Day 13, Mon. 26th Feb., Exodus 20.1-17

People who spend a lot of time with the Bible develop our own "canon" of Scripture, our own selection of favourite texts. Many people  have heard of John 3.16, "For God so loved the world...", and 1st Corinthians 13, the famous "Love is" chapter. The very first words of the Hebrew Scriptures (aka the Old Testament) might be familiar: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth..." And then there are the Ten Commandments. Most of us probably don't know the "Decalogue" off by heart, but we'd probably remember at least two or three of the commandments.

I find the first 3 or 4 commandments about relating to God a bit difficult to distinguish from each other. The first is in verse 3. It's God's claim on primacy in his people's lives. The second follows from it: the Israelites may neither make nor worship idols. And the third is a prohibition on misusing God's name. 

Prohibitions, prohibitions! I thought they'd tried Prohibition in the US and it didn't work. When the sale of alcohol was made illegal people made and sold it surreptitiously. Worse, the manufacture and sale of liquor was then controlled by criminal gangs, rather than by the government. Exactly the same arguments used then are used today over whether to legalise the sale of drugs, particularly marijhuana.

Religion used to be derided as "prohibitionist". Cardinal Gilroy was nicknamed "Cardinal Kill Joy". During the period of my life when I was trying very hard NOT to obey God's Call to ordained ministry there was an ad on TV for Arnotts biscuits. He was my worst preconception of a minister - pallid, balding, with a dog collar half-choking his scrawny neck, and clearly wanting an Arnotts biscuit, but equally clearly considering this to be sinful. I really hope that no one is taking the invitation to engage in Lenten discipline to be a form of prohibitionism! And though I'm trying to limit my intake of sugar, I really enjoy an Arnotts biscuit or three after morning worship!

For in fact the Ten Commandments are for our good. Just as God placed only one prohibition upon Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, the Decalogue's famous negativity, couched in the form "Thou shalt not", functions to maximise what we may do. It is ironic that their reputation is so negative. For if God has created humans as worshipping beings, whose object of worship is meant to be God, when we worship idols, or the occult spirits behind the idols, we do ourselves great damage.

Then come two positively couched commandments. Keep the Sabbath. This is not just a psychologically good idea. Jurgen Moltmann considers the Sabbath, not the human, to be the crown of creation. And honour your parents. And a concluding series of "Thou shalt nots". These are prohibitions of fundamental importance; they stand against murder, adultery, theft, false witness and coveting.

But once again, they leave much that we can do.






Comments

  1. Von26 February 2018 at 14:28

    I'ver copied and pasted the following from an email from Wendell Rumbel:

    Keep up the riding David and those Biscuits will give you energy to go further.

    I was reading text last night and was surprised that the 10 commandments weren’t just a list. It’s not a part of scripture I remember reading often so I had a recollection of them being like the tablets five down one side and five on the other side.

    One of the thoughts that I was wrestling with was the comments on God(s). We believe there is only one God, in saying you shall not worship other Gods is God saying there are others? I have pondered this notion for a while, is there only one God and ‘man’ has put different titles on it? Or have all the other religions created false Gods and their actions are abhorrent to God? My limited religious readings dismisses those religions that take the words of one person as being the words of God. We are blessed in finding so many prophets and Jesus as the Word(s) of God.

    I’m happy for you to paste this as a comment on the Blog, I tried last week and I don’t think it worked.

    ReplyDelete

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