Christians should not care about the ten commandments. Jesus corrected Moses and said that only six of the commandments were worth following:

And Jesus said, “You shall not murder; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness. Honor your father and mother. Also, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 19:17-19, New Revised Standard Version. A parallel telling of the Six Commandments exchange is found at Mark 10:17-23.)

Jesus places importance on the six concerning morality, and ditches the four concerning organized religion. Greg Easterbrook is kind enough to remind us that this fact is so often overlooked because the four he ignores concern organized religion:

“You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make yourself an idol. You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God. Remember the Sabbath Day, and keep it holy.” (Compression of Exodus 20:3-8, NRSV

So Jesus emphasises the Six commandments concerning morality, but places little weight on the other four concerning a duty towards organized religion.

No wonder organized branches of Christianity ignore this! Easterbrook tells us that “these verses seem to say that denominations are not particularly important, and what denomination wants to call attention to that?” Touche! Does this kind of behavior… seem familiar?

This entry was posted on 2006-6-18 at 11:37 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.