First Tablet: 5th Commandment
There is much talk of 'tablets' in the news. Chief Rabbi Sacks shows how the language of the Bible had been hi-jacked by the selfish consumer culture. Once a tablet meant one of the two pieces of stone on which the 10 commandments were written. Sacks said “Therefore the answer to the consumer society is the world of faith, which the Jews call the world of Shabbat, where you can't shop and.. you spend your time with things that matter, with family.”
God gave us 10 commandments. These are all incorporated and summarised into the two given by Christ. He was asked
“Master, which is the great commandment in the law?”
Jesus said unto him, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Mat 22:36-40)
The fifth commandment is “honour thy father and thy mother”
Why?
“That thy days may be long”
It is above commandment no. 6 'thou shall not kill' and no. 7 'thou shalt not commit adultery'
God considers honouring father and mother to be of more importance than the relationship with the husband/wife. There is even a BLESSING with it. In Malachi 1:6 God likens himself to a father and asks where is his honour? Christ upholds the honour to parents recorded in Matthew 15:4-6
For God commanded, saying, Honour thy father and mother: and, He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death. But ye say, Whosoever shall say to his father or his mother, It is a gift, by whatsoever thou might be profited by me; And honour not his father or his mother, he shall be free. Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition. (Matthew 15:4-6)
The incident is recorded also in Mark 7:10-17, show it is important. Christ says it cannot be fulfilled with a gift, it is a commandment! Paul backs it up again in Ephesians 6:1-3 and says it is the first commandment with promise, referring to the blessing of long life! So why is it important? Because it is a type of our relationship with Yahweh- He is our Father in Heaven.
If we cannot honour our parents how can we honour him? If we cannot do what our parents say, how can we do what God says? As a father, God reprimands us, he tries us, he chastens us.
What is our response to this? Do we cry. Do we say 'He is attacking us', do we say He hates us, do we stop our ears? This is what the world does.
Consider Job. He was afflicted by God. Look what Yahweh says to him in Job 40:7
Gird up thy loins now like a man: I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me. Will thou also disannul my judgment? wilt thou condemn me, that thou may be righteous? (Job 40:7-8)
The 10 commandments were stored in the Ark. The Ark was below the mercy seat where Yahweh would meet with Israel to converse with them (Exodus 25:22). The 10 commandments were integral to God conversing with Israel and with us. If we cannot do the commandments God will not be for us. The Ark will be taken away. We see this with Israel in the times of Samuel Chapters 4-7.
Marriage is likened to the relationship between Christ and his bride. Christ still had to obey his Father. His father was greater. As Christ said,
“I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I.” (John 14:28)
Our world lives in an age where we can 'do our own thing', 'chose our own way' with its humanistic catholic values. These values oppose God's commandments.
So why is there such a high rate of divorces, why don't modern marriages work? Because they miss the 10 commandments. It is no surprise that on every pre-marriage question list they look at the relationship to the parents. If this relationship doesn't work, neither will the marriage.
For more see: Law of Moses
The Bible is confronting, as it very rarely matches human thinking on any matter. If we wish to think as a human, we can never rise above that level. Would you never want any challenge to your thinking from a child? If we wish to grow we need challenge. The Bible lifts us beyond the ordinary – and on the matter of Discrimination, it is no different.
Open letter to the Australian Government Canberra on Labor's bill to 'protect' homosexual students in religious schools which would prevent freedom of religious conscience.
The 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta was celebrated 15 June 2015. The initial agreement of 1215 didn't last long and the king fought the Barons over the unresloved issues. The document was revived in a modified form after October 1216, but it wasn't established until the 11 September 1217 when the document was first called the 'Magna Carta' to distinguish from the smaller 'charter of the forest'. Thus the real 800th aniversary is not until 11 September 2017.
The following combines the work of an expert in the international law in relationship to Israel's establishment with a curiosity of Daniel's prophecy.
