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The Ten Commandments

I thought this would be the most appropriate way to follow up on the Georgia guide stones post from earlier in the week. This is going to be the first of a ten part series examining the 10 commandments that have been given to us by God. This will be a different look at these “rules” that I think will give you a better understanding to God’s heart and a proper in sight to what we desires for us.

The world likes to make us think that God is boring and wants to inhibit us from having a good time. Nothing could more untrue. As I am going to demonstrate over the next ten posts every one of His Commandments only has our health, safety and well being at heart.

The Ten Commandments

1. I am The Lord your God, Who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before Me.
2. You shall not make for yourself a graven 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; 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 upon the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate Me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love Me and keep My Commandments.
3. 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.
4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labour, and do all your work; but the seventh day is a Sabbath to The Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your manservant, or your maidservant, or your cattle, or the sojourner who is within your gates; for in six days The Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day; therefore The Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.
5. Honour your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which The Lord your God gives you.
6. You shall not kill.
7. You shall not commit adultery.
8. You shall not steal.
9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.
10. You shall not covet your neighbour’s house; you shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or his manservant, or his maidservant, or his ox, or his ass, or anything that is your neighbour’s.

You can read them for yourself here in the Bible at biblegateway.org

Now down to business

I am going to go through these in reverse order, which will make sense on the last day of this series. The tenth commandment here tells us not to covet. So what does covet mean anyway?

Covet - verb (used with object)

1. to desire wrongfully, inordinately, or without due regard for the rights of others: to covet another’s property.
2. to wish for, esp. eagerly: He won the prize they all coveted.
3. to have an inordinate or wrongful desire.

What’s the point?
We live in a world ripe with materialism. The pursuits of many are based on what they can obtain for themselves. We are bombarded with advertising everyday telling us to buy this or that. All these wonderful things are supposed to make us happy and complete. With that message sewn into our brains we see people with this car, or that house or wearing such and such clothing, we get the impression that they are somehow better or more well of. We end up desiring those same material items.
It’s in that spirit that motives and hearts change. God is aware of this and wants us to have a defence against it. He knows we will burn ourselves out chasing things that in the end don’t satisfy, it only pushes us to pursue more.

The Balancing Act of Materialism

A world without coveting - not keeping up with the Joneses
I bet we would have far less debt in a covet free world. People wouldn’t unwisely spend money they don’t have on things they don’t need if there was no spirit of covetousness. I am thinking people by and large would work less as well, reducing stress, fatigue and increasing health and vitality. How much of work is done in the vanity of supporting the life styles we create for ourselves based on things the world shows us? I think that family relationships would be a lot healthier as well if we all worked less and spent more stress free time together. Everyday most people are forced to work more hours or take second jobs to keep their lifestyle going. I picture one of those comedic plate spinners frantically running around the stage trying to keep everything from falling apart. This commandment doesn’t just tell us to not covet stuff but also not to covet people. I will address this principle when I arrive at the adultery commandment.

But what about people that don’t have the basic needs for survival? Is it wrong for someone to covet food if they don’t have food? It certainly is not wrong for a person to desire the things they need to survive. In the New Testament Jesus is asked what is the greatest commandment. He responds by saying:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.

I contend that if those words were being followed that no one would go without the basic needs of life. No one wants to go hungry or without food and shelter. No one would let themselves go hungry if they had food to eat. So if you love someone like yourself and you see they are hungry, you would feed them, ending their need to covet food. Does this happen in our world? Not really. But it should, because it would be a better place.

God’s motivation here is not to tell us we can’t like things. It’s about where the motivation of our heart resides. Our purpose is not to be collectors of stuff or desire to heap onto ourselves everything we see. He wants us to be healthy, stress free and have good relationships with those around us. My advice to you is to guard your heart and your motives. In the end, as creator, everything belongs to God anyway.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 27th, 2009 at 6:32 am and is filed under let's talk Bible . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.