of much of the world’s morality and laws, even though many non-religious people might like to claim otherwise. It’s impossible to know what a world we might live in without them. They are vital in helping us put God first and others second… and both before ourselves.

Don’t forget that simply obeying the commandments isn’t the primary call of a Christian. Certainly he or she should – they are God’s laws and we are called to obey them – but don’t forget that in Jesus we have a gospel of grace, where our salvation is based not upon anything we do, but totally on what Jesus has already done for us on the cross. So following these commandments – and God’s other expectations regarding our conduct and choices – isn’t to build up a pot of brownie points or a checklist of good things to earn a ticket to heaven. Honour and obedience is a response to a loving and gracious God who has given us more than we could ever ask for and wants what is best for us.