The 10 Commandments #1

I remember when I was about 13 or 14 I went on holiday with my parents to North Wales. While we were there we saw a sign offering newborn sheepdog puppies free of charge.

We went to the farm and looked at all these different puppies and my dad reached down and grabbed a little black and white border collie by the scruff of the neck and said, “We’ll have you”.

We took the puppy home and the very first night I don’t think we got any sleep because the puppy was on its own in the kitchen and she howled all night.

My dad kept going into the kitchen to try and get the dog to stop howling and whining. He would say things like “you’re my dog now and if you’re going to stay in this house tonight then you’ve got to be quiet”. Then another time he would say, “if you’re going to live in this house you don’t poo on the floor!"

What my dad was doing was reminding the dog (somewhat unsuccessfully) that it was he who brought the dog into our house and allowed it to live there and so he expected the dog to follow certain rules (like not pooing on the floor). If she wasn’t going to follow these rules then the relationship between my dad and his dog would be strained.

In Exodus 19 God makes a covenant or agreement with the Israelites. This covenant outlined how Israel and God were going to relate with each other from now on. God had miraculously freed them from slavery and oppression in Egypt and led them to Mount Sinai where he makes this amazing promise to them,

“You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” (Exodus 19:4-5)

What a wonderful promise. God not only saves them but calls them his own; a holy nation. His desire for Israel was for them to be an expression of his kingdom rule on earth. But for that to happen there were certain conditions in this covenant they had to fulfil which we read in Exodus 20:1-21 where God gives to his people the 10 commandments.

In these next few posts we will look at the motivation for following God’s laws (that is, why should we do it); then the outworking of following God’s laws (that is, what does following God’s laws looked like for us), and how we maintain that obedience.