How We Should Then Live

"Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God is giving you" (Ex. 20:12). This fifth commandment speaks of our relationships with others, starting with family. Not only does God command us to honor our parents but doing so is rewarded with long life.

In its simple form, the Hebrew word translated as "honor," means heavy (Warren Baker, D.R.E. and Eugene Carpenter, Ph.D., The Complete Word Study Dictionary: Old Testament, [AMG Publishers: Chattanooga, Tennessee, 2003], 491). Here it is passive, meaning to give weight to something, thus, to "honor" or give glory to something (Ibid). In this case, we are to give honor or glory to our parents. In this way, we continue to honor God as well.

The sixth through the tenth commandments are rapid fire, each having to do with how we treat others. "You shall not murder" (Ex. 20:13). "Murder" means to kill or slay another person, either by premeditation or by accident (Ibid, 1074). Man was made in the image of God (Gen. 1:26-27), so certainly we should never take another person's life.

"You shall not commit adultery" (Ex. 20:14). When Adam first saw Eve, he said, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man" (Gen. 2:23). Then Moses added in verse 24 the message that was from God: "Therefore a man shall leave His father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh." Being one with your wife certainly rules out adultery.

"You shall not steal" (Ex. 20:15). The Hebrew word for "steal" means to take something or someone wrongfully, regardless of the reason (Ibid, 209). Even when you have a good reason, to take something without permission is stealing. It is sin and should be avoided. God says we should never do wrong by our neighbor.

"You shall not bear false witness" (Ex. 20:16). To bear false witness is worse than lying because it takes the lie to a whole new level. To bear false witness means to implicate someone else in a matter in a way they were not otherwise involved. It could involve lying to accuse someone falsely or to help them escape the consequences for something for which they were guilty. Either way, to bear false witness is wrong.

"You shall not covet" (Ex. 20:17). The word "covet" in Hebrew can indicate that something is desirable in a good sense (Ibid, 348), such as in Psalm 19:10 where the Lord's judgments are to be "desired" even more than gold. In Exodus 20:17, the word takes the negative sense of a desire for something that is so intense it leads to lust. You want what belongs to someone else to the point that your desire becomes excessive. God says, "Do not let that happen."

Living right by your fellow man is what God's way is all about. It is your calling. That is what He says as He speaks to us through His Word. Just as Matthew 22:37-38 sum up the first four commandments about our relationship with God, Matthew 22:39, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," sums up these last six commandments.

When you listen, you can hear God speak through His Word. As you can see from Exodus 20, what God says affects our relationship with Him and our relationship with others, especially our fellow believers. In His Word, the Lord tells us everything we need to know about life and godliness: "as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue" (2 Pet. 1:3). God's Word tells us how we should then live. Amen.