The Ten Commandments

The Decalogue

Can anyone share one of the Ten Commandments? I challenge you to come up to the whiteboard and write one down.

The term, “The Ten Commandments" is a bit of a misnomer.

· The way the bible puts it is “The Words” of God.

§ The reason I’m making the distinction between, commands and words, is because that is how the bible puts it.

§ So why commandments then?

§ Where did this terminology come from?

· When you look through church history you will see

· From the first century the church has been calling it the 10 words, or the 10 statements.

§ The idea is more of, these, as a whole, are not really “Commandments" so much as they are principles, or a guide for how the law will look.

§ All the laws will be in line with the 10 Words.

§ You could think of the 10 words as being the governing principles that would be the lens for the rest of the law, just like our Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights are the governing principles for all of American Law.

· And it is for that reason, amongst others, that even still within the first century, you have people like Philo of Alexandria actually calling it the Ten Commandments.

§ Even Paul, when writing about the 2nd portion of the Decalogue seems to be calling them laws and commands.

§ And Jesus even uses the term Law, when He is expounding upon the 2nd portion of the Decalogue.

· Or when He is asked, what is the greatest command, His answer is a summary of the first portion of the Decalogue, and He gives the second greatest command as being a summary of the second portion of the Decalogue.

· But the Decalogue as a whole wouldn’t be called “The Ten Commandments” until the late 2nd century, early 3rd century, when Origen coins the entire Decalogue as such.

§ And that would be the main reason for the changing of the common understanding amongst the people.

§ Because it is through his writings that this way of understanding is brought down into other languages.

§ But it isn’t without debate, even though the main understanding of the Decalogue is the “Ten Commandments.”

· In all fairness, you may be asking yourself, “Why does this really matter all that much what we decide to call it?”

· I would say it’s important because, while these 10 Words from God can legitimately be seen, and should be seen as commands, because they are. They should also be seen as the governing principles for God’s law, no matter what Covenant you are talking about, save one of those commands.

· Nine out of these ten Commandments are used to judge, not only Israel, but all the Nations and people as individuals.

§ Over and over again, through the Hebrew text, you will see nations being judged by God for breaking some, or all, of the 9, out of the 10 Commandments.

· Can anyone name what command, out of the 10, I’m referring to?

§ The Sabath

· And all 10 of these commands break down into two, just like Jesus says.

§ Love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your strength.

§ And love your neighbor as yourself.

§ For all the law hangs on these two.

· And to be perfectly honest with you, I’m not sure why the count is only 10.

§ After all, the bible doesn’t say the exact number of words.

§ By my count it seems as though maybe there are 15.

1. I am Yahweh your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of slavery.

2. You shall have no other God’s besides me.

3. You shall not make an idol, or any graven image and worship it.

4. You shall not take Yahweh's name in vain.

5. Remember the Sabbath day and keep it Holy.

6. Honor your Father and Mother.

7. You shall not murder.

8. You shall not commit adultery.

9. You shall not steal.

10. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

11. You shall not covet your neighbor's house.

12. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife.

13. You shall not covet your neighbor's male or female slave.

14. You shall not covet your neighbor’s cattle.

15. You shall not covet anything your neighbor owns.

· So why 10 when it seems as though it could be counted as 15?

· I could see putting your neighbors house, slave, cattle, or anything your neighbor owns as one command.

· Which would bring the number down to 12.

· If you are strictly seeing these as commands, you would take out the, “I am Yahweh” statement.

· Which would bring it down to 11.

· The only way to get to 10 from here, would be to lump your neighbor’s wife into the other things you shouldn’t covet about your neighbor.

· And in my opinion, it seems a little inappropriate.

· What do you think?

· Is it appropriate to lump all of the, “You shall not covet” statements into one?

· Is it appropriate to lose the, “I am Yahweh” statement?

·

· The Words are often counted differently depending on which group you are talking about and what philosophy is being used to count.

· For instance, the Jews count “I am Yahweh" is counted as the first word.

· Where as the reformers did not count it as the first word, but instead they viewed it as the header for the rest of the Commandments.