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In an effort to expand on the previous essay's references to the two different sets of Ten Commandments, here they are again:
God's Ten Commandments (abridged from the NKJV):
And the 21st century versions:
The purpose of this essay is to demonstrate why a conclusion of the previous essay was that the 21st century versions are inferior. Let's skip the usual setup exposition and just get to it. What does each Commandment lead to? #1 ORIGINAL: You shall have no other gods before Me. #1 MODERN: You shall have no other gods but yourself. The original is a reminder that there is only one Creator and we are merely the created, therefore our proper place in the universe is to serve Him. The modern is a complete reversal of the original, wherein we are relegated to god status, thereby making God unnecessary. Imagine a world in which there is one central authority, and no ambiguity about the rules for living in that world. That's the world that God made. Now imagine a world in which everyone assumes the role of God and does what is right in their own eyes. That's the world you're currently living in. #2 ORIGINAL: You shall not make for yourself a carved image... #2 MODERN: You shall worship the created instead of the Creator. The original is another reminder of our place in the universe, and also a warning about how idol worship. The modern is a call to do the ultimate in idol worship: to worship anything and everything except the Lord. The contrast is again between an unambiguous world where our place is known and assured, and a world in which we reject the Lord and devote ourselves to anything we want, no matter how destructive that devotion is to ourselves and each other. #3 ORIGINAL: You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain... #3 MODERN: You shall routinely profane God and Jesus. The original is reminding us of the importance of respecting the One who created not just us, but the entire universe, the planet we live on, and everything in it. The modern is mundane speech in today's world. Some object to the third Commandment, because they ask why the Creator of everything would even care if someone was disrespectful. This isn't much of an objection, because none of them would instead use their own mother's name as a form of cussing. The contrast is between someone who properly recognizes the sovereignty of the Lord and someone who goes about life taking everything for granted. #4 ORIGINAL: Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. #4 MODERN: Forget the Sabbath day, it's just like any other. The original is a call to honor the Lord by remembering the creation of the world and by resting every seventh day to never forget what the Lord has done for us. The modern is once again the antithesis of the original, because the less we celebrate what the Lord has done for us, the less we care about serving Him. Imagine your most loved person in the world. You of course want to celebrate his or her birthday when it arrives. Now imagine if you consistently skipped that same person's birthday every year. Is that really the way you would willingly treat your loved ones? #5 ORIGINAL: Honor your father and your mother... #5 MODERN: Dismiss your father and mother, they're irrelevant. The original advises you to behave in a way that honors your father and mother, and it carries a promise (to live long). The modern is a reflection of the ethos maintained by those who think anything that came before is outmoded, and the assumption that the elder generation can't possibly know anything relevant to their contemporary concerns. Just what could possibly be the problem with paying proper respect to your parents and living in a way that honors them? The answer to that question is to simply look around and witness the result of not doing so: rebellion, debauchery, criminality, perversion. While those traits may generate an occasional wink from those who prefer anti-heroes, they also leave countless ruined lives in their wake. #6 ORIGINAL: You shall not murder. #6 MODERN: You shall justify hatred of your fellow human beings. The original commands us to not take each other's lives. The modern encourages us to cultivate the inner dialogue that eventually leads us to murder others. There's a reason why the Bible says that whosoever hates his brother is a murderer. It isn't creating a false equivalence, it's underscoring the fact that out of the heart comes both words and deeds. Imagine a world that is the opposite. If every person loved all others by default, just about every wrong that can be done to others would disappear. This is reflected in the words of Jesus when He said: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." You can object to belief in the Lord or even specifically Christianity all you like. It still remains true that if all people obeyed those two commandments, it would generate a world devoid of the needless suffering we visit on each other. By way of contrast, if everyone were Satanists (for example), they would worship themselves only, therefore any good deeds done for others would always be a coincidental byproduct of whatever it was that glorified the Satanist. And as every human being is unique, the ways in which self-worship manifested in the world would be just as varied, lacking the consistent directive of loving others as much as they love themselves. #7 ORIGINAL: You shall not commit adultery. #7 MODERN: You shall treat sex like any other recreational activity. The original is a command to stay faithful to your spouse, and to not have sex with someone else's spouse. The modern is not just the opposite of the original, but takes the concept well past all honorable behavior regarding sex. The subject of sex has been exhausted in modern times. Our Western culture is obsessed with it, and therefore most of us as individuals are obsessed with it. To what advantage has all this preoccupation with sex served, other than to generate revenue? It certainly hasn't improved our experience of sex. On the contrary. What was once a sacred mystery that bound a man and woman into one flesh, a union to be revered and honored, is now a biological function completely stripped of mystery and equal in significance to defecating in a toilet bowl. How easy it is for modern men and women to smirk at the idea of one sexual partner for life. The 21st century's ease by which we can engage in meaningless encounters that are nothing more than two humans using each other as masturbation machines has created the illusion that we not only are better off without being in a committed permanent faithful relationship (marriage), but that we also are entitled to achieve orgasm in any way that suits our fancy. The 21st century has also facilitated our ability to watch any manner of perverted activities designed to keep us solitary in our sexual expression, and to elevate the debasement of ourselves to 'clever' status. Look at all the emotions we protect, look at all the money we save! The ugly truth of this sad situation is that we created and sustain it. The reason why sex went from a highly revered, sacred, mysterious joy shared by a married man and woman to a disease ridden exercise in manipulation and mutual debasement is because we decided as a culture to treat it as such. It really is that simple. We embraced Satan's lie that sex and marriage are nothing special. And because we embraced the lie, we lost a glorious gift that God created for us, and sex and marriage thus became nothing special. The result: fatherless homes, sexually transmitted diseases, over 60 million innocent babies murdered, and ever-growing perversions to temporarily sate the desires of a jaded progression no human can escape when he or she consistently offends the Lord in this way. #8 ORIGINAL: You shall not steal. #8 MODERN: You shall take whatever you want from your neighbor, because you deserve it more than they do. The original commands us to not steal. The modern finds rationalizations for stealing. It doesn't take a genius or philosophy major to understand the difference between stealing and not stealing, in terms of how the two activities affect society. Imagine a world where no one ever stole from anyone. Now imagine a world where people constantly generated justifications for taking things that they did not earn. Would any of us actually argue that it's better to steal, when not one of us would enjoy having something stolen from us? Stealing as a concept applies to more than just money and objects. We can steal reputations, peace of mind, virginity, credit for accomplishments, you name it. It's been observed that all the Ten Commandments are referring to some form of stealing. It would not be a stretch to observe that stealing is the opposite of love. The ultimate theft is when someone rejects the Lord, because they have just stolen eternity from themselves. #9 ORIGINAL: You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. #9 MODERN: You shall destroy people with lies, gossip and innuendo when it serves you. The original tells us not to make up lies about our neighbors. The modern suggests it's okay to lie when it provides advantage to the liar. When we lie about others or believe lies told about others, we are doing a great injustice. Lives are constantly being ruined around the world by lies packaged as public service. It's hard enough when we do something wrong and have to pay for it. How much worse to have to pay for something we didn't even do. #10 ORIGINAL: You shall not covet...anything that is your neighbor's. #10 MODERN: You shall cultivate envy to generate fairness. The original commands us not to envy others. The modern tells us the opposite. Marxism, which seems to be creeping into nearly every institution in Western countries, is nothing more than the politics of envy. This is the foundation that produces divisive concepts such as diversity, equity, inclusion, critical race theory, socialism (economic equalization) and class warfare. Sold to us as means by which we can all live in equality and harmony, these concepts instead become the springboards for every form of envy and resentment. Imagine a world where everyone does a good day's work, and is happy with their portion. Now imagine a world where every move we make is dictated by a desire to make sure no one has more than anyone else. Which world convinces the ambitious to lift us all up higher by exceptional achievement, and which world encourages us to be uninspired consumers? In conclusion, the world so many insist they desire is well within their grasp, but will remain only a taunting dream as long as people think worshiping the Lord is ignorant, backward and unenlightened. History is profusely littered with our pathetic attempts to do it our way. If you want to have paradise, you must submit to the Lord. |