Today we begin Exodus Chapter 20.
For the Complete Jewish Bible, click here.
For the King James Bible, click here.
Today we are going to begin that section of the Torah known in scholarly and theological circles as the “Decalogue” or more commonly known as “the 10 Commandments”.
Now I need to give you a fair warning here.
If you are an evangelical Christian, you are about to have some of your assumptions about this part of the Bible seriously challenged.
Everything you thought you knew about the purpose and function of the 10 Commandments is about to be turned upside down.
Some of what you are going to read will be quite controversial as I attempt to untangle centuries of man-made doctrinal error from God’s plain Scriptural truth.
So let’s prayerfully get started on this section of the Bible that has been the pillar of the Christian church for centuries.
First, the 10 Commandments are the BEGINNING of the “giving of the Law”.
Immediately after receiving these first 10 “Laws”, Moses will receive more commands from God.
All of these laws put together form what is known as “the Covenant of Moses”, “the Mosaic Covenant” or “the Sinaitic Covenant”.
However, the Christian church calls the Mosaic Covenant the “Old Covenant” or the “Old Testament”.
Now right here is where I think the problem begins.
When we refer to the Mosaic Covenant as the Old Covenant it gives the impression that there are only two covenants in the Bible.
Hence the terms “Old Testament” and “New Testament”.
However, if we go by this reasoning, it leaves out the Covenant of Abraham which is six centuries OLDER than what Christians call the OLD covenant.
It bears repeating that all three of these covenants were created to stand alone, but at the same time are also organically linked to each other.
You just can’t just take one of these covenants and throw it in the trash without it affecting the other two covenants.
I reiterate.
All of God’s covenants are organically connected!
And by the way, outside of the three Biblical covenants of Abraham, Moses, and Yeshua, I am well aware that God made “pronouncements” to mankind before Abraham such as to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and to Noah about promising to never destroy the world by flood again.
Some teachers also refer to these pronouncements as covenants, but for purposes of this discussion, when I refer to God’s covenants, it will mean I am only talking about one of the covenants of Abraham, Moses, and Yeshua.
Now one commonality between God’s covenants is that they each have a God-ordained associated sign attached to them.
The sign for the Abrahamic Covenant was circumcision for all males.
The sign of the Covenant of Moses is the observance of God’s ordained 7th day Sabbath or SHABBAT.
The sign of the Covenant of Yeshua is the Holy Spirit.
Notice the progression.
The sign of the first covenant is in the flesh, a physical sign that you wear on your body.
The sign of the second covenant is in the soul referring to both your mind and will to be obedient to God in observing His commands.
The sign of the third covenant is in the spirit, referring to God’s Holy Spirit being placed alongside your human spirit and gives you the power and desire to want to obey God’s commands.
Metaphorically speaking, it is the Torah of Moses being written on your heart.
I’m going to close here but before I do I want to ask you a few questions that are going to be very pertinent to our discussion of the 10 Commandments moving forward.
Do you believe the 10 Commandments are valid and God’s Word to His people?
How many of these 10 Commandments do you feel the church should obey?
Do you think it’s okay to pick and choose which of these commandments we should obey and which are okay to disregard?
To be continued.
The Ten Com mandments are commandments, not suggestions. We are supposed to follow all of them. They are as valid now as th ey were when God etched them with his finger on the tablets He gave to Moses. All of God’s words are timeless.
I’ve already addressed this a million times over the last couple of days.
But here we go again.
The Hebrew word typically (and mistakenly) translated into “commandment” is DABAR.
And DABAR means “word”!
NOTHING about the word DABAR indicates that it is a command.
No two ways (or any way) around it!
And actually, the Greek translation of the Hebrew is right on.
“DECALOGUE” indeed means “10 words”.
The title “The Ten Commandments” is itself not only made up and NEVER appears in the Bible,
but the word “command” or “commandments” also never appears regarding these instructions.