To Know the Ten Commandments is to Know the Entire Scriptures

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The Old Testament lectionary text for the Second Sunday after Pentecost is Deuteronomy 5:12-15:

Observe the sabbath day and keep it holy, as the LORD your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God; you shall not do any work--you, or your son or your daughter, or your male or female slave, or your ox or your donkey, or any of your livestock, or the resident alien in your towns, so that your male and female slave may rest as well as you. Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the LORD your God commanded you to keep the sabbath day.

The Lord commands a people to worship him only after the Exodus; however, this covenant is a priori in the aim of God. The Book of Esdras professes plainly, “It was for us that you created the world.” The order is important.

Creation serves the covenant; the covenant does not serve creation.

Thus, even though the commandments come later at Mount Sinai they are a priori in the creative aim of God.

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