Perhaps one of the most iconic Biblical texts is Moses receiving the 10 Commandments during the 40 year wandering of the Israelites. This story has been made into movies, carved into stone monuments, painted on canvases which hang proudly in churches and some municipal buildings. The 10 Commandments serve as a guide to some and a challenge to others. They tell us what is expected of us as people of God. They provide some hard boundaries for our relationship with God and with others. We teach them to our children in hopes that they will live their lives in relation to these everlasting commandments.
What are your thoughts on the Ten Commandments? How do you see them? Are they friend or foe? Do you appreciate that they are mostly written as series of don'ts? Would you have preferred they be written in a positive manner? Can you recite them? Maybe the most important question for you and I is, “Do they have an impact on our relationship with God and others?”
This Sunday during Traditional Worship I will share some thoughts about how we might see these boundary-setting divine vocalizations from God’s mouth to Moses’ ears, inscribed by the finger of God, as our friends. Never meant to be seen as adversarial and always to be a way of life, the Ten Commandments hold the key to a lifetime of loving relationships with God and others.