OVERVIEW OF COMMANDMENTS

• The 10 commandments

  Given to guide the Israelites to become a community, to help them Love God and their Neighbors
• Canaan


  • A very good and fertile land filled with land and Honey, but the Israelites felt life was hard when they left Egypt
  • The Israelites were good with slave tasks so they grumbled to Moses in the Desert
  • Moses found the people hard to manage due to no food and water
  • The Israelites couldn't immediately move to Canaan as it was already occupied and cities had already been established
  • The Israelites needed to engage in war to claim the land that they claimed to be theirs
  • The Israelites wandered for 40 years in the Desert
  • They established communities to be the people ready to claim what they claim to be theirs
• 40 is a significant time for something to happen
• How the people received the 10 commandments

  1. Literal understanding: Moses went to Mount Sinai and God talked to Moses and God used lightning to write on Moses' Tablets

  2. Second school of thought (Result of Discernment): Moses kept praying to God and discerning in silence, he together with the people he appointed and they came up with laws and after years those laws aided them to be united and be loyal to Yahweh and to one another
• 1st Commandment (Foundational Commandment)


  "I am the Lord Your God, You shall not have other gods beside me." - This is a foundational commandment because all the other commandments are based on it, it promotes love for God and Monotheism and Prohibits polytheism and Idolatry (Worship of false gods and goddesses)
• We do not worship statues. The saints and statues are there to show how to live a true Christian life and to help us pray.
• Modern day idols that we need to avoid, modern versions of polytheism that we need to avoid


  • Fanatics to the point of forgetting to loving oneself, others, and their responsibilities
  • Money, we should not allow it to enter our system that we will sacrifice ourself, others, and love for money (Prostitution, Hitman)
  • Idolatry (Worship of False God)
• Context or situation that made the 10 commandments especial to the Israelites

  The commandments were there to guide them to love God and their neighbors, to redeem their land-Canaan (Their end goal)
• Prohibitions of the First Commandment

  • Polytheism or the worship of many Gods
  • Idolatry or the worship of false gods and idols
  • Infidelity to God
• Second Commandment: Respect for God's name


  "You shall not use the name of the Lord Your God in Vain." - Respect for God's name is respect to God Himself since God always associated with His Name. In Jewish culture, name must be respected. If we respect the name we respect the person.
• Prohibitions of the second commandment

  • To include God in our foolishness
  • Wrongful talk
  • Swearing
  • Cursing
• 3rd commandment: "Remember to Keep Holy the Lords Day"


  Saturday is the Sabbath day for Israelites because they start counting the day of the week in the Sunday. Christians has chosen Sunday because Jesus rose on a Sunday (Resurrection), practical reason we start the week on Mondays, the birth of the church falls on a Sunday the Holy spirit descended upon the apostles. Rest is a gift, we are not slave of work, a community must worship together.
• Sabbath day - 365 days in a normal year and 366 in a leap year 12 months in a year multiplied by hours or minutes and imagine yourself just working. A person who is overworked. Work is not everything. - God Worked for 6 days and created Sabbath and rested on the 7th day. Special gift from God the time to rest to have the energy to keep going. Everything that is extreme is not good we work most of the week but we must find time to rest and it comes all.