The Two Greatest Commandments
and The Ten Commandments
When asked which is the great commandment in the Law, Jesus Christ answered,
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.
And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself.
On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 22:36-40), at the heart of which lie the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1-17) that were written on tablets of stone by the finger of God on Mount Sinai.
The Ten Commandments constitute the basic moral code for humanity, as magnified and revealed in their full meaning by Jesus, and are obeyed to demonstrate the believer’s love for God and their fellow man. Jesus affirmed the enduring nature of God’s Law, declaring that He did not come to abolish it but to fulfil it, and that not even the smallest part of the Law will pass away until heaven and earth pass away (Matthew 5:17-48). Sadly, many who identify as Christians today do not keep the Ten Commandments, especially the second commandment, which forbids idolatry, and the fourth commandment, to remember the seventh day Sabbath, and often teach others to disregard them as well. This is despite Jesus’ warning that those who break even the least of God’s commandments and teach others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:19).
The Ten Commandments are displayed below.
The Ten Commandments
And God spoke all these words, saying, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
You shall have no other gods before me.
You shall not make for yourself a carved 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 fathers on 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 labour and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, 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 made it holy.
Honour your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.
You shall not murder.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.
You shall not covet your neighbour’s house; you shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbour’s.”
Do you keep God’s commandments and obey His word?
Have you confessed and forsaken your sins?