It’s been a couple of weeks since we’ve thought together about the Ten Commandments, which we’ve interpreted as ten commitments made by those who choose to enter into covenant with the Living God of the Bible. We’ve also suggested that these are ten outcomes of living normal life with God in Christ within such a covenant. Today, we deal with commitment # 5 about parents and children. Since it has been a while since we worked on these, let me take a few minutes to talk about this list as a whole. I suggest to my seminary students who are… Continue reading →

It may seem that the so-called Sabbath Commandment is pretty low-level stuff. It doesn’t deal directly with God and how to worship as do the first three. It also doesn’t deal with those big ethical issues, as do the last five. It has to do with a specifically Jewish observance, the Sabbath. In the Christian North America of earlier days, these words were interpreted to mean, on one hand, that you had to go to church (for some Christians twice) on Sunday. On the other hand, you couldn’t play sports or games buy booze (if you ever could), or have… Continue reading →