Law and Grace (11) Four Groups
The ten words fit into the following four groupings.
Follow God
1. You must only have one God.
The Israelites must stay loyal to the God, who had rescued them. He was committed to giving them even greater blessings, but they had to follow his angel into the land to receive them, and they had to organise themselves in his way, not Pharaoh’s way, to be able to keep on enjoying them.
2. Idols are out
3. The Lords name must not be misused.
These three words were also important for spiritual protection. They could not cast out demons, because Jesus had not yet died on the cross, so they had to avoid them. Worshipping idols would open them up to demons that would eventually destroy them. Using the names of gods to change things on earth releases demons. They would lose their blessing, if they allowed these things to happen.
Family and Tribe
5. Honour your parents
God was not creating a nation state. He was not perpetuating an empire/slave culture. Instead, he was creating a family/tribal culture, which was different from anything that existed in the world. Honouring parents and forefathers would strengthen this culture. Adultery would destroy it.
6. No adultery
Justice System
7. Stealing is a crime
God gave Israel a perfect justice system before they went into the land. It was different from anything they had seen in Egypt or in the surrounding nations. God’s justice system was encapsulated in three words. The first two were the main crimes. There is more information about how they should be handled in Exodus and Deuteronomy. False witnesses are dangerous, because they undermine the robustness of a justice system.
8. Killing is a crime (it includes assault).
9. No false witness
Economic System
10.No coveting
God gave the Israelites a new economic system, before they went into the new land. They would not have a slave system that they had experienced in Egypt, of a serf system that existed in most of the surrounding nations. God was giving them a system where they would could all own capital and be productive. Yet they could not respond to supply and demand with disregard for other people. If they took every opportunity to take whatever they could get from other people, they would destroy their economic system and lose their blessing. Coveting is the opposite of the giving and sharing on which this system is based. A day off at the end of the week, was one of the blessings that this economic system would produce.
4. Enjoy a rest on the seventh day.
Some of the implications of thse groupings in the Ten Words are described in more detail in the next four posts.
1 comment:
"God was giving them a system where they would could all own capital and be productive. Yet they could not respond to supply and demand with disregard for other people."
Housing bubbles are a good example of people responding to supply and demand with disregard for other people.
The world is worried about housing bubbles and their implication's on society. Land ownership concentrated in a small minority leads to feudalism and ultimately civil disorder as the imbalance is corrected.
In New Zealand, legislation is being considered to require a minimum percentage of a house's value to be in equity before a bank can approve a loan. If the percentage is too high then potential first time homeowners will be unable to save for a deposit.
In China, each family was only allowed to have one family home before punitive taxes were applied. Couples arranged sham divorces in large numbers so that they could game the law.
Other countries have been more effective but their measures sparked a wave of emigration.
Housing inflation is concentrating land ownership in the hands of a privileged few. Can this be God's intent?
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