January 2025

In the section on slavery, God shows His regard for human life. We are, after all, made in His image, given His breath and designed to reflect His character and values. Through Christ, we are reborn and spend the rest of our lives living in reverent imitation of Him. Murder then, is the antithesis of […]

Exodus 21 begins a long line of laws and ordinances required by God from His people. Most likely this made up the bulk of Moses’ time on Mt. Sinai. The Decalogue could’ve been spoken relatively quickly, but moderating the nuances of day to day life was also important. After making an altar of earth and

Humanity has a tendency to ordain things that are important to them. If we have a house, we decorate it. If there’s a holiday, we buy decor. If there’s an important game on TV, we’ll wear our favorite shirt in support of them (even though they’ll never know). When designing the Temple, David amassed billions

Closing out the Decalogue is the 10th commandment—a clause that, despite it’s blunt terminology, somehow includes every other part of the Law itself. The phrase? “Thou shalt not covet.” And if there any questions as to what specifically not to covet, God elaborates: Don’t covet your neighbor’s wife, his servants, his livestock, or “anything that

Like most of the Ten Commandments, the one about “not bearing false witness” is explained by the rest of the Bible. The idea itself is pretty straightforward: Don’t say anything about other people that is a lie. That prohibits slander, deception, back-corner whispers, questioning motives, or anything else that unjustly damages a person’s reputation. On

Every once in a while, I’ll have a well-meaning person ask me if it’s okay to join the military. When I ask the reason why, it’s because they’re uncomfortable with the idea of possibly killing another human being. I get the hesitation, and honestly, I respect it. No person should ever be “okay” with killing

When Paul speaks about interpersonal relationships in Ephesians 6:1-3, he quotes directly from Exodus 20:12: “Honor your father and mother.” But then, he adds a little bit of his own commentary on the back end of verse 2: “…Which is the first commandment with a promise.” We might not notice it at first, but he’s

A few years ago, I did what everybody does at some point: I Googled my name. I’m not really sure why, besides the fact that I was just bored and wanted to see if I appeared on any kind of nefarious websites.  When I looked at the search results, I found that my exact name

Call me ignorant, but I’ve always kind of assumed the second commandment was basically a repeat of the first. After all, the first commandment says not to make other gods, while the second says not to make “graven images.” What’s the difference? At first glance, there seems to be a pretty generous overlap. But when

The Ten Commandments were never meant to be a matter of public, government debate. Ever since they were placed in schools and law courts, people have fought to remove them, claiming that they are a direct violation of freedom of religion. I’m not going to wade into that debate here. What I am going to