Monday, April 17, 2017
544 - Command and Control
Spirituality
Column No. 544
April 18, 2017
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary
Broadly, I think American culture looks at the Ten Commandments as good advice.
Narrowly, only theft and in certain situations murder actually violate modern civil law. How one does or does not deal with God is a personal choice, as is murdering an unborn child. Idolatry is intellectually arcane. Capitalism largely laughs at observing the Sabbath. Envy and greed are “good”; accepted as cultural “get-aheads.” Whether bearing false witness – telling a lie – is wrong depends on who has the best attorney. Child protective services will intervene if your parents bug you (if they chose not to abort to start with). Adultery? Oh please … just get a no-fault divorce.
And yet there they still are, The Ten Commandments, represented in stone on the U.S. Supreme Court building and physically etched or displayed in countless courtrooms and public buildings across America. Everyone has heard of them, though few can recite them and fewer heed them. Check them out in Exodus 20:1-17 and Deuteronomy 5:6-21 in the Old Testament, or just Google “Ten Commandments.”
Interestingly, in the New Testament’s most succinct listing (Mark 10:19), the Rich Young Ruler parable ticks off the last six commandments, ignoring the first four about God. All 10 are scattered elsewhere, though “observing the Sabbath” is redefined because the person of Jesus became humanity’s Sabbath. But our central point is not what the Ten Commandments are, but what a “commandment” actually is.
Spoiler alert: Commandment doesn’t mean what most people think it means.
Once again, thanks to Bible teacher George Bebawi for a good perspective on this as we’ve recently been studying the “submission” section of Colossians 3. To wit, commandment doesn’t mean “have to” and “submission” doesn’t mean tyranny.
The best place to start is with the Romans: the empire, not the book. Much of how we today regard command, control, obedience, submission and punishment comes from the Roman legal model of 2,000 years ago. Follow the law or be punished. Fear the Emperor, his laws, his court and his army. Submit to Caesar or die.
God’s commandments, on the other hand, are about well-ordered life, not death. They are directions for how things work best both before God and in human society. The heart of the Hebrew word “Mitzvah,” translated “commandment,” much more deeply implies Godly opportunity, understanding and principles, not a threatening “or else.”
Our submission to God and others is to be a divine exercise in love and trust, not fear and tyranny. Look at how Jesus submits to God. Paul and Peter instruct wives to “submit to your husbands” and today’s feminist world glows with rage. Yet biblical submission is a shared life journey of love, fellowship, trust, help, responsibility, sanctity, family, faith, hope and freedom. Fallen people in a fallen world need to cooperate.
Before there were commandments there was love, and before fallenness there was perfection. The Good News? We can win it all back. It’s called victory in Jesus.
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) responds better to love than to commands.
April 18, 2017
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary
Command and Control
By
Bob WaltersBroadly, I think American culture looks at the Ten Commandments as good advice.
Narrowly, only theft and in certain situations murder actually violate modern civil law. How one does or does not deal with God is a personal choice, as is murdering an unborn child. Idolatry is intellectually arcane. Capitalism largely laughs at observing the Sabbath. Envy and greed are “good”; accepted as cultural “get-aheads.” Whether bearing false witness – telling a lie – is wrong depends on who has the best attorney. Child protective services will intervene if your parents bug you (if they chose not to abort to start with). Adultery? Oh please … just get a no-fault divorce.
And yet there they still are, The Ten Commandments, represented in stone on the U.S. Supreme Court building and physically etched or displayed in countless courtrooms and public buildings across America. Everyone has heard of them, though few can recite them and fewer heed them. Check them out in Exodus 20:1-17 and Deuteronomy 5:6-21 in the Old Testament, or just Google “Ten Commandments.”
Interestingly, in the New Testament’s most succinct listing (Mark 10:19), the Rich Young Ruler parable ticks off the last six commandments, ignoring the first four about God. All 10 are scattered elsewhere, though “observing the Sabbath” is redefined because the person of Jesus became humanity’s Sabbath. But our central point is not what the Ten Commandments are, but what a “commandment” actually is.
Spoiler alert: Commandment doesn’t mean what most people think it means.
Once again, thanks to Bible teacher George Bebawi for a good perspective on this as we’ve recently been studying the “submission” section of Colossians 3. To wit, commandment doesn’t mean “have to” and “submission” doesn’t mean tyranny.
The best place to start is with the Romans: the empire, not the book. Much of how we today regard command, control, obedience, submission and punishment comes from the Roman legal model of 2,000 years ago. Follow the law or be punished. Fear the Emperor, his laws, his court and his army. Submit to Caesar or die.
God’s commandments, on the other hand, are about well-ordered life, not death. They are directions for how things work best both before God and in human society. The heart of the Hebrew word “Mitzvah,” translated “commandment,” much more deeply implies Godly opportunity, understanding and principles, not a threatening “or else.”
Our submission to God and others is to be a divine exercise in love and trust, not fear and tyranny. Look at how Jesus submits to God. Paul and Peter instruct wives to “submit to your husbands” and today’s feminist world glows with rage. Yet biblical submission is a shared life journey of love, fellowship, trust, help, responsibility, sanctity, family, faith, hope and freedom. Fallen people in a fallen world need to cooperate.
Before there were commandments there was love, and before fallenness there was perfection. The Good News? We can win it all back. It’s called victory in Jesus.
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) responds better to love than to commands.
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