Category: 2017 – Ten Commandments

This month’s focus remains on the 8^th Commandment—No Stealing—and my study of Rick Shepherd’s The Ten Commandments:  The Heart of God for Every Person and Every Relationship provides helpful perspective.

Theft is an ever-present reality in our world, running the gamut from stealing time from an employer to stealing vast sums through robbery or embezzlement.

Shepherd points out that because everything belongs to God, any act of theft is not only stealing from another person, it is ultimately stealing from God Himself.  When we realize that everything belongs to Him, we are free to use what He gives us as He directs; we’re free to give to others as He wishes, and we’re cautious about ever misusing what He has entrusted to us.  When we have this realization in mind, we are not inclined to take anything from someone else.

Click here to learn more about the Bible’s view of stealing.

Today, marriage is not treasured the way it used to be.  In fact, the book Sex in America reports that 20 percent of all women and as many as 35 percent of all men have been unfaithful in marriage.  Christianity Today surveyed its readers and discovered that 23 percent of their subscribers admitted to having affairs.  Can something so common be so wrong?  The seventh commandment says yes, it can.

Yesterday, I returned from picking up the boys from my parents’ home in Corpus Christi.  While there, I saw one of my grandfather’s old Bibles.  Paw Paw would have turned 98 this coming Saturday.  Interestingly, this Bible—given to him for his 55^th birthday—was tattered and worn.  As you see in the photo above, he had the Ten Commandments taped to the inside cover!

Paw Paw treasured his marriage.  The seventh commandment cannot be obeyed merely by not doing something; instead, it is actually a command to do everything possible to enhance and uphold marriage, the most sacred and treasured of human relationships.

For Rick Shepherd’s view of the Seventh Commandment from his 2005 Bible Study entitled The Ten Commandments:  The Heart of God for Every Person and Every Relationship, click here.