Christian use of the Ten Commandments What then are Christians supposed to do with the Ten Commandments? Can we approach it as Scripture inspired by God, “useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16)? Yes – we should approach it exactly as it is written – as a report of what God gave his people in the time of Moses. We read it as a story first, before jumping to conclusions that we are supposed to obey every command within it. When we read in Genesis 17 that the males among God’s people were to be circumcised, we do not assume that we should do so today. When we read in Exodus 13 that God’s people are to redeem their firstborn children and have a festival of unleavened bread, we do not assume that we should do so today. Those commands were given for a specific people. So also the commands we find in Exodus 20. The Ten Commandments begin with this preface: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” This gives a historical context to the situation: it was a multitude of just-escaped slaves, in a desert, surrounded by polytheistic nations. God gave them laws that would compensate for their lack of civic experience, laws that would help them resist polytheism, laws that would help them become a distinct nation, laws that would help them structure society in a new land. These laws were good for their situation, but some of them are not needed today. Much of the Old Testament is a story. Nevertheless, 2 Timothy 3 can say that this type of writing, since it is part of Scripture, is “useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” Stories can help inform our ethics. They can illustrate consequences, misunderstandings, weaknesses and flexibilities. The story of Abraham and circumcision is useful for teaching and for training in righteousness without requiring us to practice circumcision. The commands about sacrifice are to be read as part of a story, not as commands for us today. The details may be useful symbolically, but they are read first in the context of a story, not as currently valid law. Genesis is a story, and in that story God gave certain commands and implied other commands. Some of them apply to us today and some do not. Exodus continues that story and gives more commands, commands about how people should worship, how to behave with one another and what to do when someone disobeys. Some of these commands apply to us today; others do not. So we must see them first in the context in which the Bible gives them: a covenant or arrangement God made with a specific people at a specific time in history, a covenant God has now revealed to be obsolete (Hebrews 8:13). The commands that God gave them are instructive but not necessarily imperative for us. They are informative but not normative. They are descriptive for ancient Israel, but not prescriptive for Christians. If we want to find out which laws still apply to Christians today, we must rely on the New Testament, and the New Testament tells us that one commandment — the Sabbath — is no longer in force. We cannot preach the Ten Commandments for Christians today, because there is an important exception right in the middle of the Ten, and it is confusing to say Ten when only Nine are meant. Moreover, Christians have a better standard of behavior in the New Testament — a bigger body of literature with better balance. We have the teachings of Jesus and the apostles. We should point people to Christ, not to Moses, for instruction on how to live like a Christian.
Posted on: Tue, 05 Aug 2014 14:14:58 +0000
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