The 5th, 6th and 7th Commandments
Deuteronomy 5:16-18 (NLT)
“Honor your father and mother, as the LORD your God commanded you. Then you will live a long, full life in the land the LORD your God is giving you”
“You must not murder”
“You must not commit adultery” Deuteronomy 5:16-18 (NLT)
Pastor’s Blog
I wonder if it is really possible to dishonor your parents on the one hand and to honor God on the other. What do you think?
It looks to me like God set life up in such a way that honoring your parents is the training ground which will determine whether or not you will be a Christ honorer and follower. I think that perhaps the most important task of a parent is to grow a parent-honoring attitude in your children. This requires invested, time intensive, loving discipline. That’s a really, really tough job these days, yet it is often noted that this commandment is the only one with a promise attached. Perhaps the greatest parental shortcoming in the 21st century is the failure to provided loving discipline. It’s the path to respect, which is the prerequisite to loving others and loving God. Without respect there is no love.
The 6th commandment protects the lives of God’s people. Murder refers to manslaughter and also killing for illegitimate reasons. It does not prohibit capital punishment (which can be objected to, but on other grounds). I love Matthew 5:21 where Jesus amplifies this teaching to get to the heart of God. He says every time you call someone an idiot, you’ve murdered the person!!! We should never, never, never, never, speak disparagingly of another.
The 7th commandment is the “horizontal” (people to people) equivalent of the 1st commandment which a “vertical” commandment (people to God). Adultery is unfaithfulness to the one who has been faithful to you. It is betrayal. It breaks a trust. It divides your loyalty. (and much, much more) It damages relationship. And relationship is what these commands are, at their core, all about. If you think through all the dangers of non marital sex (disease, emotional pain, abortion, out of wedlock pregnancies, single parenting, poverty, the pain of families and friends, the dis-integration of personality, the using of another for one’s own gratification, etc. etc.) and then think of all the freedoms that chastity outside of marriage and fidelity within marriage bring (security, clarity, emotional and physical health, safety, protection from being physically used, the knowledge that becoming one means something, the powerful blending of commitment and sex, the blessing of giving children two parents for life, fidelity, trust etc. etc.) . . . . then the protection and provision that God provides through by way of this commandment becomes more and more clear. I think I just typed a run-on sentence!
(to post your thoughts, anonymously if you wish, simply click on “comments” below)
No comments:
Post a Comment