by C.J. Chase |
Recently, my
Sunday School class has been working its way through a study of Exodus. When we
reached the part about the Ten Commandments, I thought, “Oh, easy stuff. After
all, I had a proper upbringing.” In the society where I grew up, kids memorized
the Ten Commandments by fourth grade. Since the congregation read the entire
Ten Commandments passage (Exodus 20:1-17) each month in church, and we were
only expected to know the “abridged” version of each commandment when it came
time to recite them in front of the church (yes, really), it was actually a pretty
easy assignment. See what I mean about a proper upbringing?
But there is a
danger to those things that roll off the tongue so easily. (Yes, I can still
recite the full version of the Ten Commandments—in the King James Version, of
course.) We often don’t stop to think about what we are saying. (I’ve found I
often have much the same problem with familiar music. I sing merrily along
without really thinking about what I’m saying.)
Rather than just
coast on memory, I decided to do a little outside-the-curriculum research with
The Heidelberg Catechism: A Study Guide. A little rabbit trail for those who say, “The what?” Catechisms are a
method some churches use to teach the Christian faith. They have a
question-answer format with footnotes that point to supporting passages in the
Bible. You may have heard of the Westminster Catechism and it’s
Question-and-Answer 1: “What is the
chief end of man? Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him
forever.” (I love that one. Concise, yet so incredibly profound. I need to get
out of my rote mode and just meditate on that for a few moments.)
Though about 100
years older than the Westminster Catechism, the Heidelberg is perhaps less familiar.
It is arranged in three sections: sin and misery (recognizing that we are all
sinners), deliverance (how God made a way to redeem us), and gratitude (how we
should live a life of gratitude for our redemption). Pretty universal stuff for
Christians.
Christians look
upon the Old Testament commandments and law as God’s mirror. Paul tells us “I
would not have known sin except through the law.” (from Romans 7:7 NKJ). The
law exists to show us that we are sinners. It’s the impossible standard of an
all-holy God that reflects our faults back to us, demonstrating that we can
never be perfect.
Not that people
haven’t tried. The religious leaders of Jesus’ day had made a cottage industry
out of interpreting the commandments. For example, take the fourth commandment
(Sabbath observance for those who didn’t have such a proper upbringing). From
one commandment, they devised hundreds of rules to cover every contingency of
what might, or might not, constitute breaking the Sabbath. Unfortunately for
them, they were so concerned with minutia (and catching Jesus breaking a
commandment) that they missed the big picture.
Being someone predisposed
to legalism who had a proper upbringing, I understand the temptation to
live by a defined set of rules. It’s easy. It doesn’t require a lot of thought,
just a lot of memorizing and rote behavior. It doesn’t require looking at the
big picture, just focusing on hundreds or thousands of little details. But no
matter how hard one tries, the hundreds of little pieces will never add up to a
perfect whole.
After the
Israelites built the Ark of the Covenant, they placed the stone tablets
containing the Ten Commandments inside—under the Mercy Seat. Even then God was
giving them a picture of salvation. Only God’s mercy makes us righteous.
When a lawyer
asked Jesus to name the greatest commandment (another attempt to ensnare him),
he cleverly skipped over the Big Ten and answered with the Top Two.
Jesus
said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with
all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
This
is the first and great commandment.
And
the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
On
these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. (Matthew 22:37-40
KJV)
If you look at
the Ten Commandments, they easily divide into two parts: what we owe God
(Commandments 1-4) and what we owe our fellow man (Commandments 5-10). Some
even suggest that the two tablets could have been arranged as such, with the
first four on one tablet and the remaining six on the other. Interestingly, in
my search for pictures for this post, I discovered the movie The Ten
Commandments has them arranged this way.
But my re-look
at this so-familiar passage revealed a subtle difference I’d never thought
about before. Jesus doesn’t just summarize the commandments when he quotes
these two passages from the Law; he tells us the greatest (and second greatest)
commandment is to go above and beyond the Ten Commandments. It’s not enough to
just obey the commandments—we have to do so out of our love for God and others.
Love. It’s what
was so lacking from the Pharisees catalog of rules, what becomes so easily
neglected when we fall back on legalism.
Earlier I
mentioned I had looked to the Heidelberg Catechism to gain some new insights
into a familiar passage. The writers of the catechism put their instruction on
the Ten Commandments in the last portion of the work, in the section called
“Gratitude.” The rationale is that our
good works should be motivated by our gratitude for God’s grace and our love
for him. In fact, Paul tells us in I Corinthians 13 that all our good deeds are
worthless without love.
By the way, did
you remember what we celebrate tomorrow? Bet you weren’t thinking that a post
about the commandments could contain a Valentine theme.
After
leaving the corporate world to stay home with her children, C.J. Chase
quickly learned she did not possess the housekeeping gene. She decided
writing might provide the perfect excuse for letting the dust bunnies
accumulate under the furniture. Her procrastination, er, hard work paid
off in 2010 when she won the Golden Heart for Best Inspirational
Manuscript and sold the novel to Love Inspired Historicals. Her current release, The Reluctant Earl, is now available in online bookstores. You can visit C.J.'s cyber-home (where the floors are always clean) at www.cjchasebooks.com
Wonderful post, C.J.! Thank you! Love is what keeps us in balance so we aren't bound up in legalism and yet aren't running off doing whatever our flesh wants with no consideration of God or others. So simple, yet so true!
ReplyDeleteSo simple Niki -- but so difficult. (Well, for me, at least.) It does seem like the big division in US Christianity is that we lean too far one way or the other.
DeleteMy pastor repeats this on occasion. The law is a thermometer. It tells you if you are running hot or cold but can't change you. Only grace (God's love) allows us to change to be like Him. Not by our hard work.
ReplyDeleteI remember being quite amazed by that movie. I suppose many of us grew up to imagine our Bible through the Hollywood model. (Jesus looked like Jeffrey Hunter, Moses looked like Charleston Heston)
I get just a tiny bit better about using love rather than law, each year. thanks C.J.!
Deb, at least your Hollywood Bible models date from a time when the movies were watchable.
DeleteOf course, my kids think Bible characters look like singing vegetables.
Thanks CJ, I never thought of the commandments being 2 parts, but it makes sense.
ReplyDeleteI watched The Ten Commandments as a child, and believe Charleston Heston was also in Ben Hur, but what was Jeffrey Hunter in?
I had to look it up too, Anita. Wiki says Jeffery Hunter played the role of Jesus in King of Kings.
DeleteI don't think I've ever seen that one.
Yul Brenner will always be Pharaoh to me. He made that part.
Jesus' messages was and still is so radical isn't it? Thanks CJ for the reminder.
ReplyDeleteI think that's why it can be so difficult, Lisa. It's not a nice, clean set of rules like a checklist we can use to measure our progress. It's so simple, our human nature rebels against it.
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