1st Commandment: No Other Gods
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How were the Ten Commandments first announced to the Israelites at Mount Sinai?
Today we begin reading through the Ten Commandments. Now I've been familiar with the Bible my whole life, and I've been familiar with the Ten Commandments my whole life, but I learned something completely new to me. I thought that Moses was up with God alone on the mountain when God gave Israel the Ten Commandments. And I thought this because there is a later scene when Moses is up on the mountain with God and God inscribes the Ten Commandments into stone. But when God first speaks the Ten Commandments, Moses is down at the base of the mountain with the Israelites. and they hear the words blasting down like thunder, and it frightens them.
The people's response to the Ten Commandments is they think they're going to die. Getting in touch with what is really true is actually going to feel so counter to what I think is normal life.
What they hear booming down is this. I am Yahweh, your Elohim, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. The first line in the Ten Commandments is not a command, but a reminder of who God is and who they are.
This is a family whose fundamental identity is we used to be slaves being slowly killed off and we were liberated. How do we live as freed people? One way to think about the Ten Commandments is it's like a freedom ethic. It's the ethic of the free.
This freedom ethic begins in the context of an intimate relationship with the divine.
I will be your God and you will be my people. I am my beloved's and my beloved's is mine.
After this, we get to the first two commands. There will not be for you any other Elohim before me. And you will not make for yourself an idol. These two commands are so tightly bound together that in some traditions, they're counted as just one command. But in today's episode, we'll look closely at the first. You will have no other Elohim. That is, no other gods.
When humans give our imaginations and desires and allegiances to anything that's not the source of all reality, it will eventually lead us on a path that dehumanizes us and other people.
How do we live in reality? How do we live as free people? This is the great mystery that the first word invites us into. Thanks for joining us. Here we go. Hey, Tim. Hello, John Collins. Hello. We've been in this series of conversations leading up to getting into the Ten Commandments. Yeah. And today, we're going to start reading the Ten Commandments.
Here we are, out Mount Sinai, with the Israelites. We surveyed in the last couple episodes the theme of God telling people what to do. Basically in the Genesis scroll. When God gives a command to people, it is for the preservation of their life and to enhance the flourishing of their lives. God told Adam and Eve, enjoy all the trees of the garden and avoid the one that will kill you. He told Noah, make a... ark for the preservation of your life and your family and of all these animals. And the future of humanity. And the future of humanity. And he told Abram on multiple occasions to leave your family and go do this, and I'm going to bless all the nations through you. And Abram sometimes does what God says, but when he ultimately did what God said leading up to Genesis 22, it led to the preservation of
his life, his son's life, and of God's covenant promise of blessing going out to all the nations again. God is for life. God is for life. He's the author of life. And humans are his covenant partners. So he's brought the Israelite family now to the foot of Mount Sinai. And we ended our last conversation looking at the introductory speech to the commands that God gives Israel at Mount Sinai. And God's author is this. Listen to my voice and keep my covenant. And if so, then you'll be my special crew among all the nations. You'll be a priestly kingdom. You'll represent me to the nations. You'll be a holy nation set apart. The terms of this covenant are going to set you apart and then make you my representatives to the nations.
And the purpose then, even though not stated here plainly, is for life. For your life, for the life of the nations.
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