The Story Unknown
By Rev. William Dohle
It's nearly October and the time has come once again to crack open a scary book in honor of my favorite holiday, Halloween.
I usually start here in September and read as many as I can before the clock strikes 12 on Halloween night.
This year I chose "The Shining" by Stephen King with the sequel "Doctor Sleep" coming out in September. I figure I can finish the first so I can crack open and finish the second the day it arrives.
Now, I have seen the old move, "The Shining", with Jack Nicholson, but I had never read the book. And now, nearly finished with the book, I must say...
They are NOTHING alike!!
There's no scary children in the book. Just in the movie. No rivers of blood flowing down the stairs. That's only in the movie too. The book and the movie share the scariest scene, but all the things that I thought were SOO freaky...aren't in the book. Figures huh? You think you know a thing...until you actually read it.
That principle applies also to one hallmark of faith. Something courts and judges have argued over. Something we teach our children and hang up on our walls. We're talking the one...the only...Ten Commandments!
This list of laws dating back thousands of years most people think they understand...but they really don't. And only when looking at the text itself and what comes before and after this list can we see how terribly we have misunderstood this text.
Take their numbering for instance. Everyone knows that there are just ten of them...right?? The ten commandments are made up of ten. Sounds like a trick question or something...
But if you actually read the text and start counting...there's actually eleven commandments. That's right. There's eleven directives!
So we ignore one, big deal. We all ignore the same one...right? Not quite. Luther's Small Catechism has two covet commandments. "You shall not covet your neighbor's house" and "You shall not covet your neighbors wife...or anything that belongs to your neighbor" and skips "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything...".
Other ten commandment lists combine the covet commandments leaving room for the "no graven image" commandment.
Ten or eleven, you say. Big deal. It's close enough...
Not really... Because there aren't just ten commandments from God. There are hundreds! These are just the ones that God chose to begin with! God doesn't give the ten or eleven and then quit. He continues commanding his people throughout the book of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.
But these ten, or eleven, or whatever are enough. They're the commands God gave to the world.
Again... not quite. These commandments are at the center of the covenant God forged with his people, Israel. He didn't give these commands to the rest of the world or to any other nation. These are his commands TO THE JEWS.
Furthermore, they aren't really commands at all. This section is written as the start of a promise, a covenant, between God and his people. God begins by saying...
"Here's who I am and what I did for you..." I am the Lord your God who brought you up out of Egypt out of the land of slavery.
"And here's what you'll do for me..." You shall have no other gods before me... You shall not make for yourself an idol...etc.
This is the beginning of the covenant-relationship with Israel. Here God binds Israel to himself. Here God establishes what His people will look like, and act like, and be like in the world.
It's marvelous how God did this!
I am thankful that, as a Christian, I too am caught up in this covenant. Having been grafted to God's people through Jesus the Christ, I too am caught up with God's people as God makes his covenant with them. As an adopted child through Jesus, I share in the responsibilities that God lays upon God's people. I too am struck by his voice from the mountain.
And I respond as Israel did, when they say to Moses, "Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die."(20:19)
And I too hear Moses' words of comfort: "Do not be afraid. God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning."(20:20)
Let us lay aside the images we have of this event and read it for ourselves. For in it we see our gracious God keeping us from sinning, forgiving us when we do, and strengthening us to walk in His Way that he set before us both at Mt. Sinai and in his Son, Jesus Christ.
How much, O Lord, do I not understand of You and Your Word. Teach me to follow after you, to learn, and to be open to what you have to teach me. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment