38. Beginner Bible Course: The Ten Commandments - God's "family rules"

E38  The simple Bible overview of…THE TEN COMMANDMENTS – GOD’S ‘FAMILY RULES’

I have a confession to make... I'm a coffee snob. I'm really fussy. The water has to be right. The coffee grounds premium. And I want it with real cream, for a guy who is so fussy about the product. You'd be shocked that the coffee maker I use, I got to for 12 bucks at a discount store, no frills, just an on-off switch and great coffee. There've been a number of times over the years that I've walked out of the house with the switch on only to return that evening with the house smelling of charred coffee and a glass pot with nothing but a tare black splotch at the bottom, that splotch was all that remained of my two or three remaining cups of coffee in Exodus chapter 20, God boils down his Family Rules for his kids into a splotch.

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This may well be the most known old Testament passage. The 10 commandments God's splotch. My students are required to learn them and you should know them to Family rule one. There's only one guide and I met. Don't try to make another, don't make yourself God this rule isn't for God's benefit. It's for ours. God's not biting his nails. That he'll be replaced, but he's deeply concerned of what happens when he is replaced as the center of our lives. Blaise Pascal said there's a God-shaped vacuum in every person that only God can fill that is can fill without damage. One guide children.

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And I met Family rule to no images of me. Don't carve them out of stone, but don't even get them in your mind. You children will draw stick figures of me. There'll be warped and twisted, insulting, actually, anything. I want you to know about how I look and act I'll reveal to you. So don't make things of how you think. I look okay. Rule three, hold my name. And honor. The name stood for the whole person. God has already revealed the number of names for himself. God who provides in Genesis 22. I am who I am in. Exodus three.

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There will be many more names. He'll give us to describe who he is and what he does. Hold those names. Who I am in honor. Don't twist them with profanity perhaps more. Don't use them for common. No good purposes. I tell my students, this can be tricky. We're so concerned about not saying the God swear words that we forget about using his name commonly or for no real purpose, like using his name at the end of every prayer, like a comma or saying God is behind our plans when they're not his decisions or plans at all. It's as if God is saying, how would you like someone to use your name as a comma or a profanity or say you told them to do that.

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You in fact never told them to do at all. Family rule. Number four, keep my seventh day. Holy observe it. On the days of creation, I made it. So you reconnect with me. You'd refresh your soul and you'd reconnect with yourself and others. This is necessary. Preventative maintenance. I built you. I know how you operate. And I made us for a relationship. Don't go 24, seven, shut down and reconnect. Family rule. Number five value you're mom and dad. I don't care how odd or broken they might be. They gave you life. They sacrificed to raise you. And there's something twisted in you.

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Their child treating them as if they're annoying, irrelevant, a barnacle slowing you down. Family rule number six, no murder. I often see advocates against capital punishment. Holding this commandment on a sign. It says, thou shalt not kill, but the Hebrew word is not kill it's murder. It's the taking of a life without justification. If this means the taking of any life, God himself breaks his own commandment. Number seven sex is to be exclusive. There's nothing casual or recreational about it. It's part of God's relational glue in a covenant relationship.

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Family rule number eight, do not steal. Yes. Keep your sticky little fingers off of other people's stuff, but also don't steal the credit for something you didn't do. Don't steal a position from someone else that you don't deserve. Don't steal honor influence a respect that you have in earned Family rule nine. Don't be a false witness. Loose lips may sink ships, but lying tongues, nuke lives. Maybe that's why God calls lying lips and abomination. Family rule. Number 10 is kind of a catchall. Don't covet. God knows where little magpies we loved to bring stuff.

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Pleasure, power back to our nests. We won't be satisfied with our lot in life. God says to his kids in the last Family rule, be content with your lot in life. My students are required to memorize these splotch Family Rules for tests. I tell them I'm going to give you some cheat codes. If you can't remember all 10 rules, I'll give you partial credit. If you remember the cheat codes, Jesus gives us the cheat codes pulling from Deuteronomy six in Leviticus, 19, Jesus says this, love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and your neighbor as yourself. Love the Lord, your God with everything you got that's commandments one through three.

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Love your neighbor as yourself. That's commandments five through 10 that's nine of 10 right there. I further tell my students, if you can't remember Jesus first cheat code. Remember his second cheat code. Jesus gives it to us in his sermon recorded in Luke six, he says this do wanting to others is you would have them do unto you dub the golden rule. This is the 10 commandments in its smallest splotch. If you are a Holy loving, all powerful God, how would you want your creatures to treat you? And in every situation, how would you want another person to treat you? God's splotch his 10 big rules for his kids.

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Now, what I'm about to say is really important. It's one thing to know God's rules, but it's also very important to know why he gave these 10 Family rules to us, his kids. What is their purpose? I'd estimate 95% of those who know his Rules get the purpose wrong. They believe God gave us these rules. So we'd know them, follow them. And we'd be better. Kids. Imagine with me for a moment, you get really sick. I mean, there's something wrong inside and it's getting worse. You get an appointment at the Mayo clinic and sit down with the physician who's been assigned to your case. She walks you through a battery of tests.

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You're going to be given. They're going to draw blood and put you through a series of machines through the ringer, as it were after an excruciating day of testing, you're invited back the next morning to meet with your physician in the room. She sits down with you. You ask what's next doc. She said, well, we're going to draw your blood and give you a battery of tests. You're a bit confused. But once again, you get put through the wringer and come back to the next morning for a consult. The next morning, she looks at you and says, we're going to draw your blood and put you through a series of tests. Exasperated, you go, doc, when are we going to move from test to see what's wrong to treatments to make me better.

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She says, let's draw your blood, put you through these tests and will meet in the morning to talk about it. Here's my point. 95% of people who read the 10 commandments. Believe it's a treatment plan to make us more healthy as God's children, but that's not its purpose. And that's not what it accomplishes. God's 10 Family. Rules our, the MRI to show us how sick we are. Let me repeat that. The 10 commandments or 10 Family Rules are not a prescription to make us better. It's a diagnostic tool to show us how sick we are inside. I applied this to my students.

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You're grumpy toward your parents. So you right honor your father and mother on a sticky note and posted on your bathroom mirror. God's purpose for that statement on that sticky note is not. So you'll focus on that statement and try to think of your parents in a better light or be a better kid. God's purpose in that statement is to get you to ask yourself what's wrong with me, that I would view my parents in this way. We'll come back to this again. Soon. Having given us God splotch, his 10 big Family Rules God in Exodus 21 through 23 gives some amazing practical daily Rules covering all areas for God's kids, interacting with each other.

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You'll love reading this. 90% of it is spot on. In fact, it's overwhelming deja VU from our own legal code in America. Common sense rules for kids dealing with each other across our planet at all times in all places, I have my students read those three chapters and take some notes. I say that on the quiz. I won't ask them to repeat those Rules but I do boil chapters 21 through 23 down into its own splotch statement to the right of Exodus in your old Testament. From the prophet, Micah carried along by God's spirit. He writes this, what does the Lord require of you, but to act justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your guide.

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That's the splotch. That's the Exodus 21 through 23 practical rules for daily living act justly. That's be fair. Love mercy. That's be kind walk humbly. Know your place, your not the center of the universe. Wow. What a great set of rules for God's kids. Please read them. I point my students to the last practical Family rule in chapter 23, it says this don't boil a kid goat in his mother's milk. What's up with boiled goat. Why would God possibly give this practical daily rule to his people?

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But I've got a suggestion. It's God's warning against becoming hard-hearted and calloused. Was it okay for them to eat goat? It absolutely was. That was one of the two meat entrees for the Passover. They were to eat it and eat it all. Is it okay to drink goat's milk? Absolutely. In fact, God describes the promised land as full of milk and honey. So is there something wrong with poached goat? Here's where the callousness enters milk is fine. Goat is fine, but don't take the milk of that. Goat's mother. What was meant to feed and nourish that goat and then use it as the broth to destroy that goat.

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God said, I will be your God. You will be my people. And we will dwell together. Just how is God going to do that? The children of Israel are now at Mount Sinai dwelling. Intense. Just how on earth is God going to dwell with them, maybe with his own tent. And we'll talk about that and our next wordpicture.