Digging in Deeper: Exodus 20:3

“Do not have other gods besides me.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

When the apostle Paul was talking about marriage with the Ephesian church, he described it as being a reflection of the relationship we have with Jesus. The thing about being in a marriage is that as much as our culture today would like to pretend otherwise, it is a definitionally exclusive relationship. When you are married to someone, you are married to just them and no one else. If you try to expand beyond that, you may have something else, but you don’t have a marriage anymore. Trying to continue calling whatever else you have now marriage will just dilute the definition and ultimately cause issues for you and the people who are in your direct sphere of influence. There’s a reason, then, the first commandment of God’s big ten puts a major limitation on Israel’s ability to relate to other gods. Let’s talk about it.

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Digging in Deeper: Exodus 20:1-2

“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.

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