Household Rules
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In our Responsive Reading, we have already heard the Ten Commandments as found in the book of Exodus in their entirety, consequently I am only going to read from the opening verses of the Deuteronomy version for our Scripture lesson.
“ ‘I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
“ ‘You shall have no other gods before me.
“ ‘You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
May God bless this, the reading of His holy and infallible rule.
One of the aspects of the Ten Commandments that is often overlooked is that they come to us as Household Rules. This is seen in who is the primary object of these commandments. In other words, who is the “you”, in the Ten Commandments. The answer is found in four verses. Let me highlight them for you:
In vs. 3, God made a covenant with fathers.
In vs. 9, it is the sin of the father, not the mother, that is visited upon the children.
In vs. 14, the “you” is a person who owes livestock and servants. In the context of the ancient Near East, this would only be an adult male.
In vs. 21, the “you” is not to covet their neighbor’s wife. Again this is clearly an adult male.
Clearly, the “you” is the head of the household. What this means is that the Ten Commandments are Household Rules that are to govern covenant households. This does not mean that the Ten Commandments are not for every believer, but they are especially...
A Rule for the Head of the House
A Rule for the Head of the House
The husband is ordained by God as the head of the household. This is clearly seen in Ephesians 5:22-24:
Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
What does it mean for a husband to be the head of the home? Many fear this idea, imagining the husband acting like a tyrannical ruler. Lord Acton is famous for saying, “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” As we look over human history, we see so much abuse of power by those in authority, but have you ever thought of the fact that all the abuse we see is only the tip of the iceberg. Most abuses of power take place behind closed doors. This is true of government, this is true of business, and this is true of the home. God knows this is a problem better than we do. This is way He has placed within the Ten Commandments safeguards against abuse.
Together, these safeguards are summed up by one word—love. The Ten Commandments are…
A Rule of Love
A Rule of Love
When asked which of the Ten Commandments was the most important, Jesus answered:
“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
What is the number one fear that people have in affirming male leadership? Is it not the abuse of power? Lord Acton is famous for saying, “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” God knows this is a problem better than we do. The abuse of power we see is only the tip of the iceberg. How often have we said after learning a man or women has abused their power, “I would have never guessed they were like that?” God sees it all.
The first safeguard God places within the Ten Commandments is found in Deuteronomy 5:6:
“ ‘I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
What does God remind the men of Israel of? He reminds them that they were once the victims of tyranny and God in His grace and love rescued them from tyranny. The same is true for New Covenant believers as well. We were under the thumb of the worst of tyrants—the Devil! God is reminding men that in their households they are not to act like “mini Pharaohs”; quite the opposite, they are to act like “mini Christs”!
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,
This brings us to the second safeguard God places within the Ten Commandments—we are to look after the interests of others before we look after our own interests. Notice that each commandment begins by saying, “you shall” rather than “they shall”! The Ten Commandments are like a mirror, not a pair of binoculars. We are not to use them to look at other people to see where they are not meeting their obligation to us, but rather we are to use them to see how we are not meeting our obligations to others.
This truth is captured beautifully in Paul’s letter to the Philippians:
Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
Before I move on, I want to give you first a warning and then an encouragement in regards to the Ten Commandments.
The warning is this: This rule of love is impossible to fulfill unless we have been born again. The natural person cannot fulfill the demands of the Law, because our sinful nature will incite us to do just the opposite. Paul speaks of this in Romans 7:
What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead.
Here is the encouragement: Once we have been born again, the Ten Commandments are not difficult to understand. In fact, a child can understand and obey them. This brings us to the next point: The Ten Commandments are...
A Rule of Instruction
A Rule of Instruction
After giving the men of Israel the Ten Commandments, God said to them through Moses:
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.
Just because the Ten Commandments was directed primarily at men, does not mean it is not for women and children. The father as the spiritual head of the home is to teach his children to love and obey God just as he loves and obeys God. This is a big task, but God has given man a “helper”—women! Last week I spoke of the Creation Mandate we find in Genesis 1:28. From the rest of Scripture, it becomes clear that this mandate is not just to have lots of physical offspring, but lots of spiritual offspring! For example, in Malachi, we read these words:
And this second thing you do. You cover the Lord’s altar with tears, with weeping and groaning because he no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand. But you say, “Why does he not?” Because the Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth. “For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the Lord, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the Lord of hosts. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.”
Why does God hate divorce? God hates divorce because it hampers the producing of godly offspring. No child comes out of divorce unscathed, and one of the more ugly scares is that it hardened their hearts against God.
This being said let us return to the topic of instruction. How is a father, with the help of his wife to instruct their whole household in the Ten Commandments? For the answer, let us look again at Deut 6:4-9:
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
I am not going into this passage in depth today, we will do that at a latter time, but briefly, the Ten Commandments should be:
In Your Heart
On Your Lips
In Your Life
On Your House
In short, the truths taught in the Ten Commandments saturate your household. It becomes the air which you and your family breaths.
I hope and pray this gets you excited as we begin next Sunday to look at each of the Ten Commandments individually.