THE 10 COMMANDMENTS IN BRIEF.
After the escape from Egypt, Moses appoints leaders and judges over the people of Israel on the advice of his father-in-law, Jethro (Ex. 18: 1-27).
From the very beginning, the Israelites were shown to be a “stiff-necked people” (so says the Lord c.f. Ex. 32:9), beginning from the grumbling about food which resulted in God sending the manna and quails from heavens (Ex. 16: 1-36) to the incident in Massah, where the people rebel because of thirst. So, Moses had a big headache with the people of Israel. And so, God gave him TWO TABLETS as cure (God indeed is the first physician ever to prescribe such a cure). God gave Moses two tablets of stone inscribed by the His finger (Ex.31: 18). On it were written the Decalogue, or the 10 Commandments given by the Lord to the people of Israel. Int happened on the 3rd month after they left Egypt, when they arrived on the Desert of Sinai. Moses went up the mountain and received the command from the Lord.
Meanwhile, after Moses went to the mountains, the people were impatient, because he was taking so long in coming down from the mountain. So, they went to Aaron and asked him to make for them ‘gods’ for them to worship. So, Aaron asked them to bring the earrings of their wives, sons and daughters were wearing and from there, he fashioned for them a golden calf (Ex.32: 2-4). And they prayed and burnt offerings to the idol, saying “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you out of Egypt.”
God was very angry at them and wanted to destroy the Israelites and make a great nation out of Moses instead. But Moses pleaded with the Lord and the Lord relented from the disaster that he had threatened.
Moses then went down with the two tablets of the Testimony with God’s writing on it. He saw the Israelites were enjoying themselves in revelry and saw the calf and dancing. He was angry and threw the tablets out of his hands and broke them. He, then took the calf, burnt it in the fire, ground it, scattered it on the water and made the Israelites drink it.
After that, the Lord asked him to bring two tablets of stone for the Lord to inscribe the 10 Commandments again.
THE FIRST COMMANDMENT
I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a graven 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; you shall not bow down to them or serve them. (Ex 20:2-5; cf. Deut 5:6-9.)
It is written: "You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve." (Deut. 6:13 and Luke 4:8 – The temptation of Jesus)
The peoples of the ancient world had all *sorts* of gods - gods of the sun, gods of the sea, gods of fire, darkness, death, health, wealth, beauty, wisdom and knowledge, war and destruction, lightning and thunder. God wanted the People of Israel to keep an identity AS *HIS* PEOPLE, not as just another silly little people with other silly little gods.
The core of the command is obvious - and so simple we constantly let it elude us. YOU MUST LET *GOD* BE GOD. You must not set yourself up as God. You must not try to determine for yourself what YOU would do if you were God - you must seek to understand what it is that God Himself has SAID He wished done.
The central value it holds is that of WORSHIP - not of terror, not of fear, not of submission (or even of "obedience" in the sense that obedience is so often conceived in Western life, a form of grudging submission).
Give God, your Father, His place at the center of your life. Live in a world in which God *really* IS your Father. Open your heart, as well as your mind, to God, your Father in Heaven.
For most of us, our OWN "gods" are those twins of comfort and of pleasure. Self-gratification. As instantly as possible. Isn't it true that whatever it is in your life that is MOST important for you IS your god? Truly was it said by Our Lord: "Where your treasure is, there also will your heart be."
The First Commandment in fact DEALS with absolutes. An absolute is, by definition, "something which comes before anything and everything else." It is something "before which every other thing must be made to yield." It is that measure by which we measure everything else.
II. "HIM ONLY SHALL YOU SERVE"
To adore God is to acknowledge him as God, as the Creator and Savior, the Lord and Master of everything that exists, as infinite and merciful Love. "You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve," says Jesus, citing Deuteronomy.
Lifting up the mind toward God is an expression of our adoration of God: prayer of praise and thanksgiving, intercession and petition. Prayer is an indispensable condition for being able to obey God's commandments. "[We] ought always to pray and not lose heart."
HOW ABOUT SUPERSTITION, DIVINATION, MAGIC AND IRRELIGION?
Superstition is the deviation of religious feeling and of the practices this feeling imposes. It can even affect the worship we offer the true God, e.g. when one attributes an importance in some way magical to certain practices otherwise lawful or necessary.
Idolatry not only refers to false pagan worship. It remains a constant temptation to faith. Idolatry consists in divinizing what is not God. Man commits idolatry whenever he honors and reveres a creature in place of God, whether this be gods or demons (for example, satanism), power, pleasure, race, ancestors, the state, money, etc. Jesus says, "You cannot serve God and mammon." Many martyrs died for not adoring "the Beast" refusing even to simulate such worship. Idolatry rejects the unique Lordship of God; it is therefore incompatible with communion with God.
All forms of divination are to be rejected: recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to "unveil" the future. Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers. They contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone.
All practices of magic or sorcery, by which one attempts to tame occult powers, so as to place them at one's service and have a supernatural power over others - even if this were for the sake of restoring their health - are gravely contrary to the virtue of religion. These practices are even more to be condemned when accompanied by the intention of harming someone, or when they have recourse to the intervention of demons. Wearing charms is also reprehensible. Spiritism often implies divination or magical practices; the Church for her part warns the faithful against it. Recourse to so-called traditional cures does not justify either the invocation of evil powers or the exploitation of another's credulity.
God's first commandment condemns the main sins of irreligion: tempting God, in words or deeds, sacrilege, and simony. (showing no respect to God and his commandments)
Tempting God consists in putting his goodness and almighty power to the test by word or deed. Thus Satan tried to induce Jesus to throw himself down from the Temple and, by this gesture, force God to act. Jesus opposed Satan with the word of God: "You shall not put the LORD your God to the test."
Sacrilege consists in profaning or treating unworthily the sacraments and other liturgical actions, as well as persons, things, or places consecrated to God. Sacrilege is a grave sin especially when committed against the Eucharist, for in this sacrament the true Body of Christ is made substantially present for us.
Simony is defined as the buying or selling of spiritual things. To Simon the magician, who wanted to buy the spiritual power he saw at work in the apostles, St. Peter responded: "Your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain God's gift with money!" Peter thus held to the words of Jesus: "You received without pay, give without pay." The minister should ask nothing for the administration of the sacraments beyond the offerings defined by the competent authority, always being careful that the needy are not deprived of the help of the sacraments because of their poverty."
No comments:
Post a Comment