This is the twenty-third lesson in author and pastor Mel Lawrenz’ How to Live the Bible series. If you know someone or a group who would like to follow along on this journey through Scripture, they can get more info and sign up to receive these essays via email here.

Just released: A Book of Prayers for Kids by Mel Lawrenz (a perfect Easter gift for the kids you know and love).

“You shall have no other gods before me.” This is how the Ten Commandments begin. We may not always realize what a radical notion that is. In most periods of history people groups around the world assume there are multiple deities. But the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob made it clear that he is the only God. The absoluteness of God keeps us focused and gives definition to our lives. We gladly submit to the one true God who is perfect and complete in righteousness, truth, and beauty. If there are many gods then there is no God at all.

The second commandment logically follows from the first. God’s people must not make any images to which they will bow down or worship. Physical idols were widely used in the ancient world, either as representations of deities or even as objects of devotion themselves. Whether fashioned from wood, stone, silver, or gold, idols are still never more than the products of human hands.

The prophet Isaiah would later satirize the ridiculousness of idolatry by describing a man who cuts down a tree and with one part makes a fire to warm himself or to bake some bread, and with another part carves an idol to worship (Isa. 44:9-20). Jeremiah mocks idols by saying their creators need to nail them down so they will not fall over (Jer. 10).

Idolatry today, of course, is substituting anything or anyone for God. If our highest affections, allegiances, and aspirations are directed toward a house, a business, a spouse, a career, or a bank account, then we are worshiping a God-substitute. In so doing we cut ourselves off from the greatest Reality of all. Our lives will be diminished; our values limited; our character incomplete.

The third commandment prohibits the misuse of the name of the Lord God. This is not exactly about vulgar or coarse language, but about speech invoking God. Ancient cultures emphasized the power of the spoken word, especially when making commitments or “swearing” in the name of someone with high authority. Today someone may say, “I swear to God…” before making a declaration. It is to invoke the authority of the Lord in order to strengthen a point. Given that there are hardly any circumstances whereby we ought to do that, we might conclude that we should not swear anything in the holy name of the Lord. To misuse God’s name is to dishonor God.

The fourth commandment is about remembering the Sabbath by keeping it holy. In the Old Testament refraining from any kind of work on the seventh day was both a prescription for holy and healthy living, and a sign of being the covenant people. Sabbath has significance because God rested after the act of creation (Ex. 20:11), and because God delivered his people from bondage in Egypt (Deut. 5:15). The Hebrew word shabbat means to cease. Life is to have a rhythm of the typical work we do, whether we get a paycheck for it or not, and then ceasing in order to do something different. That includes rest, and opportunities to invest in relationships, and to contemplate and worship God.

Some Christian traditions hold that the commandment about remembering the Sabbath requires us to have a specific day of the week where we refrain from work and engage in worship. These so-called Sabbatarian traditions may take the first day of the week, Sunday, to be the Christian Sabbath. A few groups take a strict view of observing the seventh day of the week, Saturday, as Sabbath.

Still other Christian traditions hold an interpretation that says we are not required to carry over Old Testament laws of religious observance, even this one in the Ten Commandments. So it is not wrong for businesses to stay open on Sundays or for a Christian to mow the lawn on a Sunday afternoon. Going to a worship service on a day of the week other than Sunday is not wrong, and hospital workers who work every other weekend are not violating the Sabbath.

If we take the view that Sabbath observance in ancient Hebrew culture (literally, from sundown on Friday until sundown on Saturday) does not carry over in the Christian life, we can still carry through on the principles of Sabbath. The ancient pattern teaches us that work and rest must be rhythms of life, and that a regular pattern of corporate worship is essential to spiritual growth. These are not minor concerns. In modern societies where the frenetic pace of life invites people to turn their lives into a blur of anxious activity or an electronically induced alienation and numbness, we need the principle of Sabbath to break us out of the busyness and deliver us to places of peace before the Lord.

[to be continued]

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Mel Lawrenz (@MelLawrenz) trains an international network of Christian leaders, ministry pioneers, and thought-leaders. He served as senior pastor of Elmbrook Church in Brookfield, Wisconsin, for ten years and now serves as Elmbrook’s minister at large. He has a PhD in the history of Christian thought and is on the adjunct faculty of Trinity International University. Mel is the author of 18 books, including How to Understand the Bible—A Simple Guide and Spiritual Influence: the Hidden Power Behind Leadership (Zondervan, 2012). See more of Mel’s writing at WordWay.