Kevin DeYoung [DeYoung - The Ten Commandments: What They Mean, Why They Matter, and Why We Should Obey Them (Foundational Tools for Our Faith)

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Seasoned by personal wit, shaped by years of pastoral ministry, and highly skilled in interpreting Gods Word, Kevin DeYoung is the right person to write this book. DeYoung fleshes out the Ten Commandments in a way that helps us see the wisdom of our Creator and Redeemer in directing us on our pilgrim way. I highly recommend this book!

Michael Horton, J. Gresham Machen Professor of Systematic Theology and Apologetics, Westminster Seminary California; Host, White Horse Inn ; author, Core Christianity

The 10 Commandments

The 10 Commandments

What They Mean, Why They Matter, and Why We Should Obey Them

Kevin DeYoung

The Ten Commandments: What They Mean, Why They Matter, and Why We Should Obey Them

Copyright 2018 by Kevin DeYoung

Published by Crossway
1300 Crescent Street
Wheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law. Crossway is a registered trademark in the United States of America.

Published in association with the literary agency of Wolgemuth & Associates, Inc.

Cover design: Micah Lanier

First printing 2018

Printed in the United States of America

Scripture quotations are from the ESV Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version), copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

All emphases in Scripture quotations have been added by the author.

Hardcover ISBN: --4-5-9
ePub ISBN: --4-5-9
PDF ISBN: --4-5-6
Mobipocket ISBN: --4-5-3

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: DeYoung, Kevin, author.

Title: The Ten Commandments : what they mean, why they matter, and why we

should obey them / Kevin DeYoung.

Description: Wheaton : Crossway, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018011864 (print) | LCCN 2018029548 (ebook) | ISBN 9781433559686 (pdf) | ISBN 9781433559693 (mobi) | ISBN 9781433559709 (epub) | ISBN 9781433559679 (hc)

Subjects: LCSH: Ten commandments--Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Classification: LCC BS1285.52 (ebook) | LCC BS1285.52 .D49 2018 (print) | DDC

241.5/2--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018011864

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

2018-10-04 01:38:44 PM

To Roy and Barbara Bebee

Wonderful in -l aws , loving grandparents, faithful Christians

Contents

The Good News of Law

And God spoke all these words, saying, I am the L ord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

Exodus 20:12

Exodus 20:12 introduces one of the most famous sections in the Bibleindeed, one of the most important pieces of religious literature in the whole worldthe Ten Commandments. Oddly enough, they are never actually called the Ten Commandments. The Hebrew expression, which occurs three times in the Old Testament (Ex. 34:28; Deut. 4:13; 10:4), literally means ten words. This is why Exodus 20 is often referred to as the Decalogue, deka being the Greek word for ten and logos meaning word. These are the Ten Words that God gave the Israelites at Mount Sinaiand, Ill argue, the Ten Words that God wants all of us to follow.

Whatever we call them, the Ten Commandments are certainly commandsmore than that for sure, but not less. The problem people have is not with what theyre called but with what they contain. Studying the Ten Commandments reveals the very heart of human rebellion: we dont like God telling us what we can and cannot do.

The Noncommandment Commandments

A few years ago there was an article on the CNN website entitled, Behold, Atheists New Ten Commandments. The story explains how Lex Bayer, an executive at AirBnB, and John Figdor, a humanist chaplain at Stanford University, tried to crowdsource ten non -c ommandments . They solicited input from around the world and offered ten thousand dollars to the winning would -b e Moseses. After receiving more than 2,800 submissions, they appointed a panel of thirteen judges to select the ten winners. Heres what they came up with, the ten noncommandments of our age:

1. Be open -m inded and be willing to alter your beliefs with new evidence.

2. Strive to understand what is most likely to be true, not to believe what you wish to be true.

3. The scientific method is the most reliable way of understanding the natural world.

4. Every person has the right to control of [ sic ] their body.

5. God is not necessary to be a good person or to live a full and meaningful life.

6. Be mindful of the consequences of all your actions and recognize that you must take responsibility for them.

7. Treat others as you would want them to treat you, and can reasonably expect them to want to be treated. Think about their perspective.

8. We have the responsibility to consider others, including future generations.

9. There is no one right way to live.

10. Leave the world a better place than you found it.

That sounds about rightnot with respect to Gods law, but in terms of how many people think of their moral obligations. These ten noncommandments perfectly capture the default moral code at the front end of the twenty -f irst century.

Nevertheless, I would hope, perhaps naively, that after a few moments of reflection, we would see that these new commandments are filled with some stunning contradictions. They say you dont need God to be a good person or to know how to live (#5), and yet the seventh noncommandment is a summary of the Golden Rule, which came from Jesus (Matt. 7:12). They talk about the scientific method (#3), without an awareness that Francis Bacons method of inductive observation gained popularity in North America in large measure because of Presbyterian and Reformed theologians who saw Bacons approach as a good way to make observations about Gods created world.

More to the point, these noncommandments are logically indefensible. Theyre presumably called noncommandments so as not to sound so commandment -i sh . Yet theyre all commands! They all carry the force of a moral ought . We live in a paradoxical age where many will say, Right and wrong is what you decide for yourself, and yet these same people will rebuke others for violating any number of assumed commands. As a culture, we may be quite free and liberal when it comes to sex, but we can be absolutely fundamentalist when it comes to the moral claims of the sexual revolution. The old swear words may not scandalize us any longer, but now there are other wordsoffensive slurs and insultsthat will quickly put someone out of polite company. We are still a society with a moral code.

And then theres the second to last of these noncommandments. How does this ought square with the other nine in the list? How can we be told to leave the planet a better place and think of others and exercise control over our bodies if there really is no one right way to live? Which is it: do as we say or do as you please? It cant be both.