Listen

Honor your father and your mother so that your life will be long on the fertile land that the Lord your God is giving you.

Do not kill.

Do not commit adultery.

Do not steal.

Do not testify falsely against your neighbor.

Do not desire your neighbor’s house. Do not desire and try to take your neighbor’s wife, male or female servant, ox, donkey, or anything else that belongs to your neighbor.

Exodus 20:12-17

Think

These verses are the final words of scripture commonly known as the Ten Commandments. Another version (but not an exact repeat) appears in Deuteronomy. Christian traditions and Biblical translations number the commandments differently and even use varying translations of the Hebrew words.

For example, “Do not steal,” seems fairly clear. Many Biblical scholars, however, believe the original Hebrew referred to stealing people to enslave them and not just an admonition against taking things. Hmmmm.

Exodus’s original language is a version of Hebrew written and spoken thousands of years ago in a culture very different from ours. The Ten Commandments are broad principles, meant by our ancestors in faith to offer guidance for our lives. Carving them in stone and keeping them as cold, distant rules is not a holy response to the Ten Commandments.

They are best infused in our hearts, so we may turn to them with inquiring and discerning minds as we make decisions about our actions, go about our daily lives, and measure the impact of our choices on other children of God.

Laurie Brock

Pray

God of perfect justice, write your law upon my heart, so that in the words I speak, in the thoughts I have, and in the deeds I do, I may follow your law of perfect love and gracious mercy. Amen.

Go

We are Christ’s presence of love in the world.

How will you share this love with those you meet today in what you think, in what you say, and in what you do?