“Then God spoke all these words: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of slavery.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

It’s fun to look up lists of strange laws from around the country. There are all kinds of them. It’s illegal, for instance, to drive blindfolded in Alabama. In Missouri, my home state, bear wrestling is banned. And one more just for fun: in Arizona, donkeys are prohibited from sleeping in bathtubs. Laws and rules sometimes seem totally arbitrary. Yet while that may occasionally be the case, it is far more likely that they have a context in which they made perfect sense at one point. As we at last arrive at the famous Ten Commandments, the foundation for the laws God gave to Israel through Moses, while they are sometimes treated like they are strange and arbitrary, they all have a context. That’s what God starts with here. So, before we talk through the laws themselves, let’s talk about their context and why that matters.

Along the journey of parenting, sometimes we ask our kids to do things they don’t particularly want to do. And in these situations, there are times when they don’t respond with immediate and unquestioning obedience. Or, maybe your kids are perfect. Mine are awesome, but perfection isn’t something on the near horizon very often. On these rare occasions, it is not uncommon for them to inquire as to the reason for the instruction with which they aren’t so enamored. That is, they ask why.

Well, because I am a teacher by gift and passion, I tend to do my best to give them an explanation of my rationale. I’ll give myself the pat on the back that I probably spend more time explaining my thinking in response to their questioning why I’ve asked them to do this or that than a lot of parents. In fact, I probably lean too far in that direction. In any event, when I finally hit the limits of my patience (which aren’t all that big), or if I don’t have a particularly good reason beyond selfishness which I know is not going to be a terribly satisfying response to them, I’ll land on the time-honored answer that parents have been giving to their children’s why questions since time immemorial: Because I said so.

What those four words are communicating is that the instruction they have been given is rooted in our natural and God-given authority as their parents, and they need to accept their subordinate role in our relationship and do as they are told. Yet while that’s a convenient trump card to be able to play every now and then, from the standpoint of our kids, it is not very satisfying. In fact, if we play that card very often, we’ll do relational damage and wear thin their willingness to trust in us. Offering clear and well-thought out explanations of our rationale that are rooted in their self-interest (even if they disagree with our assessment of their self-interest in the moment) make deposits in the relational bank account we share with them. Playing the “because I said so” card makes a withdrawal. Use it too often and there won’t be anything left to take out. Those overdraft fees can get pretty expensive.

I say all of that to make this observation. When God finally gave the people these ten commands that were going to serve as the basic framework for the covenantal relationship He was making with them, His first six words were, “I am the Lord your God.” He could have stopped there and started issuing commands. He certainly had the position and authority to be able to stop there. I mean, He was God. And He knew He was God. And the people knew He was God. He had every right to tell the people of Israel how they were to be living if they were going to be in a relationship with Him just like He has the right to tell anyone else in the world how they are to be living. In fact, we can drop the relationship part of that. Because He is God, He has the right to tell us what to do period. He made us. He owns us. We are His whether we want to be or not.

But that’s not what He did. It’s not what He does. That’s not the kind of God He is. There are some gods that are all power and authority. Allah fits into this category. Allah is not interested in a relationship with you and you don’t have any business questioning him. You are to do what he says and that’s that. Anything less than that will incur his wrath. Yahweh, the God of the Bible is sometimes characterized this way as well, and yet the evidence for such a charge simply isn’t there.

When you read the Scriptures carefully, you will never find God telling the people to do this or that simply “because I am the Lord.” Now, before you go trying to prove me wrong with all the times in Leviticus where that phrase appears by itself to justify the many commands we find there, this passage here provides the context for those expressions. What He says here is the framework for all the rest of the commands in the Law. From this point forward, sometimes He provides the full framework, but sometimes He gives them just the shortened version for the sake of brevity. Either way, the pattern is rooted in what we see here.

So then, if God isn’t rooting these and all His commands for Israel (and for all of us still today for that matter) simply in His identity and authority as God, what does He do instead? Look at the full expression again: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the place slavery.” What is this? Is this just an “I’ve scratched your back now you scratch mine” sort of deal? Not at all. What God is doing here is rooting the commands He is about to give them in the relationship He has been seeking to build with them.

He has spent the past several months introducing Himself to them and demonstrating not just His power and authority, but His character to them. Now, in light of that, He is inviting them into this covenantal relationship. By doing this, He was helping the people to understand that the commands that follow from here were not simply things He was telling them to do and they needed to get over it. These commands all described what living in a relationship with Him looked like. These were not “do this or else” matters, but rather descriptions of boundaries.

He had revealed Himself to them as a holy and righteous God. If they wanted to live in a relationship with Him, they were going to have to live a life of holiness and righteousness themselves. The commands that followed here gave them some big picture ideas of what that actually looked like. We’ll get into the commands themselves over the next couple of weeks, but before we do, I want to make sure you understand this context well. If you don’t, the commands aren’t going to make as much positive sense as they will otherwise. They will seem arbitrary and common. Sure, God doesn’t want us to do these kinds of things, but most gods have something like this. What makes this God any different from all the rest? The context. No other god is relational like He is. No other god is interested in a relationship with us. They only want our obedience. The God of the Bible does want our obedience, but only and always in a relational context. Absent that, He’s not interested. Or, to put that another way, He wants our hearts, not simply our bodies.

This same thing is still true for us today. When Jesus gave the disciples His new commandment, the one that was to replace all the other commandments as the governing law of the new covenant He was making, He revealed it to them following this exact same pattern. He said, “I give you a new command: Love one another.” And He could have stopped there. He could have simply said, “Love one another” with an implied, “because I said so.” But He didn’t. He rooted it in relationship. “Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another.” That’s relationship. Because He is a relational God.

Our God wants a relationship with us. Everything He does with, to, and for us is rooted in that desire. The commands He gives are all about helping us understand what a relationship with Him looks like and how it works. They show us where the boundaries of the relationship are so we can live comfortably inside of them. We have to decide if this is a relationship we want or not. He won’t force us into it, but eternal life can’t be found anywhere else. The choice is ours. Let’s make it wisely.