Theological Commentary: Click Here
Obviously,
Exodus 20 is known for the Ten Commandments.
There are some really good comments about them if you would like to read
them. My commentary to which I’ve linked
above has some good thoughts, too.
Instead, I
want to talk about the unusual position of worship that we see portrayed in
this passage. Do you see the people’s
reaction when they actually see God interacting with Moses on the
mountaintop? They back off in fear. They beg Moses to be an intermediary between
them and God. In truth, when the people
see what relationship with God is really like, they want to back away. They don’t actually seem like they want anything
to do with a personal relationship with God.
I think
there are several reasons for this behavior.
First of all, relationship with God is quite scary. The people see Moses dealing with lightning
and thunder. They see a human reason to
fear. I think this is reality. When people see someone who truly has a
meaningful relationship with God, they see things that makes them afraid.
Of course,
this naturally leads to a second reason.
Meaningful relationship with God changes us. It forces us to live differently. Look at the Ten Commandments. If we read those words and apply them to our
lives, we will be challenged. It will
take serious effort to put aside our own selfish nature and abide by those commandments! When people think about relationship with
God, they often think about it in terms of what they can get for themselves
from an omnipotent God. But then reality
sets in and we realize what we have to give as well. This often causes us to back away and
distance ourselves. Sadly, it is all too
easy to have a less challenging life if we follow the example of the Hebrew
people in this chapter and ask to keep God at arm’s length.
I think this
is why we begin and end this chapter talking about idolatry. It is right there at the top of the Ten
Commandments. It’s also the first thing
that God says to Moses after the people demonstrate their fear. Human beings need to worship something. We all do.
Some of us worship God, or even a god.
Other people choose to worship people, such as celebrities or
athletes. Some people live like they are
worshipping their children. Other people
choose to worship material possessions like bank accounts or vehicles. But the reality is that human beings need to
worship something, we all do.
God’s point
is that in our need to worship something, we have to be careful to not turn to
idolatry. We are idolatrous because it
is far easier! The truth is that the
worship of my bank account places far less demands upon me than the worship of
the true God. The worship of a celebrity
that I can never know places far less demands upon me than the worship of the
true God. Idolatry is the easy way out.
The
unfortunate part is that in the lessening of the challenge, we also get a
lessening of the reward. When I cut
myself off of the challenge of God, I don’t see maturity developing within
me. When I put God at arm’s length, I
don’t allow Him into my life to analyze, scrutinize, cut, and change
things. When I take the easy way out and
worship the stuff in my life instead of the true God, my life becomes simpler
but with far less true reward.
That’s a
pattern that I see in the Hebrew people all throughout the Old Testament. God’s chosen people time and time again put
God at arm’s length and choose other things.
In doing so, the deprive themselves of His presence. They fall away and mire themselves in a
culture of self-centeredness. It is a
sad reality that we see beginning to play itself out even as the Law is first
given to them here in this chapter.
<><
No comments:
Post a Comment