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June 15 - July 27, 2023
Studying the Ten Commandments reveals the very heart of human rebellion: we don’t like God telling us what we can and cannot do.
By Jewish tradition, there are 613 laws in the Pentateuch. They all matter because they all teach us something about love for God and neighbor. But the 613 can be summarized by the Ten Commandments, which can in turn be summarized by two: love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself (see Matt. 22:37–40). Jesus certainly transforms the Ten Commandments, as we will see, but he never meant to abolish them (Matt. 5:17).
God gave the commandments that they might be obeyed—not to earn salvation but because of who we are, who God is in himself, who he is to us, where we are, and what he has done.
The commandments not only show us what God wants; they show us what God is like. They say something about his honor, his worth, and his majesty. They tell us what matters to God. We can’t disdain the law without disrespecting the Lawgiver.
The biblical definition of freedom is not “doing whatever you want.” Freedom is enjoying the benefits of doing what we should.
The Ten Commandments are not instructions on how to get out of Egypt. They are rules for a free people to stay free.
salvation is not the reward for obedience; salvation is the reason for obedience.
The most important aspect of our faith is not how hard we believe, but in whom we believe.
What was controversial, and what set the Israelites apart from the other nations, was that their God demanded to be worshiped alone, as the only God, to the exclusion of all others.
If the first commandment is against worshiping the wrong God, the second commandment is against worshiping God in the wrong way.
