Day 270: The Ten Commandments (2025)

Although we're surrounded by a culture that mocks virtue, we can feed ourselves stories that really do uphold what is good and promote a virtuous life. When we live this way, we experience freedom and joy like never before. It's my prayer that the stories in my book, Unshakable, will inspire you to fight the battle for a virtuous life and win through trust in an unshakable God. Order your copy at AscensionPress.com.

In 365 days, we'll read through the catechism of the Catholic Church, discovering our identity in God's family. As we journey together toward our heavenly home, this is day 270. We're reading paragraph- Well, actually reading the commandments and paragraphs 2052 to 2063. As always, I'm using the Ascension Edition.

edition of the Catechism, which includes the foundations of faith approach. But you can follow along with any recent version of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. You can also download your own Catechism in a year reading plan by visiting Ascension Press.com slash CIY You can also click follow or subscribe in your podcast app for daily updates and notifications unless

Or your listening doesn't allow you to subscribe or follow, in which case, huh, poor guy, poor gal, I'm so sorry for you, but I'm also thankful for you. Thank you to all of those who've supported the production of this podcast with your your prayers, your financial gifts. We could not do this without you. I'm so grateful. Today we're talking about the commandments. We've been building to this section for quite some time, ever since we talked.

with uh Dr. Mary Healy about the commandments, the moral life we've been, man, building towards this moment where we're gonna launch into the commandments. And so we're gonna hear the commandments as well as Read paragraphs twenty fifty two to twenty sixty-three. And in that we're gonna hear this, this man, how do I even begin? This whole s new section. is set up with this question. The question is, teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?

And and there's something so powerful about how does Jesus respond? How Jesus responds is well, it reveals to us. The heart of the Father reveals to us what God is asking of us and also what God is doing for us. That leads into that question in the catechism here leads into talking about the Decalogue in Sacred Scripture. Decalogue is another term for the Ten Commandments. And so we'll we'll do a little intro to the Ten Commandments today as well. And we're as we're reading paragraphs.

twenty fifty-two to twenty sixty-three, as we jump into this. And let's take a moment and just as we pivot, right? As we as we make this this new step, let's call upon our Heavenly Father and Place ourselves in his presence. We're always in the Lord's presence, but just to call to mind that here we are, we're not alone. The Father who gave us these commandments, who has revealed his heart to us.

is with us now. So we pray, Father in heaven, we love you. And in the name of your son Jesus Christ, we affirm that we do believe. We do believe that you are the God who has revealed your heart to us. You are the God who has called us out of nothing and into life.

You've called this into being, you've called this into your grace, call you've called this into your friendship, and you've called this into your family. Lord God, as you reveal your heart to us through your word and particularly here in these commandments, We ask that you not only enlighten our minds so that we can know what you will, but also give courage to our hearts that we can do what you will.

This day and every day. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. It is day two seventy. We have the Ten Commandments, as well as paragraphs 2052 to 2063.

The Ten Commandments from the Book of Exodus twenty, verses two through seventeen. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me. Ye shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the Father upon the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me. But showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.

Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. In it you shall not do any work, you or your son, or your daughter, your manservant or your maidservant, or your cattle, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.

Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which the Lord your God gives you. You shall not kill. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor, you shall not covet your neighbor's house, you shall not covet your neighbour's wife, or his man servant, or his maidservant, or his ox, or his ass, or anything that is your neighbour's.

The Ten Commandments in the Book of Deuteronomy, chapter five, verses six through twenty one. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

Honor your father and your mother. You shall not kill. Neither shall you commit adultery. Neither shall you steal. Neither shall you bear false witness against your neighbor. Neither shall you covet your neighbor's wife. You shall not desire anything that is your neighbour's. A traditional catechetical formula one I am the Lord your God, you shall not have strange gods before me.

Number two, you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. Number three, remember to keep holy the Lord's day. Number four. Honor your father and your mother. Number five. You shall not kill. six. You shall not commit adultery. Number seven. You shall not steal. eight. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. nine. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife. Number ten. You shall not covet your neighbor's good.

Section two The Ten Commandments Teacher, what must I do? Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life? To the young man who asked this question, Jesus answers first by invoking the necessity to recognize God as the one there who is good, as the supreme good and the source of all good. Then Jesus tells him, If you would enter life, keep the commandments.

And he cites for his questioner the precepts that concern love of neighbor you shall not kill, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness, honor your father and mother. Finally, Jesus sums up these commandments positively, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. To this first reply, Jesus adds a second. If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. And come, follow me.

This reply does not do away with the first. Following Jesus Christ involves keeping the commandments. The law has not been abolished, but rather, man is invited to rediscover it in the person of his master who is its perfect fulfillment. In the three synoptic gospels, Jesus' call to the rich young man to follow him in the obedience of a disciple and in the observance of the commandments is joined to the call to poverty and chastity. The evangelical councils are inseparable from the commandments.

Jesus acknowledged the Ten Commandments, but he also showed the power of the Spirit at work in their letter. He preached a righteousness which exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, as well as that of the Gentiles. He unfolded all the demands of the commandments. You have heard that it was said to the men of old, you shall not kill, but I say to you, that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment.

When someone asks him, which commandment in the law is the greatest, Jesus replies, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. And a second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. The Decalogue must be interpreted in light of this twofold yet single commandment of love, the fullness of the law.

As Saint Paul wrote to the Romans, the commandments, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not kill, you shall not steal, you shall not covet, and any other commandment are summed up in this sentence, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no wrong to a neighbor, therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.

The Decalogue in Sacred Scripture. The word decalogue means literally ten words. God revealed these ten words to his people on the holy mountain. They were written with the finger of God, unlike the other commandments written by Moses. They are preeminently the words of God. They are handed on to us in the books of Exodus and Deuteronomy. Beginning with the Old Testament, the sacred books refer to the ten words.

But it is in the new covenant in Jesus Christ that their full meaning will be revealed. The Decalogue must first be understood in the context of the Exodus, God's great liberating event at the center of the Old Covenant. Whether formulated as negative commandments, prohibitions, or as positive precepts such as honor your father and mother, the ten words point out the conditions of a life freed from the slavery of sin. The decalogue is a path of life.

As Scripture states in the book of Deuteronomy, if you love the Lord your God by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments, and his statutes and his ordinances, then you shall live and multiply.

This liberating power of the Decalogue appears, for example, in the commandment about the Sabbath rest, directed also to foreigners and slaves. As the Book of Deuteronomy further states, You shall remember that you were a servant in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out thence with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.

The ten words sum up and proclaim God's law. Deuteronomy further stating These words the Lord spoke to all your assembly at the mountain out of the midst of the fire, the cloud, and the thick darkness, with a loud voice. And he added no more, and he wrote them upon two tablets of stone, and gave them to me.

For this reason, these two tablets are called the testimony. In fact, they contain the terms of the covenant concluded between God and his people. These tablets of the testimony were to be deposited in the Ark. The ten words are pronounced by God in the midst of Atheophane. Deuteronomy five states, The Lord spoke with you face to face at the mountain, out of the midst of the fire.

They belong to God's revelation of Himself and His glory. The gift of the commandments is the gift of God Himself and His holy will. In making His will known, God reveals Himself to His people. The gift of the commandments and of the law is part of the covenant God sealed with his own. In Exodus, the revelation of the ten words is granted between the proposal of the covenant and its conclusion, after the people had committed themselves to do all the Lord had said and to obey it.

The Decalogue is never handed on without first recalling the covenant. Deuteronomy five two states The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. The commandments take on their full meaning within the covenant. According to Scripture, man's moral life has all its meaning in and through the covenant. The first of the ten words recalls that God loved his people first.

Origen wrote Since there was a passing from the paradise of freedom to the slavery of this world, in punishment for sin, the first phrase of the Decalogue, the first word of God's commandments, bears on freedom. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. The commandments, properly so called, come in the second place. They express the implication of belonging to God through the establishment of the covenant.

Moral existence is a response to the Lord's loving initiative. It is the acknowledgement and homage given to God and a worship of thanksgiving. It is cooperation with the plan God pursues in history. The covenant and dialogue between God and man are also attested to by the fact that all the obligations are stated in the first person I am the Lord, and addressed by God to another personal subject, you.

In all God's commandments, the singular personal pronoun designates the recipient. God makes his will known to each person in particular at the same time as he makes it known to the whole people. Saint Irenaeus wrote. The Lord prescribed love towards God and taught justice towards neighbor, so that man would be neither unjust nor unworthy of God. Thus, through the Decalogue, God prepared man to become his friend and to live in harmony with his neighbor.

The words of the Decalogue remain likewise for us Christians. Far from being abolished, they have received amplification and development from the fact of the coming of the Lord in the flesh. All right, there we have it. The commandments. We have paragraphs twenty fifty two to twenty sixty three. Man, so much good stuff. Let's just

highlight the fact that there are three variations, not three variations, three ways in which the commandments have come to us. First, you probably know the story in Exodus. Here's the first way the commandments have come to us. Remember that Exodus is the beginning of the story. Deuteronomy, remember, is that second word.

that at the end of the whole journey, here is Moses recalling the story to the people of Israel. So he's telling them, here's what happened. And so we have two different versions of the Ten Commandments, but We know that ultimately they're the same commandments, all told. That's why a traditional catechetical formula is also included in your catechism because how do you sum up these ten commandments? Now, one of the reasons that we highlight this is because

There can be a difference between the Catholic numbering and a Protestant numbering of the Ten Commandments. So and that that the difference in numbering simply comes from the fact that there are two versions in the Bible itself.

The book of Exodus, chapter twenty, and the book of Deuteronomy, chapter five. So just keep that in mind. But ultimately, again, they're the same ten commandments just given to us in a couple different ways. Then we launched into the text, right, today, paragraph twenty fifty two. Which tells us, it just recalls to us. How Jesus points back to the old covenant and makes it clear that the Ten Commandments, the laws of the Old Covenant, are not

Done away with, right? They're not abolished. They're not a thing of the past. They are a thing of the present. They are something that Jesus affirms and ratifies. Like he is saying to the rich young man who asks in all three of the synoptic gospels, what must I do to attain eternal life? And Jesus tells him the commandments.

Right. And then builds on that by pointing to the Great Commandment and the second great commandment, right? To love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself. Why the catechism has this, among other reasons. The here's the reason I'm gonna sh share with this. that that these paragraphs twenty fifty two to basically twenty fifty five

is to highlight the fact that there are some people out there who would say that with Jesus, the the old covenant, the old commandments are defunct, right? They're they're no longer necessary. They're a thing of the past. Ja.

Jesus himself points to the Ten Commandments as a thing of the present, right? A thing that we're there where all people at all time are called to observe these Ten Commandments. In fact, Jesus doesn't simply not abolish them, he amplifies them. Remember in the Sermon on the Mount? Where Jesus says, You've heard it was said, do not commit adultery. But I say to you, anyone who looks at a woman lustfully commits adultery. You heard it in the past.

An eye for an eye, tooth for tooth. I say to you, here's forgiveness. You heard in the past, you shall not kill. I say to you, do not even grow angry with your brother. So Jesus is is not. diminishing and he's not demolishing those commandments. He is affirming them and amplifying them. So keep that in mind. And then from paragraph twenty fifty six to twenty sixty three,

We have this recognition of what's the role of the Decalogue in sacred scripture. And in paragraph twenty fifty-six, we are reminded that the term decalogue literally means ten words, right? Decca and logos, the ten words, decalogue. Ten words. And so God reveals these. Now, while there are other commandments in the old covenant,

These ten are preeminently the words of God. They're preeminently the, I want to say the core ten, just kind of like the love your Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and neighbor as yourself are might be the great, greatest, the two greatest commandments. These ten commandments are Necessary and they are abiding, meaning we need them and they will not pass away.

And also in the new covenant, it's very clear, in Jesus Christ, their full meaning will be revealed. The thing I wanna highlight today though is this so important and I've mentioned this before, but I love the fact that the catechism makes a big deal about this. Paragraph twenty fifty-seven says this the Decalogue must first be understood in the context of the Exodus.

God's great liberating event at the center of the old covenant. And so this is this is God's work in setting his people free from slavery.

The commandments, just like the virtues, are not meant to be straight jackets. They are strengths. The commandments are not meant to limit our freedom. They're meant to actually allow us to truly be free. So keep that in mind. This is at the c you have to understand that these commandments are The context is the Exodus, when God is setting his people free from slavery, bringing them to a place of freedom.

So we know this. We know these these laws, these commandments are not meant to restrict human freedom. They're meant to grant human freedom in some ways, right? They don't they don't grant themselves. You know, grace does that. But these laws guide human freedom. And this is so important, right? Everyone who sins is a slave of sin. And so God revealing this law to us.

is a way that sets us free from that slavery to sin. It's so so important. Now the next piece, gosh, you guys, this is so important. In paragraph twenty fifty nine is is this that these ten words are pronounced by God in the midst of the theophany. God's revealing himself. That's what theophany means, like the this this revelation of God here. It says this they belong to God's revelation of himself and his glory.

So this isn't God just saying, Okay, here are the rules and I'm gonna stay way, way over here and you guys obey the rules or else you know, bad things are gonna happen to you. This is God revealing himself and his glory. And I love this last sentence of paragraph twenty fifty-nine. This is a this is a highlightable sentence. This is an underlinable sentence. It says this the gift of the commandments is the gift of God himself and his holy will.

I mean the gift of the commandments is the gift of God Himself and His holy will. And making His will known, God reveals Himself to His people. That's one of the reasons, as we pointed out before, we say, Lord, how I love your law. I keep it ever before me. That's not the same thing as saying, Okay, God, I I love the uh DMV rules for driving on the road and I just love rules because that's why. No, the fact that the commandments are rules is not the part we love. It's the fact that

these commandments are coming from the heart of God and that they reveal the heart of God. That's why we say Lord, I love your law. Why? Because the gift of the commandments is the gift of God Himself and His Holy Will. In making His will known, God reveals Himself to His people. And not only that, God reveals that He actually cares about us. I mean think about If God didn't care about us, he wouldn't care what we do. If God didn't care about us, he wouldn't care how we live.

But God in revealing his law to us and really revealing his will to us, he's also revealed that actually you matter. Your choices matter. Your life matters. So again, rather than seeing the law, the commandments, this moral life as a restriction on us and just kind of imposition by God on human beings, to be able to see this with new vision and be able to see Oh my goodness, Lord, this is how much you love us. that it actually matters to you how we live.

It actually matters to you how we speak to each other. It matters to you how we worship. It matters to you how we have intimacy with each other. It matters to you how we love or don't love, how we help each other or hurt each other. It's incredible. It's incredible to this real reality. The commandments the gift of the commandments is the gift of God Himself and His Holy Will. In making His will known, God reveals Himself to His people.

Oh man, it's so incredible. The commandments, paragraph 2061, take on their full meaning within the covenant. Take on their full meaning in the covenant, right? The covenant is that intense relationship, that intimacy relationship where God says, I am yours and you're mine. So the commandments take on their full meaning in the heart of that relationship, and it's just so, so what a gift. What a gift.

God has brought us out of slavery, into life. He's brought us out of alienation and into relationship. And the commandments are a sign of that. So just as we conclude today, what a gift. What a Lord, how I love your law and ponder on your will day and night, because his law is a reflection of his self.

His identity. And God loves you. And you matter to him. That's why he's given us his commandments. That's why he's revealed his will. So that we can do his will in everything. I'm praying for you. Please pray for me. I can't wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.