The 10 Commandments And Us September 2014 Exodus 20: ESV 20 And God spoke all these words, saying,

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1 The 10 Commandments And Us September 2014 Exodus 20: ESV 20 And God spoke all these words, saying, 2 I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 3 You shall have no other gods before me. 4 You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. 7 You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. 8 Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labour, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. 12 Honour your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you. 13 You shall not murder. 14 You shall not commit adultery. 15 You shall not steal. 16 You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour. 17 You shall not covet your neighbour's house; you shall not covet your neighbour's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbour's. 18 Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled, and they stood far off 19 and said to Moses, You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die. 20 Moses said to the people, Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin. Introduction: Opening question: I need to start by asking what may sound like a strange question. Do you have a sense of anyone owning you or somehow belonging to someone in a possessive sense? Or, do you really believe yourself to be absolutely free? Crude slavery was wiped out in most places a long time ago. So one person owning another as property is no longer accepted. Rather now it is your earning power or time and money that may be owned and demanded by institutions such as governments or banks. If you are age 17 or above in this country the State can demand your service in times of war which can require your life. Belonging to someone else or even an institution may be a strange idea. We like to think that we live our own lives as we choose in self-determination. From there we can easily go on to think that God is there to help us in that sovereign independent freedom, even from Him. I am going to suggest otherwise! The Bible story is about God winning a people for himself to be His own people among the peoples for the peoples. God is King of the Universe and seeks a people for himself on plant earth.

2 2 He wants to be The Good Shepherd to a people he can call his own who accept Him as God and would be faithful to him in His Kingdom. To do so that God needs a people who accept being his possession. That is what Israel was called to be and also the Church in fulfillment through Jesus Christ. Grounding in Text This is clearly established is in the passage we heard today from the Book of Exodus known as The 10 Commandments which are held central by many Christians. 1 Let me provide some background: About a century ago some German bible scholars began to consider the significance of the forms of literature found in the Bible. Forms are the categories of literature such as, a poem, or a letter, an invoice or a legal document. The form of literature in which one receives a communication tells you a great deal. It is like the way recognize the type of message that comes through a perfumed letter as being different to one that comes in a blue envelope before we even read a word. A great deal communicated by form. Archeology Message& Amarna Letters Clay tablets with Cunniform Text Some decades before that, about 1890, tablets made of baked clay from Ancient Egypt began to come to light and be offered for sale in Cairo. They dated from around 1400 BC which is about the time of the Exodus from Egypt. Many of these tablets contained treaties between kings and the pharaoh of Egypt. 2 What these tablets reveal is that treaties between kings were common at the time. Kings made treaties about trade, territorial boundaries, runaway slaves. Some treaties were made between equals and some between un-equals or as winners and losers after a decisive battle or war. If this was the case then one King was superior and spoke as if he owned the other. When scholars began to study these tablets they realized that the form of these treaties between Kings looked very much like the form of the 10 commandments we find in Exodus 20. The 10 Commandments seemed to be in the form of an Ancient Near East treaty between a great conquering king and the subject people represented by their subject king. This threw some light on what was being communicated here. Within this form of treaty text were particular features, basically 3 features. 1 These are technically known as the Decalogue 2

3 3 Treaty Form: Message& Prelude Stipulations There was a first section providing a Preamble The superior King is identified here by his name and titles This is followed by a historical survey of what the superior king has done in dealing with the lesser king and his people. This preamble is to establish how the subject people now owe allegiance and obedience to the greater king for protecting them After this Preamble come the Stipulations that set out what is required of the subject people. This often includes a requirement that the subject people keep a copy of the treaty in their temple and regularly read it. Then the third and final section is a List of Blessings and Curses. If the subject people and their king obey and comply with the stipulations they will receive the greater King s blessings which are listed. However, if they fail to comply they will receive curses which are also listed. To see this pattern in the 10 commandments lets build it up through the Preamble and Stipulations Introduction (Part of Preamble) I am the LORD your God, History of Relationship / Basis for Treaty (Part of Preamble) who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 3 You shall have no other gods before me. 4 You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, Curse and Blessing: for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. 7 You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, Curse: for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. Blessings and Curses

4 4 8 Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labour, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. 12 Honour your father and your mother, Blessing: that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you. 13 You shall not murder. 14 You shall not commit adultery. 15 You shall not steal. 16 You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour. 17 You shall not covet your neighbour's house; you shall not covet your neighbour's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbour's. Interpretation: This is a treaty offered / imposed by a great rescuing king to a people he has won from slavery for himself. YAHWEH defeated the god s of Egypt with all the tools of war available to the Pharaoh. The people of Israel now belonged to him and these were his terms of ownership. Yahweh was laying down how the relationship would happen and sets out the basis for peace and blessing. Most kings wanted a specified amount of gold delivered each year or so many young men provided to serve in his army or so many cattle delivered each year. Yahweh, the rescuing liberator of slaves, specifies how he wants his people to live and relate to him and each other. In other terms, what Yahweh wants is the tribute of holiness and this is what it looks like. They belong to the Lord God alone. He will not be sharing them with anyone. That is what is expressed in the term a jealous God. These people belong to him. That is why the stipulations are expressed as they are. Yahweh does not negotiate or allow conditions, he instructs in imperative language. You shall and You shall not The blessings and curses come as afterthoughts, the power is in the instruction. Application: What does this mean for us 3400 years later when our tablets are made with silicon chips and not from clay? One thing I can say very simply is that this is not the song-sheet for getting to heaven which is what I thought for much of my earlier life. Many people still suspect that the 10 commandments are the recipe for being good.

5 5 No they are the instruction of God to the people who know they have become his possession. If you belong to God, these are the things you will and will not do. If you have been rescued by God then your life is not our own and is to be lived as directed. This is why Israel was instructed to hold the elements of this together by regularly telling the story of liberation and repeating the instructions of the Lord to their children. Much later Paul wrote to a church in Corinth that had many problems. Among the problems were that some people were addicted to sexual sin while others were literally slaves in various circumstances. In both cases Paul wrote things that summarize what I am saying very well but now in relation to God s saving work though Jesus Christ. In 1 Corinthians 6, 19 do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. And later in 1 Corinthians 7 in a discussion about slavery, 23 You were bought with a price; do not now become slaves of men. Through Jesus Christ God s great sacrifice for us, we have been bought free and filled with the Spirit of God. We God took us out of the slave market to himself. Don t go back to the slave market. In Jesus Christ we have become God s possession as his Sons and daughters, Praise the Lord!, but do not now exchange God s ownership for another abusive ownership but use your body and the life in it to glorify God however you can. That is the plot of life. That is the passion to live out. Glorify God in your body and preserve your freedom as God s Possession. That is what Israel was called to do. Live these 10 commandments and give glory to God as his representatives on earth. Organise yourselves to glorify your LORD God. That is his instruction as their conquering liberator. Conclusion: What I want to impress on you this morning is the need to be conscious, against all other social instincts and fashionable ideologies, that in Jesus Christ we are God s possession. If you are baptized in Him, you are His! If you declare Him as Lord, You are His! He is the Good Shepherd. Our life is in His hands, our future and eternity is entrusted into his hands. That is simply what the 10 commandments assume. With that clear we can begin asking what they each mean!