A woman walked into a butcher’s shop years ago and told the man she needed a fryer for supper. He was glad because he only had one chicken left to sell and was glad to get rid of it. He pulled it out of the ice and put it on the scale. “Two and a half pounds,” he said. “Hmm, I really need one a little bigger,” she said. So the butcher took the bird off the scale, rummaged it around in the ice behi...  Read More

Just as Jesus did with 6th commandment, “You shall not murder,” he did with the 7th commandment, “You shall not commit adultery.” He broadened the power and the applications of each one. He showed us that all the commandments are inside-out, speaking not just to our words and actions but also to our hearts. Jesus showed us the root of adultery in the Sermon on the Mount: “You have heard that it wa...  Read More

My understanding of the cross was expanded recently by Jeremy Treat, who said, “When I look to Scripture, I see that you can’t understand the kingdom apart from the cross and you can’t understand the cross apart from the kingdom. And it’s Christ himself who holds those together. He is the King who goes to the cross in establishing his kingdom and ransoming us into it. In this kingdom, the throne i...  Read More

The ten commandments are inside-out.  They deal with the heart as much as they deal with actions or words. The sixth commandment, “You shall not murder,” is no different, and it was Jesus who raised the bar. He said this in the Sermon on the Mount:“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone...  Read More

The fifth commandment is, “Honor your father and your mother.” Or, as God says in Leviticus, “Every one of you shall revere his mother and his father.” God gets heavy with us in this command. That’s what the Hebrew word for honor means. Heavy. Weighty. It is the same word the Old Testament uses to speak of the glory of God, and of the weight of divine majesty and authority that He has. So to honor...  Read More

I wonder which of the Ten Commandments is violated most often, even by those who know Jesus? I would guess the fourth commandment is near the top. “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.” I am just thinking of the sheer numbers of people who say they follow Jesus but do not gather with a local expression His body. Or the people who belong to God but work every day of the week. Or if they don’t...  Read More

The third commandment, “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain” could be paraphrased, “You shall not lift up the name of the Lord your God into nothingness.” There are many ways we can do this, and perhaps the most obvious one is with profanity. When God saves, He begins the process of sanctification, often dealing with the “big sins” first. When I trusted Christ as a teenager, I...  Read More

How does the second commandment relate to us today? “You shall make no carved images…(to) bow down to them or serve them.” How should we be warned or exhorted from this commandment? I hope none of us have idols in our homes. No images made of stone, wood, metal, or any other material that we kneel before and worship. But remember, the commandments are aimed at our hearts, not our knees. What are s...  Read More

In 2015, Lex Bayer and John Figfor, wrote a book entitled, “Humanist heart, Atheist Mind.” To help get information for the book, they offered $10,000 to a would-be atheist Moses who could produce the best answers in a “Ten Non-Commandments Contest.” Interesting that they wanted to find some rules to follow…just not the ones God gave us. Here’s a sampling of what they thought the best non-commandme...  Read More

The scene in Exodus 19 is one that Universal Studios cannot hope to capture. They could try to duplicate the noise of thunder and the flash of lightning and the cloud and the smoke and the blaring trumpets and the fire. They may even be able to make a mountain tremble. But that would not be enough. No one could show us what two million people saw that day on Mt. Sinai. Because the Lord had come do...  Read More

Moses shared with his father-in-law Jethro the story of God’s deliverance of His people from slavery. He told him about the plagues and the parting of the Red Sea that led to their salvation. He told him about the trials and troubles they had faced since the Red Sea, and he told him “how the LORD had delivered them.” Moses witnessed to dear old dad-in-law, telling him ALL that the Lord had done!Sa...  Read More

You all know this story well. Just a few weeks after God delivered His people from slavery in Egypt, they were attacked by the Amalekites, who cowardly targeted the stragglers in the back of the procession. That led to Moses commissioning Joshua to gather men who would fight a battle the next day.  Men died on the battlefield, but God did not inspire Moses to write about the costs, how many men di...  Read More