Welcome to the Love in Context podcast of Unscripted Conversation with Ben and Spencer.
So glad that you could join us today, whether that's from your car, office, home, church,
or wherever you're at.
If you want to contact us, you can email us at lovingcontext at gmail.com.
Also follow us on Instagram at loveincontext.
Welcome to the Love in Context podcast, a conversation with Ben and Spencer that may
or may not have a script involved.
As we've said before, we either don't have a script or we don't stick to it.
That's definitely true.
Yeah, it's very true.
Last week, if you were with us, we shanghaied Pastor Clint, and once he got comfortable,
man, that guy can go on a roll.
Yeah.
He's got good stuff.
I had a lot more I was wanting to say during that episode, and then I was like, nah, Clint's
doing great.
I know, his stuff is so good.
So it's like, we're not going to interrupt.
No, I was like, I'm not going to interrupt him.
He's knocking this out of the park.
I did notice, so it's funny in our episodes, we frequently talk about how you're going
to edit, except I edited the last six episodes.
You did.
Incidentally, if you think the quality of editing has gone down, now you know who to
blame.
Yeah, I know my schedule's just gotten a little crazier.
But it's interesting.
There's a feature that lets you go in and take out every time that you say, uh, or um.
And on the other episodes, it's like 240 times that we said it or something like that.
In the episodes where we had Pastor Nick and Pastor Clinton, it was like 870 times.
It was so many times.
That's so great.
Yeah.
I was like, well, this is crazy.
So anyways.
That's so great.
Well today we are going to be diving into the 10 commandments.
Yes.
A little past that as well.
So if you do not have your Bible open, you can pause the podcast.
Unless you're driving, like don't pause it.
Just listen while you're driving, go back and reread and don't like try to read your
Bible while you're driving.
Just don't do that.
But you can turn to Exodus 20 and that's kind of going to be where we're starting today.
Yeah.
So just a reminder, last week we talked about Jethro who had come up to Moses and he says,
Moses, why are you literally trying to adjudicate everything?
Why are you trying to do everything yourself?
And we look at that and we go, yeah, that's us.
Yeah.
Trying to do everything ourselves.
Uh huh.
Right.
Trying to do develop systems in order to be able to adjudicate for everybody because
there's going to be a lot of disputes.
Absolutely.
There's going to be a lot of disputes.
Jethro was very wise in talking to Moses and being like, hey, you got great people around
you.
Yeah, exactly.
You got great people around you.
Let them use their gifts and be the best that they can be.
So a little piece before we get started into the 10 commandments, which we're actually
going to call the 10 words because the word commandment actually isn't in there.
The 10 words is actually words of God speaking to his people.
We were talking about in first Chronicles, a little piece that we found that connected
to Egypt that we thought was really cool and the Exodus.
Pharaoh's daughter is named in there.
Yeah.
So she's part of the genealogy as part of what's actually going on in Chronicles.
That's first Chronicles chapter four, believers 18 or 19.
Yeah.
I think it's 18.
Yeah.
So take a look there.
That's a fun little connection.
It's really cool to see when God honors what people do as part of his story.
Yeah, absolutely.
And to take someone who's also, I mean, there's two really interesting things there.
You take someone who's a foreigner and you put it in a genealogy that's meant for a specific
nation.
Right.
So that's one thing.
That's the welcoming of a foreigner.
And then you also put a woman in there and name her by name to say she was the one who
raised Moses.
Yeah.
Like that's just awesome.
Yeah, it is really cool.
So Jethro comes and meets up with Moses and has this conversation and Moses, it says,
listens to what Jethro says, which is a good call.
Yeah, it's good advice.
And then they are on their way to Sinai.
And as they get to Sinai, smoke billows up around the mountain and it's hanging out there.
And there's a sound of the trumpet and Moses spoke and the vice of God answers him and
God tells him to come up on the top of this mountain.
Yeah.
Now, one of the things we're not going to talk about today, but I always find hilarious
in this story is God's like, Moses, come up here.
All right, go look and see what they're doing.
All right, now come back up here.
Okay, go look and see what they're doing.
And I'm like, how many times like, because Moses is 80 some years old.
How many times do I want to climb this mountain?
Right.
You know, right.
I know.
And, and yeah, and we're not talking just like Mount Sinai, like compared to other mountains
in the world isn't huge, but still hike.
Yeah.
It's not just a simple like, oh, cool.
I'm just going to walk up this.
No problem.
Like you're winded.
You want a snack.
You want some water at the end of that.
Right.
And we've talked about how the desert's also hot.
Yeah.
So even if it's not as hard of a mountain as other places, it's really hard to hike
in the desert.
Yeah.
It's just really hot.
All right.
So we're going to jump into the 10 words and I want to set a precedent kind of what's going
on here.
It's very clear from the way that this is put together in both rabbinic and Jewish history
that this is not so much a list of commands as it is an early form of a ketubah.
Now a ketubah is a marriage certificate of sorts when Hebrew people get married and like
the first little bit is about who the husband says that they're going to be.
And then also who they expect the other person to be.
Yeah.
Right.
Like it's kind of because you got to remember in Middle Eastern marriages, they're not going
to necessarily know each other well before they get married.
Yeah.
Right.
So in a typical marriage or marriage scenario, you meet, you start texting, you go on dates,
then you propose marriage, then you get married and then other things occur and then babies
show up afterwards.
Yeah.
Right.
And there's in a Jewish setting, a lot of times your families are going to be arranging
your marriage.
Yeah.
Right.
And it's more about whether your parents like the person.
Correct.
And less about whether you like the person.
And so when you're talking about this marriage situation, I mean, there typically may or
may not have been dowries involved.
But and there's also lots of times where the groom didn't really meet the bride until wedding
night.
Yeah.
I think that our friend Marty over on the Baymaw podcast does a really good job when he talks
about the wedding ceremony at Sinai.
He does a really good job of telling a story to help you understand throughout history
how Sinai has been used to talk about a wedding ceremony in real Jewish culture.
So what we want to kind of show you in this story and talk about is that this is no longer,
it's not commands in the way that you and I think about commands.
Right.
Commands are like, do this or else.
Yeah.
And that's not really what God's doing here.
He's saying, I want you to understand who I am, which makes a ton of sense because where
have they been for 400 years?
They've been apart from him.
Yeah.
Like they don't really know him.
And we know that the Hebrew midwives are courageous and like they have all this gumption and they're
going to fear God.
But on a real level, it doesn't seem like people particularly understand who Yahweh
is.
No.
And you have to, this echoes back to Genesis one where you have those two passages of time.
Like, and so really you're talking six to 800 years where 6,800 years every time, man,
you have six to 800 years where God's essentially silent.
Like we don't have any record of him speaking now.
It doesn't mean he didn't speak, but we just don't have any record of it.
Right.
So with that idea, let's actually jump into the first of the 10 words because this podcast,
I really, we really want to talk about these 10 words and the significance of what they
actually mean for the Christian life today.
Yeah.
So if I was to ask you, Spencer, the other guy in the room, that's not me.
If I was to ask you, what is the first command?
Or if I asked the church in general, what's the first command in Exodus 20?
What do you think the answer would be?
If you were to ask me or the church.
So let's go with the church.
Right.
The church usually jumps straight to you must not have any other gods before me.
Okay.
What's the problem with that?
If you actually look at it, the first here is I am the Lord your God who rescued you
from the land of Egypt and the place of slavery.
Then he goes into, you must not put any other gods before me.
Right.
Yeah.
We want to jump in and say immediately jump into you shall have no other gods before me.
And in fact, if you look across the courthouses in America, they have the commandments that's
actually listed as the first commandment.
They leave off the part where it says, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt,
out of the land of slavery.
You shall have no other gods before me.
Now, the problem with that is what happens when people forget their history?
When people forget their history, they tend to make stupid decisions.
I mean, that sounds a little blunt, but let's be real.
Right.
When you forget who you are, where you came from, you tend to become an idiot.
Well a few episodes ago, Pharaoh forgot about Joseph and he enslaved all the Israeli people,
which by the way, didn't end well for Egypt.
No.
If you haven't caught that from the podcast, that didn't end well for Egypt.
So when you forget your history, you tend to repeat it is what happens.
And you see that and it's not just in Israel and Egypt's conflict here, what's going on.
It's actually all throughout the history of the world.
Like nations who forget where they come from, they actually will go and repeat the stupid
decisions.
It might have a little different color, a little different flair to it, but they'll
go and they'll repeat the same stupid decisions and then realize, oh, that didn't work.
And they're like, oh, I wonder why that didn't work.
And then someone will be like, well, actually, historically, it didn't work here either.
Right.
And so that's just something that happens when you don't actually look at where you
came from.
I think there is a very clear connection also to the way that we live in the modern era
of Christianity.
When you forget that the reason you're at Sinai is because God brought you out of Egypt.
And obviously I'm speaking metaphorically here because we weren't literally brought
out of Egypt.
But you and I, when we forget what Christ did to bring us out of our Egypt, there is
this temptation to actually build other gods.
We've talked about like you trust in your healthcare and you trust in your job and you
trust in your spouse, but you don't actually find your trust and your certainty in who
God is.
Oh yeah.
Because you forgot who actually brought you to where you are.
Right?
Right.
This is why it's important that you understand where you come from because moving forward,
that way you can see where you were and be like, man, look at what's behind me and look
where I'm headed.
Right.
One of the analogies I hate the most, and you hear this in the corporate world, but
is the idea of climbing the ladder.
The reason I hate this analogy, and we use it just in life in general, but you don't
know where people are starting on that ladder.
Right.
You're climbing the ladder, but you start three quarters of the way up and someone who
starts at the bottom climbs halfway up and the person three quarters of the way up takes
two steps up, who's actually progressed further.
Right.
Right?
Like, and so what we do is we tend to judge people by their circumstances and then we
realize that they may have come a long ways.
And so that's important to know is because when we're doing that, a lot of times what
people are doing is they're recognizing where they came from.
Mm hmm.
Being like, I'm not going to be a part of that.
I'm going to set that aside and I'm going to move in a different path.
Well, and I know you don't like the analogy, but carrying with that analogy, our goal generationally
is to have the next generation further up the ladder.
Yeah.
We're not looking for the other generation to climb what we've already climbed.
We want them to stand on our shoulders and go further.
Also, one of the things that I think is really key with that is people tend to look at the
ladder as something to be accomplished rather than something to be engaged generationally.
Mm hmm.
Yeah.
You don't climb all the mountain all in one life.
You do it through generations.
Mm hmm.
I think I think what we've done, you know, so like your point is somebody they climb
half the ladder because they started with that at the bottom.
Mm hmm.
That's awesome.
Now, those who come after you, where do they start?
Yeah, they start halfway up.
We start making a bigger change.
Yeah, exactly.
Mm hmm.
A couple of episodes ago, we talked about World War Two and we talked about Cory Ten
Boone.
Yeah.
If you're a German, you probably shouldn't forget your history.
Mm hmm.
Because those who forget their history are doing to repeat it.
Mm hmm.
And as a nation, you made some very poor choices in World War Two.
Mm hmm.
If you are part of Rwanda, you should never forget what happened.
If you were in Rwanda during the massive upheaval that happened, you shouldn't forget your history
because you don't want that to ever happen again.
And having your finger on history is going to make sure that your future points away
from that.
Yeah.
And you could, I mean, you could even say if you're American, you shouldn't forget your
history.
Oh, 100 percent.
Right.
Issues that we had around slavery and things like that.
We had Native Americans, right?
Yeah.
We should definitely not forget our history.
Never forget your history.
Right.
Because if you do, you're going to make the same mistakes again.
Yeah, absolutely.
The takeaway is like whether your history is good, whether your history is bad, remember
where you come out of.
Mm hmm.
And especially when you're a Christian and you're following God, remember that Christ
is the one who brought you out of the land of Egypt.
Yeah.
Metaphorically, right?
He is the one who brings you out of the land of Egypt.
And because of that, we don't have any other gods in front of him.
Mm hmm.
And that's why God starts this section off with the 10 words of saying, hey, I am the
Lord your God who rescued you from the land of Egypt, the place of slavery.
This reminds me a lot also of in the New Testament when Paul says in Ephesians, you were dead
in your transgressions and sin.
Mm hmm.
While you were still dead.
Mm hmm.
Christ died for you.
Yeah.
This is the same God, past, present, future.
Mm hmm.
Right?
The God who was, the God who is, the God who will be.
Yeah.
So then you start moving through these words and then you jump down to verse three and
then this is where God says, you must not have any other gods before me.
Mm hmm.
Right?
Now he doesn't say this first.
He says this after I am the Lord your God.
Right.
Right?
Because the reality is, is if we jump to this word before as the first one, we have no context
of who God is.
Or what's just happened.
Yeah.
Right?
If we're just saying, okay, you must not have any other gods before me.
Okay.
Any other gods before what God?
Right.
Exactly.
Before who?
And not to mention there was the judgment of Egypt's gods when he brought them out in
the excess.
Yes.
Right?
Yeah.
He says, hey, you saw what I just did.
Mm hmm.
Don't have any other gods before me.
Yeah.
Right.
And we're talking about day and age where having multiple gods is normal.
Right.
It's commonplace to have the God of the sun, the God of the moon, the God of the rivers,
the God of the land, so on and so forth.
And they're going to struggle with this specifically in the realm of fertility.
Mm hmm.
For the rest of the Old Testament.
Yeah.
Right?
This is going to be a struggle.
And I don't want to be too hard on the Hebrews.
Mm hmm.
Because we trust in other gods too.
Right?
Some of you right now are sitting here and being like, I don't trust in another god.
It's like, listen.
Money?
Yeah.
Money.
Thank you.
So good.
Right?
Coffee.
Hey now.
He says this.
We're literally sitting here drinking coffee while talking.
So I mean, money, coffee, your fame.
Right?
There's a lot of things that we trust in over a god.
A lot of times like, you know, we trust in our job.
We trust.
Oh, that's about to get controversial.
Your government.
Right?
Your political ideals.
Mm hmm.
I've run into a lot of people who trust in America a lot more than they trust in Christ.
Yeah.
And that really, really just, I'm like, I don't know the exact statistic, but as far
as Christians globally, I think the American church makes up six or 7%.
Yeah.
It's not much.
No.
Like, like if I had a hundred dollars and seven dollars went away, I'd be like, okay.
Yeah.
Not a big deal.
So like it to the American church, I'm sorry if this sounds blunt, but you're not all that.
Yeah.
Like we are part of a global body, many of whom are being persecuted, who are being tortured,
who are being beaten on a daily basis because of their belief in Christ.
And maybe we should take a note from their playbook and be like, Hey, what I have is
way bigger than whether I vote red or blue.
Oh, isn't that the truth?
What we're not saying is that the American church is unimportant.
No, we're not saying that.
I think that God has poured blessing into America so that, so that all nations.
Yeah.
Right.
And that's the opportunity to partner with God in that.
Yeah.
Because he is the God who brought us out of the land of Egypt.
Yeah, absolutely.
He is the God who walked both ends of the covenant through death, burial and resurrection.
Yeah.
So it is like not having any other gods is a big deal, right?
This is, I mean, this is the number one commandment for a reason, right?
It's the number one word.
Like he is going to be it.
Yeah.
You're going to find everything in him.
This is going to be a very strange thing for them because all the nations around them and
Egypt, including is a polytheistic nation.
It's very strange that they only have one God.
Yeah.
In fact, there's actually a, like kind of a really funny clip in the chosen.
Have you seen that show?
Where this guy comes up and he talks to Jacob as he's digging in the well and he says, he
says, well, which God do you serve?
And he says, oh, I serve a God that you cannot see.
He's like, he's like, well, that seems kind of silly.
Like why would you serve a God that you cannot see?
And he's like, it's, it'll be fine.
And it's, I just love the, the interaction with him because you know, Jacob's seen some
stuff.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
But like this, this is going to, he's going to ask them to be completely different than
anybody else they've seen and it's, it's going to be really weird.
And so as, so here you have God saying, Hey, I want to move you from this polytheistic
view to this monotheistic view to where it's like, Hey, there's just me.
Yeah.
Just the one God.
Yeah.
I'm going to take care of everything you need.
Yeah.
Right.
And then the next piece of that is going to be, I'm actually going to read it straight
from the text here.
It says, you shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above
or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.
Okay.
That makes sense.
Like anywhere on the earth, you shall not bow down to them and worship them for I, the
Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sins of the parents to
the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations
of those who love me and keep my commandments.
Okay.
That's the full one.
So we touched on this in Genesis.
This one is really interesting because it starts off kind of like, Oh yeah, no problem.
Right.
Starts off with like, okay, don't make any idle image of anything that may or may or
not look like God from in heaven's earth or seat.
You're like, Oh, okay.
Great.
Right.
And then here you have, God goes on and he says, you must not bow down to them or worship
them for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God who will not tolerate the affection of
other gods.
Now we look at that and like oftentimes we think of like, okay, great.
I don't go sing praises to other gods.
Yeah.
But we hinted on this earlier in the podcast.
What about money?
What about your fame?
What about your image?
What about your reputation?
That's a big one.
And what about, what about what car you drive?
Right.
And then you look at the images that you fill in the blank.
Like, like you look at all these things and when you are elevating those above God, who's
the God who's brought us out of everything, who's going to provide everything we need.
Like please don't look at this and think of this as a standalone command or standalone
word.
This builds off the previous.
Right.
And when we look at these, we do this all the time on our day to day walk.
Yeah.
Right.
I watched the Instagram reel the other day, whereas a guy was like, yeah, you could, you
could have a coffee drinker read an article that says drinking coffee in the morning is
the worst thing you could do.
And they're still going to be doing it while they're drinking their second cup of coffee.
Right.
Like they could be, you can know the information that's in scripture and still be putting other
things in front of God.
Right.
That's absolutely true.
And so when we're doing that in our day to day lives, it becomes a danger and God's saying,
Hey, I'm a jealous God.
Don't do that.
Yeah.
And there's a big difference between knowledge and wisdom.
Yeah.
Right.
One of my favorite sayings is knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit smoothie.
Yeah.
So that would be gross.
Definitely not in a fruit salad, but it's very frequent.
Like you can know things, but unless they actually change who you are now, which is
actually a really important point, because one of the things that I've maintained all
throughout Torah is that Jesus comes and he's Torah made flesh.
He walked out what the Torah was always supposed to look like in Jewish communities that were
observant of Torah, right?
They were supposed to look like the incarnate Messiah.
Yeah.
Like that's how Torah is applied when you look at community.
And so God says, Hey, listen, I brought you out to the land of Egypt.
You're not going to have any other gods before me.
And you're not going to make stuff that looks like me.
Because if you remember Genesis one, I took man and woman and I made you in my image.
So if you go and make things that look like me, you're really just making pictures of
yourself because you humanity are made in the image of God.
And if you're viewing this in the context of a re covenant or the remaking of a covenant,
which you should be viewing this passage in that context.
If you're looking at in that context, God removed man and woman from the garden.
And in one sense, he's starting to invite them back in.
Yeah, I'll be like, this is who I am.
Don't don't take things and elevate them to above me or beyond who I am.
Like I should be the first one that you think of on a daily basis.
The first thing that comes to your mind, I should be the one you're meditating on.
One.
And the whole thing about being made in the image, this complete plays completely into
this whole idea that Jesus comes and walks, says you need to love God and love other people.
Yeah.
Right.
Because people are made in the image of God.
Yep.
Right.
So if you want to show God that you love him, love people.
Exactly.
Like, OK, so if you're worshiping a God, let's just take Dagon, right?
The fish God, because he's he's got a fun name.
If you're worshiping Dagon, you would go to the idol and you would give it affection of
some sort.
Right.
Yeah.
How do you show God that you love him?
By how you treat your neighbor?
Paul is going to say all of the law hangs on this.
Love your neighbor as you love yourself.
Right.
All the law and prophets.
Now, don't get weird and don't start treating people like their physical idols.
Right.
That's not what I'm talking about.
What I'm saying is that mankind made in the image of God, the way that you treat people
matters because it shows whether or not you love God.
Yeah, absolutely.
Now, on the back half of this command, I always think it's interesting how often we focus
on punishing to the third and fourth generation.
Yeah.
I mean, I just ignore the fact that he's like, I'm going to show love to a thousand generations.
Right.
You get to a point where it says, but I'm going to lavish unfailing love for a thousand
generations on those who love and obey my commands.
Like I'm not amazing at math.
I'm pretty good.
Uh huh.
But correct me if I'm wrong.
A thousand is a lot bigger than three.
Yeah.
A thousand is a lot bigger than three.
If you said, hey, I owe you three bucks or I owe you a thousand bucks.
Those are vastly different numbers.
Let's just do a little little mathematic equation.
All right.
20 times a thousand.
20,000.
So that's roughly the time span of a thousand generations.
Like if you were to put a literal number to it, right?
Because if every 20 years you had a kid, right?
Right.
A thousand generations would come out to 20,000 years.
Which we don't have 20,000 years of recorded history.
We don't essentially scripture saying like, I will throw this unfailing love on the people
who love and obey me for the entirety of the world.
Ben's laughing right now.
My daughter is joining us for this podcast right now.
So she's sitting next to me playing with me.
And so like my focus ability has been a little less today.
But yeah, if you're, if you're wondering why he says more heretical things than normal,
yeah, he's being influenced by a five year old.
So first off you have, I'm Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt.
You're not going to have any other gods before me because you've seen what they can do.
And you're also not going to make things in my image that you're going to worship because
I've made mankind in my image and you're meant to love them.
Yeah.
Like the way that you love your neighbor is going to show me how you love me.
And then he makes a statement.
And I love this, this next one.
It's the next word.
It says, you shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God for the Lord will not hold
anyone guiltless who misuses his name.
Now how often in the church have we talked about this as a swear word specifically?
Like almost exclusively, almost exclusively, except that's not what that word means.
No, the word that we translate as misuse is actually to bear up or to put on.
And so like this, this would actually more accurately be translated.
You shall not put on the name of God and then misrepresent me.
Yeah.
Essentially God is saying, please don't represent me poorly.
And if you do, it's going to end badly.
Yeah.
Which by the way, can we just talk about the modern church?
Like when you don't look like Jesus, you're bearing up the blame incorrectly when you
don't show compassion, you're bearing up the name incorrectly.
When you don't love well you're bearing the name incorrectly when you don't forgive
endingly.
You're bearing up the name incorrectly When you don't love on that lightning, you're
name
Incorrectly when blessing is just for you. Yeah, you bear the name incorrectly. Mm-hmm
Actually, I had a conversation with someone who follows Jesus and they were like, yeah
Well, my my grace is running short and I was like God's isn't yeah
Right, and if he's in you
You're shouldn't either. Yeah
Yeah, I'm like a real level your friend I feel him, you know
I was like because I get it and that's why I'm glad that God says my grace is sufficient for you
Yeah, because my grace ain't sufficient for a lot of people. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah
I have frequently seen people in the name of Jesus do horrific things
Yeah, I think we talked about this a few weeks ago, but Nazis claim to follow Jesus. Mm-hmm and exterminated Jews
King Richard conquered nations in the name of Jesus. Mm-hmm, right?
And he did the whole like follow Jesus or I'm gonna kill you. Mm-hmm, right?
Spanish conquistadors
Did that in South America and Brazil?
Can we just mention the Salem witch trials? Mm-hmm. It's not uncommon. I mean even in today's I have seen in my life
people who bear the name of Christ
stand outside of clinics and
Hurl accusations and hatred and people who are going into those clinics
Mm-hmm, and I understand not agreeing with behavior and being vehemently opposed to it
But Jesus went to a cross and was crucified for those same people. Yeah
And so we got to figure out a way to love even when we're angry
Yeah, and we also have to step back and recognize that
Everybody has different things going on in their lives. Mm-hmm. And if we're called to be gracious individuals
We need to take time to understand where they're coming from
We need to take time to understand their hurt. So in the book of Revelation, mm-hmm
There is a church that is written a letter to and it talks about how their white robes are stained with blood
Yeah, right
The church that they're actually referencing there. There is actually a celebration every year of during ancient times
Where there was a offering that was given to a goddess in that?
City there was some goddess worship that will happen and and the biggest form of goddess worship that you could have which was a blessing
Was that at this festival you would actually be castrated. Mm-hmm
The next best thing was if you were with somebody who did get castrated and their blood got onto your white robes
You would receive the blessing too. Mm-hmm. Here is the crazy thing that we found out through archaeology study of the church site
Do you know what was right next to the place where they set up this?
Sacrifice where the people would actually go in and be castrated males would be castrated wasn't the temple there was a church
That served as a hospital. Hmm and met people right after their pagan worship
And put them back together
Now you tell me
That that church wasn't impacting for the gospel. Mm-hmm
Right smack dab in the middle of evil, right?
Not approving of it, but standing right in the middle in steadfast in their love. Yeah
Just because you disagree with somebody doesn't mean you can't love them. Mm-hmm
And if it does mean that then you're probably not being Christ. Mm-hmm. Yeah
100 300 500 8000 percent
So right here you have right here you have a word that kind of links two parts of this two parts of this story
So the first part you have who god is what to do with his name so on so forth
And then you have this word where he says remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy
You have six days each week for you for your work
But the seventh day is the Sabbath day of rest dedicated to the Lord your God
Now, why is this one different?
Because it includes both you and God
Something you're doing together, right? Right? Like like the idea of Sabbath isn't just I think we've kind of twisted this in the church a little bit
We've taken the idea of Sabbath and said okay. It's a day for you just to rest
Well, yes, but it's a day for you to rest with God, right?
It's not a day for you to rest apart from God. Correct when I uh,
Talked with my son and I actually learned this from Marty and I just stole it
So just to be honest, I'm not a fan of the Sabbath day
I actually learned this from Marty and I just stole it. So just fyi
I've been raising James on Friday night. We observe Sabbath on Saturday because I work Monday through Friday
And a lot of times i've done stuff on Sunday with the church
But on Friday night getting ready to go into Sabbath. I don't do any work on Saturday
We only do things that bring life to our family. Yeah
So the night I say James what is tomorrow? He says it's Sabbath and I said what do we do on Sabbath? He says we rest
We play
And we remember that God loves us. Mm-hmm
And I started to add this piece. I said we remember that God loves us and that teaches us how to love other people
Well, yeah
Because once a week it's about community and communion with God
Yeah, and so in this in this word it goes on to say
On that day, no one in your household may do any work
This includes you your son your daughters your male female servants your livestock
And the foreigners living among you for in six days the Lord made the heavens the earth the sea
And everything and then but on the seventh day he rested call back to Genesis in case you missed that
That's why the Lord blessed the Sabbath day
As set apart and holy now, it's really interesting. You're not just saying just you
Right, right. He's saying your whole household. Yeah
Right and back in this day like so in America context our household, you know
In like my context like myself my wife my daughter
Mm-hmm, right in your context yourself your wife your two kids, right? Right in this context that they're talking about like
Usually if your grandparents are still alive, you're still living at least close to them
Like they were still part of the household
Right. They're talking about the servants. They're talking about livestock. Yeah, like they don't let your animals plow the field, right?
Right. Don't let your animals fetch the water
He's saying let everything rest
Because and we often miss this but what happens when we rest particularly take a day and just rest in what the Lord has for us
And who he is
We become so alive
Right and we stop becoming about production. Yeah, we actually become about whose image we're made in. Yeah, right
Yeah, and this this idea of rest is so rejuvenating is resting on the Lord that
We just become so alive that when we go back to work
It's crazy
So do you think it's strange?
This is the longest commandment in exodus and yet this is the one that the church struggles to follow the most
So much so that i've actually heard this legitimately from people that say christians don't have to observe the sabbath
Mm-hmm now on a real level. That's true
Like religiously you should you don't need to observe the sabbath
Like there's some things that are going on with Gentiles, but relationally you absolutely should observe the sabbath
But God's just not going to hold you accountable for it
Yeah, and and I think a good way to think of it is like what?
What habits do you have in your life that set a time set aside time for just you and God?
Yeah, or you God in your family
I think I think the problem is we look at the sabbath as an obligation and not a blessing
Right think of something you love dearly. Okay. So for me
A bonfire with some nice brats that can be roasted over the bonfire if you're like, hey
We're doing that every night for dinner. I would become so fat and I would love it
Right, like like like sitting around a fire in the evening is one of my favorite things roasting a hot dog over the fire
It's like one of my absolute favorite things in life
Right now if you invited me over I'm shifting my schedule around to be there now
What would be what would be uncarrot stick of me to do is to be like no, I don't want that
It's too much of a burden too much of a burden for me to come over and do something. I love I I have been made for freedom
I don't need to make eat brats. Yeah
This is gonna call forward into Jesus in the New Testament
He says sabbath was made for man not man for the sabbath
You should actually be able to do that. I think it's a good thing
I think it's a good thing that you're not a man man for the sabbath
You should actually see that in most of these laws. Mm-hmm. These commands these words
They're not actually meant to be a burden for you. They're actually meant to bring freedom. Mm-hmm
And yeah, I think John Ortberg says it in one of his books really well
He's like sometimes the most holy thing you can do is go take a nap. Hmm. Go take rest
Let the Lord rejuvenate you right? That's the whole idea of Sabbath
Only because I think in a future episode we may actually unpack Sabbath a lot. Yeah, we're gonna talk about a lot because one of the things
I think we have an issue with in the church
This comes back to the ruthless elimination of hurry by John Mark Comer book that we've referenced before
One of the issues that I think that we have in a church more than most is that we don't know how to stop
Mm-hmm and rest in our identity before God. Mm-hmm. Yeah
Yeah, absolutely
So with that being said the words are meant to actually bring life and so
God shifts here. He's given four words about himself a hinge word where he's now talking about us together now
He's going to talk about how do we love each other? Well, right and he continues
He says honor your father and your mother that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you
It's really interesting because this whole honor your father
so in this in the shift he starts off with
family
Right, right. He goes from okay. This is who I am. This is us doing something together
All right. Now, let's talk about your family, right now in this culture
Like a lot of times we look at this and the reason I say that is because a lot of times we look at this room
Simply the view of like, okay healthy families with a father and mother type thing and it's like, okay
But really what he's getting at is your family because the name of your father and the name of your mother
Were important. Mm-hmm. Like they said something about who you were back in that day
So when you're reading this honor your father and mother, it's really saying okay
Honor who your family is
Right. There's two pieces that we need to cover here because if you're listening to this and you've heard this command before this word before
There there are two types of people there and I want to address both of them. The first is this
Your
Your parents
Were not good. Mm-hmm
Maybe you come from an abusive home. You have a drug addicted home
Maybe why maybe it was just verbally abusive or any of those things that are out there
Honoring doesn't mean that you have to put up with bad behavior. Mm-hmm
I want I want to stress that honoring does not mean you need to stay in a bad situation
Yeah, you can still be honoring of them and leave the situation behind correct
So I never want because this has been misused
To try to keep people in bad situations. Mm-hmm. That is not honoring to what's actually being said here. Yeah
On the other side of that that same thought
You can't always honor somebody if they're not willing to receive honor or they're not the kind of person that can receive honor
I think there's a difference between honoring a person and honoring the heritage correct
So you like because sometimes a person is not honorable
Exactly, you have parents who you've had to just get out of their lives because they're abusive drug addicted
Whatever, right? They're full of neglect or whatever that might be right and you had to just get out of that situation
That's okay. Yeah, that's good actually
You can still honor the heritage
That your family brought for beyond that right?
There's there's gonna be some good some good legacy there somewhere
And you can honor that but doesn't mean you need to stay in that
Correct and also I think there's there's also this promise throughout scripture that god is the god of the fatherless
Of the orphan. Yeah, right. And so if there is nothing honorable about your family
Yeah, god's also gonna step in and fill that role. Yeah, you are not alone
And on a very real level we've all been adopted in yeah, right
Like on the supernatural level we've been adopted in and there's there's a tie in here with what?
Jesus says too when there's a story in the new testament where jesus actually his family comes
To see him and they're like, hey your family's outside
And he says no my family's right here
Correct, right like your immediate family is right here
Right, right like your immediate family might be complete trash
Right. Okay, but you may have surrounded yourself with people who have built you up
Yeah, you can live into that legacy and honor them too. Yeah, that's pulling this out of context a little bit
I recognize that I love an out of context
I recognize i'm pulling that out of context a little bit
But understand that like if there are good people in your life who are building you up honor them, right?
So it says here so that you may live long in the land. So who is this commandment actually about?
It's about you
You honoring your past honoring what came before you actually enables you to live long in the land
Right
That's really important for that. You understand. It's not about your family. It's actually about you
Mm-hmm
Yeah
So moving on a few of these should be fairly obvious
So he's giving a he's given an idea here. He says you shall not murder. Okay
That makes sense
Right. You're speaking to an entire society. What do I expect you to be?
Don't don't hurt yourself
Yeah, and part of you might be wondering like why would that even be in there seems like common sense
Well, we are talking we are talking in day and age where things like child sacrifice were common
You just rewind a little further in Exodus
Pharaoh says hey Israelite baby boy
Feeding in the water. Yeah, right. So like the idea of do not murder might not seem
Might seem simple from my westernized point of view, but actually is something that I would have been like
Oh, you don't want us to child sacrifice
You don't want us to do those things right? Right. We're gonna get into that a lot in Leviticus
Yeah, Leviticus is a very misunderstood book because we try to compare it to our current penal law
Rather than understanding that it is a liberating law of its time
Meant to actually bring life and moral direction into their life so that they can put a story on display
Of the redemption of God for the entire nation
And so we hear you're not going to murder. You're not going to commit adultery. You're not going to steal
You're not going to give false testimony against your neighbor
Like these are ways that you're going to live in peace with the people around you
You actually have to live in this community so don't kill them
Don't cheat on them. Don't steal from them and don't lie about them
And
If you really want to understand these words well go understand ancient
Egyptian context, correct
The do not commit adultery go go like do a little research on what like the common sexual practices were in ancient Egypt
Right, you're going to find that like oh the do not commit adultery might be more revolutionary than you think correct
Same with the do not steal then the last one here is
Do not covet your your neighbor's house
You shall not cover your neighbor's wife or his male or female servants his ox or donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor
So the basic gist of it is be okay with what you have
And don't want what everybody else has which I don't want to be a victim of
And don't want what everybody else has which I don't know
On this list that might be one of the more relevant ones for america. Yeah, right because we we look at everybody else and we're like
Ah, I want that
Yeah, take take cars for example. Yeah, right
It always comes down to cars with you. Well, you've seen my cars
There's four types of car owners on the world
There's people who are like i'm gonna buy the brand new car drive it for 40 50 000 miles turn it in get the next brand
New thing then you have people like i'll buy that 50 60 000 mile car i'll drive it till 120 130 then turn it in
Then you got the people who are like i'll buy that 130 000 mile car drive it till just the verge of death
Okay, and then i'm gonna sell it sell it to somebody and then you have the fourth
I'm in the fourth group of agnologist who are like i'm gonna buy that car on the verge of death put some money into it
And then drive it till it completely dies
Yeah, right. There's this idea of contentment, right?
It's really easy when you don't have a nice car to see people driving the brand new car that you want down the road
I'd be like man. I want that
but at the end of the day
Both the cars do the exact same thing
Paul makes a statement and he says I have learned the secret to contentment
Then he goes and lists a bunch of things that are not great. Mm-hmm, right? Yeah, I can do all things through christ
Who strengthens me?
Yeah
The secret to contentment is knowing that your contentment doesn't rely in your circumstances. It relies on god. Yeah, it relies on christ
Yeah, that's the secret of contentment in all things. So I guess one of the things that I would wonder is if you're sitting there on content
It doesn't have anything to do with your situation guys
No, it doesn't if you're sitting there and saying if only I had if only I could
Like that has that is a heart issue
And a contentment issue. Yeah. Yeah, so I wanted to do one thing here, which I think is kind of fun
Um because we're gonna do this and then we're gonna kind of wrap up the the 10 words
I explained to you guys that this is a ketubah. This is very similar to like a wedding ceremony
And so I want to read these commands these words again, but as if they were
Vows that god is making to israel on sinai
So god says this
I am your lover. Mm-hmm who brought you out of a bad situation
Don't have any other lovers except for me
In fact, don't even make images of the lovers or keep old pictures of them on your phone
Don't keep their email address to send at them at random times like just don't have any of that stuff
And when you go out and you represent me remember that you're representing my family and everything I represent
Once a week, let's make sure that we have time together to live into our relationship to be together
Remember where you come from
It's gonna serve you well as you move forward
Don't hurt yourself
Don't cheat on yourself
Don't
Don't steal
Live with an open hand don't lie
And don't look at what somebody else has be content with what i'm giving you
When you hear it in that context you understand that these aren't commands these are
Words that god is speaking over his nation now because he's about to get into some commands
Mm-hmm, right some things that are actually like instructional things these words are meant to be guidance
In how you live your life before god. Yeah
Who he is and who he expects us to be? Yeah
So if you're if you're coming to this wedding ceremony as a bride
Right. You have a groom
Who's saying i'm going to give you everything you need
Right
Essentially how I would sum this
Up is i'm going to give you everything you need
Okay
So don't sell yourself short
Yeah
Because in me you're going to get everything that you need
Yeah
That's what god's saying to israel and honestly, that's what he's saying to you right now
This idea of covening also throws me back to the garden once again
When eith looks up and she says I see it's desirable for eating and for gaining
wisdom
Because in her head god's holding out on me
Once again god's saying here i'm not holding out on you. No
This is what it looks like to live in my world
Would you like to come and live with me?
All throughout the the back half of exodus is this story of recreation
There's going to be a lot of themes that actually echo the creation story
I do think it's interesting that in the original story of creation god creates a space and he asks mankind to fill it
In this story where he's now telling a recreation story
God says now you create a space and i'm going to fill it. Yeah
And i'm going to dwell with you
And then I I think it's even crazier that in the new testament
God says, okay now i'm going to make you that space
And i'm going to fill it. Yeah
There's a lot of symmetry going on with what god is doing in his people. Mm-hmm. Yeah
It's interesting because so moses receives the commands from god and he comes down
he has him on the tablet and he brings it down to the to the israelites
And they're really kind of terrified of the thunder on the mountain and when god speaks and they're like, oh
Like god's voice is terrifying
Moses you go
Okay, spoil alert that doesn't end well, we're going to talk about that next week
Because even in the golden calf incident, we want to talk about the grace of god in the midst of chaos. Yeah
So if you have not read the golden calf next week, guess what? We're going to be talking about it
Yeah, and we're going to be talking about what is god doing in the middle of this?
Yeah, that's gonna be so good. So what are our big takeaways today?
There's two takeaways that i'm thinking of right now
so one
In the ten commandments is god is saying
Look, you don't need anything else. You don't need anyone else. You just need me
I've heard it said before by a pastor that I really like where he's like, yeah, you hear this phrase fear god
Then that's usually followed by you don't need to fear anything else
meaning that
Meaning that when you have a fear and an awe and a reverence of the lord
the fear
Of everything else just fades away. Yeah, because nothing else matters. So that's one takeaway for me. It's just that like
God is the only one that we need right? Right?
The the second takeaway for me is that
The second half of these ten commandments god saying hey don't sell yourself short
Right like you're loved you're valued. Mm-hmm
Right live into what I have for you
Don't sell yourself short and often what we can do because we often start the story in genesis three is we can be like
Whoa is me. I'm a crap person
And god's saying no you're not
I
Think a couple of my takeaways is one that we have to look at these
Laws and commands and words in context
Because if you look at them, like I said by the modern laws, you're going to misunderstand them
Yeah, you have to understand what was going on in the day and what is god speaking into because he does the same thing for us today
Mm-hmm, which is why prophetic word is so important and here in the voice of god, right?
Because we actually need to understand like what is god speaking into our situation today?
Yeah, and how does that line up with the biblical precedent of who he is? Yeah, right?
Because god's not going to have words in the bible about cars
Like you hear me like cars aren't in the bible. I know that they say that all the disciples were in one accord
That's not the kind of accord they were talking about right? Sorry. I had to work on that cheesy joke somewhere
The other takeaway I have is this if you don't remember that god is the one who brought you out of egypt
You're gonna find yourself serving other gods. You're gonna find yourself
Creating images that are not him and you're gonna find yourself bearing up the name incorrectly. Yeah
All of those things play into each other
So we need to remember who god is and what he's done for us in view of god's mercy
We're going to offer ourselves as living sacrifices
holy and pleasing to the lord
Where did we get the idea that holy sacrifices go and attack people?
Our job is to burn with fire
So that people can see god
And the beautiful thing about being a living sacrifice
Is if you roll off the altar you can get back on. Yeah
Yeah, that's so good
I just had this picture of a pig rolling off which doesn't even make sense in jewish culture like a pig, right?
Yeah, uh, you know, it's interesting actually if you think about a living sacrifice, right?
Like is holy and pleasing to the lord, right?
The image of that would almost be like a sacrifice that is on fire but doesn't burn like the burning bush
Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. Yeah, just throwing out there. Yeah
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You
Worship them for I the Lord in a jealous God and God will and jealous God the blah
For I it's your ability to speak that impresses me the most. I know it's so bad tonight
Do you think it's strange that this is the longest commandment that's in Exodus, right? I don't think it's strange
No, no, very intentional. Oh
That wasn't the end of that sentence