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 say is that from the outset, the Ten Commandments were meant to be divisive. That much is for sure.
You get that from the outset. When God says “You shall have no other gods before Me,” He draws a line in the sand. If you have an idol or anything else that comes before God, you have no place among His people. Period. Jesus says almost the exact same thing in Matthew 10:37.
The Decalogue is important because it codifies a group of people. No longer are these people slaves that are on the run from their Egyptian overlords, they are an independent, sovereign nation that answers to God and God alone. For a nation that’s used to being told what to do, this is a big deal.
But it also holds all of the people responsible for following a set of laws. When you look at Leviticus and Numbers, a lot of those laws are for the priests. The Ten Commandments, on the other hand, are for everybody.
Some people view the Ten Commandments as a sort of preamble to the rest of the Law—a view which makes a lot of sense in my opinion. The Ten Commandments don’t tell us every single law in the Bible, but you can argue that they encompass all of the laws.
Think about the organization of these commandments. The first four have to do with a relationship with God, whereas the last six cover relationships with each other. Where else have we seen that delineation? When Jesus answered a question about the “greatest commandments” and said they were to “love God” and “love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:36-40).
The surprising part about the Decalogue is that they are largely negative in nature: “Don’t” make graven images, “don’t” commit adultery, and “don’t” murder. It’s almost as if God knew that for an infant nation, they needed firm guardrails.
Over time, as they matured, the nation of Israel was expected to grow in their understanding, just as we are. When we’re converted, we need boundaries. As we grow, we shouldn’t need them as much. They’re still there obviously, but we’re not as tempted to push against them like we did when were newer Christians.
For now though, Israel needed to remember these ten laws. Once they had mastered them, the other 613 would make much more sense.
