--One of the repeated themes I’ve been trying to communicate is the relationship between the Preamble or 0th Commandment to the rest of the ten.
--And in fact, I often think it would have been ideal for the Ten Commandments to each reiterate the preface before reading each new Commandment, as if it’s distributed to each of the individual commands. Like this:
--I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
--When we read it this way, we see that the root of perjury (and lying in general) is idolatry and a failure to consider who God is.
--If He can be counted upon to deliver us from all sorts of evil and bondage, then we should trust him in the way we communicate, to emulate Him in truthfulness and to trust His power to protect and provide for us rather than our own power to get what we want through deception.
--He will take revenge on evildoers (like the Egyptians) and so we do not need to take matters into our own hands (or mouths) by lying on the witness stand or anywhere else.
--At its root, lying is idolatry, placing either our own power to meet our needs above God’s or saying that what we really need is something we manufacture (like a legal result) rather than whatever God provides.
--And in fact, I often think it would have been ideal for the Ten Commandments to each reiterate the preface before reading each new Commandment, as if it’s distributed to each of the individual commands. Like this:
--I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
--When we read it this way, we see that the root of perjury (and lying in general) is idolatry and a failure to consider who God is.
--If He can be counted upon to deliver us from all sorts of evil and bondage, then we should trust him in the way we communicate, to emulate Him in truthfulness and to trust His power to protect and provide for us rather than our own power to get what we want through deception.
--He will take revenge on evildoers (like the Egyptians) and so we do not need to take matters into our own hands (or mouths) by lying on the witness stand or anywhere else.
--At its root, lying is idolatry, placing either our own power to meet our needs above God’s or saying that what we really need is something we manufacture (like a legal result) rather than whatever God provides.
No comments:
Post a Comment