In this audio only podcast episode, Clint Loveall and Michael Gewecke continue their conversation on the Ten Commandments. They discuss the first two commandments and the importance of understanding the context and relationship with God. They explore the idea of worship, trust, and gratitude towards God, emphasizing the need to have no other gods before Him. Join them as they delve into the deeper meaning behind these commandments and their relevance in our lives today.
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Watch, Listen, & Read the Full Transcript
00:00:01:08 – 00:00:24:22
Clint Loveall
So tonight we get started. Continue our conversation on the Ten Commandments. And Michael and I have decided that the approach we’d have for this would be to do two commandments a week. So tonight, we look at the first two commandments. Last week, we told you that there are actually three versions of the Ten Commandments. The Jewish version, the Protestant version, and the Catholic version.
00:00:24:27 – 00:00:55:48
Clint Loveall
The same commandments, slightly different order. Tonight, we handle the first two in the Protestant. But to get there, we look at what we call the preface. But our Jewish brothers and sisters would call the first commandment I’m the Lord your God who brought you from the land of Egypt. So the Jewish ordering of the commandments, that is actually their first commandment, which doesn’t command anything.
00:00:55:53 – 00:01:24:41
Clint Loveall
But it simply states that the foundation of what they consider the law. So this is the context that we have. I am the Lord your God. And remember that in the story, there’s there’s lots of conversation. But biblical scholars, history scholars have lots of conversation about when did Scripture get written? In other words, it was probably not generally a written thing.
00:01:24:42 – 00:01:49:03
Clint Loveall
It was an oral tradition for a long time. And then the question is when does it get written? And people date that in different times. But remember, the context of the giving of the commandments is as Moses and the people make their way to the promised land. So as they prepare to go in and live in a new place, among other people, this is the context for the commandments.
00:01:49:03 – 00:02:18:05
Clint Loveall
In other words, when you get over there and people are doing all kinds of stuff. This is what I expect of you. And we see that pretty clearly in these first words, I am the Lord. And if you look at that in your Bible, if you’re if your Bible is I won’t say it that way. Your Bible should use all capitals for the word Lord.
00:02:18:05 – 00:02:45:47
Clint Loveall
There you may have you may have noticed as you read the Old Testament, you will run into the word Lord, Lord in all capitals. The does anyone. Is anyone familiar with the word Yahweh? Yahweh is considered the divine name of God. A Jewish person won’t say the name Yahweh. They won’t even write it. They’ll write. Why? W.H.? It is considered the sacred name of God.
00:02:45:52 – 00:03:19:46
Clint Loveall
When you see Lord in capitals in the Old Testament, it means that you’re reading the word your way. But in the translation and transmission of it, they changed it to the word Lord so that no one would accidentally say it. So when he said, When it says I am the Lord, it literally says I am Yahweh. God gives his name to the people, His identity I am, which is important because I am means.
00:03:19:51 – 00:03:51:25
Clint Loveall
That’s the word Yahweh. So it almost reads, I am, I am. I am your way. The Lord and the God who brought you out of Egypt. So the other thing here that is important, you’ve heard the word Elohim. Elohim in Hebrew means God, and it can mean big. Our God or it can mean little g, other gods. So it is the generic word for God.
00:03:51:30 – 00:04:25:19
Clint Loveall
I am your way. Who is your God and what has not God done? I brought you out of Egypt. So everything that follows all the commandments are a reflection of what God has done. Obedience to the commandments is to be based in gratitude for what God has done to the people, and not just some generic God, the God Yahweh, the specific unique, the God of you.
00:04:25:24 – 00:04:54:07
Clint Loveall
I am your God, not just some random God out there that exists, but your God who has specifically done the thing of delivering you from slavery. Now, if you understand that this is why Jewish people consider that the first commandment, they elevate that statement to such a degree that they consider it the first command. It doesn’t have a shall or shall not.
00:04:54:12 – 00:05:03:58
Clint Loveall
It’s just a thing they believe should never be forgotten and therefore starts the commandments. We treat it as preface, but we hear the same kind of thing in it.
00:05:04:03 – 00:05:29:01
Michael Gewecke
Right. So another way of saying that is the name of God is given as the address becomes for them the context of relationship, it becomes the initial word that establishes everything that follows. Two things matter in that. And the first is that this provides the opening word of who creates the covenantal relationship with the people. Some scholars talk about how the Ten Commandments are like a contract.
00:05:29:02 – 00:05:57:49
Michael Gewecke
They’re like an ancient covenant between parties that essentially establishes This is the terms of our relationship. And what’s of note here is Yahweh is the one who initiates that relationship. He’s the one that the people are going to then respond to in everything that follows. And that’s important because, as we know, as the people receive these commandments and seek to live them out, who’s the one who’s going to violate the commandments?
00:05:57:50 – 00:06:23:22
Michael Gewecke
Time and again, the people who will be faithful, Yahweh, the one who initiates this relationship, is going to be the one who is faithful. So as it goes down the road, as the writer of the writers of the Old Testament, give us the context for these commandments. The stories that they’re going to tell after are going to show how the people struggle to live that out.
00:06:23:27 – 00:06:52:12
Michael Gewecke
Second thing to share with you, John Calvin, in reading this, points out that God in addressing the people relationally from the very first Calvin used this word. He says that God is creating senses, and Calvin in his theology was very interested in the idea that the human heart is an idle making factory. The idea that when we don’t see God, we’re tempted to make images of God all over as a replacement for God.
00:06:52:17 – 00:07:17:48
Michael Gewecke
And so Calvin found it instructive that the beginning of the Ten Commandments God literally called by name the one who was going to make a relationship with these people. And when God said that he was Yahweh and that he was Elohim, then he created the fences upon which human life would be lived between. And that sounds very theological, and maybe it sounds a little abstract, but I think it’s very practical.
00:07:17:52 – 00:07:38:55
Michael Gewecke
It means that everything that you do in service to God is in service to the one real God, not a made up, an imaginary God, not a God who can be argued or debated out of existence. The real God who did a real thing is the one in whose we live our lives. That’s between those senses that makes it possible.
00:07:39:09 – 00:08:04:42
Michael Gewecke
And. And that ultimately I think, is maybe best seen in this statement when God says, I’m the one who brought you out of Egypt. It is the removal from slavery. It is the the transition from bondage to freedom that the people have discovered God’s will for them, that he not only wants to reclaim them, but he is willing to bring them through the Red Sea to make it happen.
00:08:04:51 – 00:08:33:54
Michael Gewecke
And ultimately, if you read Exodus or, you know, the Exodus story, the people of Israel, it is abundantly clear, had no skill or military wit or ability that resulted in their freedom that ultimately being taken through the sea was a divine miracle, an act of God. But the question that people would wrestle with almost the day after they’re rescued from Egypt was Who brought us through?
00:08:33:59 – 00:08:55:10
Michael Gewecke
Who is our God? And at the beginning of the Ten Commandments, God is unequivocal. God is concrete. God is literal. God says, I am your God and God names himself. And then ultimately, we’re going to see as we go in, I’m not going to move too far ahead, but we’re going to see that this gets tied in when God makes the claim I’m your God.
00:08:55:15 – 00:09:01:21
Michael Gewecke
And that means other gods are not your God. But we’ll get to that.
00:09:01:26 – 00:09:30:29
Clint Loveall
And these these first two commandments, we think of them. We’ll say more about this toward the end. But we think of them as abstract. When we think of other gods, we think of other things that we overvalue. Right. Keep in mind that in this context, the people who are listening, they know the names of other gods Moloch, Bael, Ashura, they could name them.
00:09:30:34 – 00:10:05:58
Clint Loveall
They know people who worship them. And in that context, God says, I your way, am your God and you are my people. And as a sign of being my people, here are the behaviors I expect. Here are the laws that I give. And for Christians, I think this makes sense. God’s demands are rooted in God’s deliverance. We live out of relationship.
00:10:06:03 – 00:10:31:14
Clint Loveall
We live out of covenant with the one who has delivered us. And so as we move to the first commandment, which is what? No other gods before me. That’s right. You shall have no other gods before me. This is a word of relationship sometimes before is translated. Besides, it literally means before my face in front of my face.
00:10:31:19 – 00:11:02:31
Clint Loveall
I shall not see any other gods among you. Don’t put another God in front of me. That’s the idea. Here. I better not see any gods. Even if you wanted to put it in. Negative. And that’s not about permission. It’s about priority. You don’t need other gods. I am the Lord. Your God. I supply your needs. I will not accept other gods.
00:11:02:36 – 00:11:35:40
Clint Loveall
And so the first word that God gives as a commandment is a word of faithfulness. God has been faithful to people. So in return, God demands, expects commands that they, too, shall be faithful. And what is what is important about this is we said this last week, the Ten Commandments. If you take relationship out of it, it just devolves into a list of do’s and don’ts.
00:11:35:45 – 00:11:52:16
Clint Loveall
But the only way you can properly understand the Ten Commandments is to come at it from this aspect of covenant, from relationship. And therefore it is both public and private.
00:11:52:21 – 00:12:18:05
Michael Gewecke
Yeah. So this is where maybe we begin as modern readers to to get tempted. I think there is a temptation that when you’ve grown up in a in a culture that is dominated by a monotheistic idea, that one God, it’s easy for us to start reading past these and say, yeah, I didn’t pass by 14 temples to get to church today.
00:12:18:07 – 00:12:45:33
Michael Gewecke
Right. But what’s interesting is this idea is that ultimately when we stand before God, there’s unity or there’s a there’s a carryover. What you do in private is the same as what you do in public. The idea is that put no other gods before me means not just the ones you put on a shrine, but the ones you put in your heart.
00:12:45:37 – 00:13:13:36
Michael Gewecke
And this is where Protestants, I think, in particular, have dug very deeply, because at the end of the day, we may not have altars in our homes to fertility gods, but we have altars in every single one of our pocketbooks. Our budgets reflect our values, but our time reflects our values. The places where we have put things in front of God’s face are legion.
00:13:13:40 – 00:13:37:28
Michael Gewecke
And so there’s a long tradition within the Protestant tradition of looking to the heart and finding in those private places opportunities where we have put things before God, where we’ve chosen something other than God. And yet if you’re looking for something really practical to that end, I think Calvin was really helpful. If you’re a note taker, tell them so we can learn four things from the first command.
00:13:37:28 – 00:14:03:56
Michael Gewecke
And I think that this is helpful. The first, Calvin says that we can be taught that our calling as humans is to adore God, is to to recognize that God is unique, that our God not not the great God of the cosmos, Yahweh, God, the God who has rescued the people and who has called us out and given us spiritual freedom, that God deserves our gratitude and adoration.
00:14:04:01 – 00:14:27:05
Michael Gewecke
It means that we submit to God and we submit our conscience as to what God tells us that we live, by the way that God has given us, because that shows love and admiration for God. The second is that we trust God, that when God gives us commandments, that if He is our God, that we trust Him to carry us into the future and that we trust him with our lives.
00:14:27:07 – 00:14:53:58
Michael Gewecke
Of course, you know the word that we use for that is faith. Then the idea of invocation, I think this is wonderful. The idea that if God is our God, then he is the God that we pray to that that he’s the one that we seek. It’s his face that we seek to put first in our life. And then finally, Calvin says, It means that we are thankful that whenever we experience good things in life, that we can be confident it’s our God who gave it to us.
00:14:54:03 – 00:15:05:08
Michael Gewecke
And so if we adore God, if we trust God, if we seek God in prayer, and we give Thanksgiving to God that we’re fundamentally, as Christians living into the promise of the first commandment.
00:15:05:13 – 00:15:25:25
Clint Loveall
And the shorthand that our Presbyterian people have kind of used for, this is the idea of worship, not worship in the strict sense of what we do in the sanctuary, but worship as in the word worship, means to magnify, to elevate. So worship in the sense of what it is that we as individuals and as communities lift up.
00:15:25:30 – 00:15:49:34
Clint Loveall
And it may surprise you, the Westminster Catechism. Did anybody go through that as kids, by the way? Yeah, probably the shorter maybe a few of us had to suffer through the larger the larger catechism has a very interesting section on the Ten Commandments where for each commandment, it asks the question, what are the faith and duties required in this commandment?
00:15:49:39 – 00:16:19:09
Clint Loveall
And then what are the sins prohibited by this commandment? And you think have no gods before me? Well, that’s it, right? No, They they write a paragraph on what that means. And let me just read some of this to you. The duties required in the first commandment are knowing and acknowledging God to be the only true God and our God to worship and glorify Him accordingly.
00:16:19:13 – 00:16:50:58
Clint Loveall
By thinking, meditating, remembering is steaming, honoring, adoring, choosing, loving, desiring and fearing him, believing him, trusting, hoping, delighting and rejoicing in him, being zealous for him, calling upon him, giving all praise and thanks, yielding all obedience and submitting to him with our whole being careful in all things to please him and sorrowful when in anything he is offended as we walk humbly with him.
00:16:51:03 – 00:17:21:27
Clint Loveall
Now, on one hand, only our people could take a five word commandment and write 58 words about it. On the other hand, what does it mean to have no other gods before me? It means to trust and hope and honor and adore, to rejoice, to be zealous, to be passionate, to call upon him and give praise. And it means to do that.
00:17:21:27 – 00:17:51:56
Clint Loveall
Choosing to direct that at Yahweh, our God and nothing or no one else to elevate him above all the things in our life that tempt us to give them our praise and our adoration instead. And our people are honest, as are the commandments. God knows that as the people go into the promised land, they’re going to look around and go, Hey, those people sing and dance to a fertility goddess and then their crops grow.
00:17:52:01 – 00:18:30:04
Clint Loveall
Maybe we should try it. Hey, that God wears armor and meets all their enemies. That sounds good. Hey, they say their God made them rich. I like money. God knows specifically that the people are entering a land in which there are going to be other claims about what to put first. And so the first commandment Thou shall have no other gods before me in front of me.
00:18:30:09 – 00:19:16:12
Clint Loveall
Keep me first. It is less about obeying a rule, and it is more about honoring a relationship. It’s a covenant mental command about remaining faithful and being rightly related that nothing else sacred will be placed before God. It it’s not just priority. It’s not just an ordering. It’s that God is exclusively our only God and very likely as it comes next, the only one that we should worship.
00:19:16:17 – 00:19:50:12
Clint Loveall
And so what sounds as simple becomes very complex when you move it from a rule to a guide for relationship. We’ll circle back to this. But the probably the best illustration we have of this is a wedding. When Michael or I perform a wedding ceremony and there’s a usually a young man and a young woman, sometimes they’re not young, but whatever they are, they they turn and they face one another and they say vows, right?
00:19:50:16 – 00:20:20:57
Clint Loveall
I will be faithful, love you, cherish you, all that kind of stuff. Right. We’re not giving them rules. We’re giving them a way to live in relationship. Be faithful to your spouse. It it it’s not a rule that you have to follow to be married. It’s the way being married works in relationship. Right. And so it’s a it’s a commitment and a recommitment.
00:20:21:01 – 00:20:50:24
Clint Loveall
And even if it were broken, it becomes a reestablishment of relationship. And that’s the idea here. God says you’re I’m yours, you’re mine. For better or worse, we’re going to work that out. And I don’t want anything else in the way. Nothing else gets to be in there. And it’s a command because God understands. It has to be because we’re not.
00:20:50:29 – 00:21:21:54
Clint Loveall
We’re not great at keeping one thing first unless generally it’s itself. So. But does that make. Does that make some sense? The difference between a rule and relationship, I think that is I think that’s a very helpful, almost revolutionary way to understand the commandment, by the way. Let me just do the backside of Westminster here. They wrote four paragraphs for this.
00:21:21:59 – 00:21:59:39
Clint Loveall
What are the what are the things, the sins that are forbidden in the sack in the first commandment? Atheism is first, which makes me smile. Then idolatry. Where are we going next? Omission and neglect of anything due to God. Ignorance, forgetfulness, misapprehension, false opinions, unworthy wicked thoughts, bold, curious, searching into his secrets, all profane. This self-love, self-seeking, unbelief, heresy, myths, belief, distrust.
00:21:59:43 – 00:22:41:37
Clint Loveall
It goes on and on and on. Indiscreet zeal, lukewarm ness, deadness toward the things of God, compacts and consulting with the devil angels mediums slighting and despising God, resisting grieving the Spirit, impatience of Skip that one can cross that one out and ascribing praise to any of any good to anyone other than our Heavenly Father. So again, I think as you understand the context and what God is saying to the people in offering these.
00:22:41:42 – 00:22:49:09
Clint Loveall
I do think it very much changes how we understand and how we hear. The idea of having commandments.
00:22:49:13 – 00:23:18:39
Michael Gewecke
I’m really quick, just before we move on, offer maybe an explanatory word. I think it’s easy for me to miss why this commandment is so difficult for the people. So just put this in context. I just got the opportunity to eat food that was provided for me, good food that tasted great. I’m going to get in my car, which is going to transport me home to a place of safety and security, where I’m going to flip a switch and water is going to pour out of the spigot and I’m going to have all of it that I need.
00:23:18:48 – 00:23:47:04
Michael Gewecke
And I’m going to go lay down in the bed that is soft and comfortable and I’m going to wake up tomorrow, Lord willing, and everything will repeat the next day. Right. Remember that these people are going into a land where they see people with fortified cities, with water sources and food and farming and all of those things, and they’re wandering around, sleeping on the ground, hoping they find water that day, eating what you might call it off of the dirt.
00:23:47:09 – 00:24:14:34
Michael Gewecke
And they sometimes would love to have a different God. They love to have different results. So I think it’s easy for us to think, well, that why is that hard for you? It’s ridiculously hard because when you’re when your God does it end with the results that you would prefer? You start looking for a God that will. And if you can relate to that, then you can see the many ways that we do that in our own life.
00:24:14:34 – 00:24:45:14
Michael Gewecke
That’s when God fills in as the backup God. Right now, the investments are going really well. I’ll consult you if money becomes a problem in the future. That’s a temptation of the human heart or God. I’ve got this parenting thing under control until you get the phone call from the principal. Whatever it is, I think that we can relate to that first century awareness that that when things in life are going well, those are the times it’s hardest to keep the first commandment.
00:24:45:28 – 00:24:55:03
Michael Gewecke
And if that’s you tonight, I hope that you might turn back around to reflect upon the ways that you can recommit to that task.
00:24:55:08 – 00:25:22:45
Clint Loveall
So then where when we seek other gods historically, where’s the first place we look? We look inside. We look to self. Right. So the second commandment comes out, which is no idols, okay? No graven images. Thou shall not make for thyself a graven image. This one comes with a lot of commentary of anything that is in the heavens, that is in the water under the earth or that is on the earth.
00:25:22:49 – 00:25:48:27
Clint Loveall
You shall not bow down, or worse, the crime. The Lord, your God am a jealous God, punishing the sins of the Father for three and four generations, but rewarding to the thousandth generation. Those who trust and obey my commandments. It’s not word for word, of course. Okay, so this one comes with the commandment, then some commentary, warning and promise.
00:25:48:32 – 00:26:17:51
Clint Loveall
Historically, we’ve translated that Idol. A better translation may be image. Literally, it’s the word is carved and graven image is the classic thing that we’ve said it, which is a fair translation. Idol is not a bad translation, but there there is a divide. We’ll talk about that kind of idol lets us off the hook for some things that image doesn’t.
00:26:17:56 – 00:26:51:52
Clint Loveall
So having been warned to have no other gods, they’re now warned not to make gods small. I am your way. The creator who left you, who led you out of Egypt and didn’t leave you in slavery. Don’t make me a bird. Don’t make me a clay stick. Don’t turn me into something. Do not make me small. Do not equate what I’ve created with myself.
00:26:51:52 – 00:27:17:04
Clint Loveall
The Creator. God is not a mascot and will not be subjected to a physical object or form from the people. And because again, this is the world in which the people live, right? Every God had a corresponding figure. There’s a God named L. L is a bull. There is a God named Bale. Bale is the God of storms.
00:27:17:04 – 00:27:35:30
Clint Loveall
Got a lightning bolt, right? Israel is unique in that they’re the only real religion of the region that has a God that doesn’t have a picture to go with it because that God says I’m. You’re not doing that to me.
00:27:35:34 – 00:28:03:40
Clint Loveall
God knows our human minds want to to make images, to capture snapshots. And so this command comes laid out in three prohibitions you will not make, nor were you bowed down, nor will you serve. And then we get into that exposition. I’m a jealous God. And this word jealous in Hebrew is only used of God. It’s not the normal word for jealous.
00:28:03:45 – 00:28:38:10
Clint Loveall
It means we are exclusive. Israel, you and me, we are it. Don’t be bringing pictures and statues and things to this. This deal that does not work. I’m a jealous God. I do not share. I will not be second. I will not settle. Not only will you not have an idol, you won’t make me safe. You won’t make me something that you keep in a building and you trot out when it’s time to have a festival.
00:28:38:15 – 00:29:10:16
Clint Loveall
That’s not who I am. That’s not how this works. And so this idea of idolatry. Yes. Worshiping a thing is offensive to God, but making God a thing is offensive to God as well. And this these are sort of the two faces of this commandment. And we get the idol one. We don’t we don’t always get the graven image one.
00:29:10:21 – 00:29:44:29
Michael Gewecke
I actually think there’s a principle in the ancient idolatry context that might help us. Idolatry was generally considered to be a help to the people. If you conquer the people, you would tend to want to bring in Idol that helped you control them. It gives you something to focus on. It gives people an end to pursue idolatry. It’s actually very helpful if your goal is just to get people all going in the same direction, which is, by the way, in our modern world, this happens daily.
00:29:44:29 – 00:30:10:01
Michael Gewecke
We use different language, that idolatry. But you know that Kim Jong Il in North Korea has a birth story that he’s worked on for like 30 years that involves rainbows happening in the day that he was born and all of the birds singing a special song and there’s a real thing. Look it up. That is an idol making activity that helps keep a population moving in the direction you want them to go.
00:30:10:01 – 00:30:33:03
Michael Gewecke
And when you got the people of Israel in the wilderness, the thing that makes sense is let’s keep them all on the same page. But this isn’t any normal God. This God says, I’ve claimed you. You don’t have the ability to make an image that reflects my grandeur. So it was always God chooses the people. God is the one who sets the terms of the relationship.
00:30:33:03 – 00:31:03:47
Michael Gewecke
And that’s truly unique. It means that the religious leadership of Israel, they’re not some mediator to God that they let the people in or they create the image that they can trot out so the people can worship it. God is the one who will be faithful. God’s the one who’s already brought the people out and God’s the only one who the people are called to worship, which means that the people are always subject to the temptation to replace something for God.
00:31:03:52 – 00:31:45:03
Michael Gewecke
And while God is perfectly faithful over and over and over again to story, the people are going to give in to that temptation to make something that might be substituting for God. And over and over and over again, God is going to call them back to that initial command, that initial relationship that he created and say, I’ve been faithful to you and I expect faithfulness from you and we might miss the force of that unless we put it in human terms that the husband or the wife, who’s been faithful for years and years and years and then the betrayal of adultery, that that that moment in which relationship is broken, we understand the force and
00:31:45:03 – 00:32:09:29
Michael Gewecke
pain of that. Now, take that to the nth degree. A God who has been faithful and called you and been faithful day in and day out, and you keep finding new things to replace that relationship with, from money to power to fame to stuff to experience. Every time the people of God do that to God, they throw dirt in God’s face.
00:32:09:34 – 00:32:24:49
Michael Gewecke
They take a perfect relationship and they soil it. And that’s exactly what’s at play here, is that idolatry replaces a perfect, faithful God with unfaithful people, and it’s a sign of gratitude and all the rest.
00:32:24:54 – 00:32:53:51
Clint Loveall
So historically, this commandments kind of gone in two different directions. There’s the obvious one don’t make idols, though. That’s rarer than we think. I mean, it’s you’re not going to go into most homes where they show you their idol. In American culture, most churches aren’t going to have some idol set up in their narthex. We tend to think of those things more as making something overly important.
00:32:53:56 – 00:33:21:37
Clint Loveall
We make idols out of things. We don’t call them idols, but we practice idolatry. Michael and I were at a press jury meeting yesterday, sitting at a table for pastors. We’re talking about church staff. We were supposed to be a it was a it was a talk about church stuff, time on the docket and one of them says something about our our church building.
00:33:21:37 – 00:33:56:13
Clint Loveall
It’s killing us. It’s old. We can’t keep up with the repairs. Had to spend money on it that we don’t have. And I say, why don’t you get rid of it? And he says, Because everyone would leave. They love the building. The building? It’s an idol. When you think you can’t be church without the building you’ve been in, what do you have?
00:33:56:18 – 00:34:24:25
Clint Loveall
What do you elevate? Money. Power. The church has plenty of idols. We’ll call them idols. We don’t build statues out of them, but we have things that tend to slide up in the spot. Number one, if we’re not careful, that’s idolatry. Our people are Presbyterian people. The other side of this coin, they were very serious about this commandment.
00:34:24:39 – 00:34:47:58
Clint Loveall
Keep in mind they were coming out of an argument with the Catholics who loved art and statues and paintings and stained glass windows and stuff like that. So our people pushed back pretty seriously on that and they said none of that. We’re not no pictures of Jesus. We’re not going to do any representations of things. I’m looking down the hallways.
00:34:47:58 – 00:35:16:32
Clint Loveall
There’s right above the water fountain there. There’s that picture of Jesus in the temple. So our people went into churches. By the way, when the Reformation happened, our people stormed churches. And it’s a shame what we lost. But they burned things. They took pictures down. They took tapestries down. They broke windows. They burned organs. Anything they thought might have been elevated too high or anything they thought constituted an image of God.
00:35:16:37 – 00:35:41:15
Clint Loveall
So that picture Jesus, you know that everybody loves long haired, white Jesus carrying the lamb. It’s gone. It’s in the burn pile. Are people said, No, that’s a graven image. We stripped the churches and we got rid of those decorations. Now, did we go too far? I suspect we probably did, because those things aren’t idols, the idols living here.
00:35:41:15 – 00:36:14:27
Clint Loveall
Not in the actual thing. Idol is what you worship. And so Westminster’s take our confession equates this commandment largely with proper worship and church practice. And if that seems odd, that idolatry becomes a commandment about worship. Keep in mind that worship means what you make sacred. What you elevate. And so you have it there, Michael. These are the things called on for this commandment.
00:36:14:27 – 00:36:18:30
Clint Loveall
According to our Westminster forerunners, the.
00:36:18:30 – 00:36:48:49
Michael Gewecke
Receiving, observing, keeping pure the entire all religious worship and ordinances as God has instituted his word, particularly prayer at Thanksgiving in the name of Christ. So I want to make that very clear. The very first thing they say is, is worship that what we worship, not just in sanctuaries, but how we worship God in our lives. Then the reading, preaching, hearing of the word administrating and receiving of the sacraments, which would be communion or baptism church and discipline, the ministry and maintenance thereof.
00:36:48:54 – 00:37:36:36
Michael Gewecke
Religious fasting, swearing by the name of God, bowing into God. Also the disapproving, the testing and the posing all false worship and according to one’s place and calling, removing it, and all monuments of idolatry. Removing all of it. Let’s go. That would be the the banner that they went with and then the things forbidden. We won’t read all of this, but I’m devising counseling, commanding, using any wise, approving any religious worship, not instituted by God, making representations of God, worshiping things that are not God, representation of fame, deities, all worship of them, service belonging to them, superstitious devices that land in the 21st century.
00:37:36:36 – 00:38:06:21
Michael Gewecke
We have some superstitious devices floating around out there corrupting the worship of God, adding to the worship of God, taking from it, pulling up things under the title of antiquity, Custom devotion, good intent, or other pretense, all neglect, contempt, hindering and opposing the worship and ordinances which God has appointed. I that it’s tough to read a whole block paragraph there and to not go line by line.
00:38:06:23 – 00:38:33:13
Michael Gewecke
I would point out though, how how many times things do slide in under the title of antiquity. That’s not that’s not the way that we say it. This is how we’ve always done it. It’s how we say it. Why do we do it that way because this is how we do it. And it should be clear that the Westminster interpretation is that we have a living relationship with God.
00:38:33:18 – 00:38:48:32
Michael Gewecke
So therefore we have a changing expectation of what God wants us to do in light of our culture. We can’t just rely upon the way that we’ve always done it from antiquity. No, I think that there’s a significant call in that.
00:38:48:37 – 00:39:25:19
Clint Loveall
Yeah, And I think fundamental to this commandment is the idea that if we keep our eyes free from inappropriate depictions or from undue attention, then we also have a chance of keeping our hearts from distractions and deceptions. And the fundamental question is, what do we allow to? Is it a thing of our own creation? Or is it the God who has delivered us and the commandments established the bounds of human relationship with God?
00:39:25:24 – 00:39:58:50
Clint Loveall
The law. These laws are covenant. The first command is that God is our God and therefore we have expectations that He will not be replaced or subjected. The second is we will not make God a thing of our own choosing, a thing of our own controlling. We will not make God small, manageable and safe. And in order these commandments work to put us on the path of faithfulness.
00:39:58:55 – 00:40:25:10
Clint Loveall
Now, these commands set us, I think, toward following the rest. They set the stage for those that come after the kind of do’s and don’ts stuff. We get more of that as we go through the Ten Commandments. But that has to be based in a right understanding of who God is and a right understanding of God’s expectations for us.
00:40:25:15 – 00:40:51:10
Clint Loveall
Because otherwise, as we’ve said over and over again, they’re just rules and want to move to, you know, discussion, questions, comments, that kind of stuff. But before we do that, I think the first two commandments are in some ways the most difficult for modern readers to translate. We don’t know what to do with Keep the Sabbath. Next week we’ll struggle with that.
00:40:51:10 – 00:41:16:28
Clint Loveall
I mean, the Modern reader has some ideas about what that means, but we’re pretty far afield on that one. But don’t lie. Don’t steal those. Those make sense to us, right? No other gods before me. And don’t make for yourselves an idol in a world that doesn’t really do that. We don’t name other gods. We don’t have statues in Spirit Lake devoted to religious ideas.
00:41:16:33 – 00:41:51:06
Clint Loveall
We don’t. We function in a context that doesn’t put those things physically in front of us very often. So then they become spiritual guidance for us. Is there anything in my life that’s overly important? Is there anything that I let occupy that top spot? Is there any way in which I try to manage God as my mascot or where I like the idea of of having a relationship with God as long as I get to be the one telling God what to do?
00:41:51:10 – 00:42:18:13
Clint Loveall
I don’t really like it when it works the other way. I want God to kind of work for me, not be in charge of me. And so I think it is helpful to back up on these commandments and say, what can be placed before me or what can be substituted for God in my life. What is it that breaks or threatens to break the covenant relationship?
00:42:18:18 – 00:42:55:09
Clint Loveall
What leads me to forget that Yahweh is the Lord, my God who delivered me, and in who I find myself and my relationship to Him and asks me to put my trust or my allegiance somewhere else into something else. And that is far deeper than the idea of a couple of checkboxes in a list of ten things because they’re never one and done have no gods before me and not make for myself as an idol.
00:42:55:13 – 00:43:24:22
Clint Loveall
That’s every day I live. That is a constant struggle under which I try to be faithful and understood properly. I think it is the best way to talk about our relationship with God and what God asks of us, arguably what God expects of us, and why it is such a struggle so anything else?
00:43:24:27 – 00:43:51:16
Michael Gewecke
Just one quick word. I think that this does have really practical implications as well. So this is why Christians need to understand that when we talk about the Ten Commandments, we have an obligation in a civic context to introduce folks to the God who we’re in relationship with. So we can’t just post the Ten Commandments in a place and expect people to understand what they mean.
00:43:51:30 – 00:44:26:58
Michael Gewecke
If we haven’t done the work to introduce them to the God who delivered the people out of Egypt who spiritually deliver us from bondage to sin so this is in a sense, these two commandments are reminding us that your calling is to be an evangelist and invite her into relationship with God so that the people who receive these commandments can understand them rightly because they simply become a law that holds over people if they don’t understand themselves to be beloved ones, given these commands by God.
00:44:27:03 – 00:44:52:50
Michael Gewecke
And I just think that distinction is really important. This this is a beautiful we call it a commandment. It’s an invitation. It’s an invitation by God to say, I’m adopting you, my people, and I don’t want you to replace me with stuff that you conjure up. I want to have a real relationship with you now and forever. Can we please make that happen?
00:44:52:55 – 00:45:14:01
Michael Gewecke
And if we, as people of God, just go post that up somewhere on our Facebook wall and people come and they think they understand what that means without hearing the invitation of a loving God, wanting to have a relationship with them, they by definition from the start, misunderstand that the spirit of this and and I think it’s invitational and positive.
00:45:14:06 – 00:45:24:38
Michael Gewecke
And I think that the only way you get there is if you start with I am Yahweh. I am your God. And if you start there, the rest of it flows naturally.
00:45:24:43 – 00:45:46:10
Clint Loveall
Hey, we want to thank you for listening to this broadcast. We’re grateful for the support, the connections, the relationships we get to make through some of these offerings. We hope that they’ve been helpful. We know that there are lots of choices that you have, lots of things you can listen to. We want to make you aware of some of what we’re doing, and we greatly appreciate you being a part of it.
00:45:46:24 – 00:46:05:16
Michael Gewecke
Absolutely. We want to just thank you for being one of our audio podcast listeners. It’s amazing to have you with us in the midst of our conversations. Of course, I hope you know that you can find the whole archive of all of these conversations at Pastor Taco. We would love for you to join us there. You can find options for subscribing by email.
00:46:05:31 – 00:46:38:54
Michael Gewecke
You can easily share things there with other people who you think might appreciate recordings like this. And of course, we just want to welcome you. If you’re ever interested in joining us for the video podcast, you can do that on YouTube. It is YouTube.com, com slash PC Spirit Lake. There you can comment and engage with us or if you would prefer to do that without going to YouTube, you can actually just click the link in the description of this podcast where you will be able to send us form and information and reach out to us.
00:46:39:07 – 00:46:48:10
Michael Gewecke
We’d love to hear from you and engage in conversation with you. Thanks again for taking time to be with us. We look forward to our next conversation and can’t wait to see you then.