My Five Year Plan

My Five Year Plan - When I first started reading the Bible, I thought that it might be nice if someone listed the 613 commandments of the Mosaic Law and gave the rationale as to whether each is binding on Christians. I finally decided to take on the task myself. However, at the rate that I'm going, this will take me about five years. For more background on this blog, click here. If you take issue with any conclusions please post them. I'll be happy to engage in cordial discourse. ...Finally, if you are here for the first time, it's probably best to scroll down and read the posts in chronological order. The archive is to the right.

Monday, October 18, 2010

2. Do not think there are other gods besides Him

The second commandment of Mosaic Law is to not even think that there are other gods besides Him.  

Where in scripture?
Exodus 20:3
"You shall not have other gods besides me."

New Testament references
Matthew 4:10 
"'The Lord, your God, shall you worship and him alone shall you serve.'" 

Romans 16:26-27
"…according to the command of the eternal God, made known to all nations to bring about the obedience of faith, to the only wise God…"

From From the Catechism of the Catholic Church
2084 God's first call and just demand is that man accept him and worship him.
2087 Our moral life has its source in faith in God who reveals his love to us. Our duty toward God is to believe in him and to bear witness to him.
2088 The first commandment requires us to nourish and protect our faith with prudence and vigilance, and to reject everything that is opposed to it. There are various ways of sinning against faith:
Voluntary doubt about the faith disregards or refuses to hold as true what God has revealed and the Church proposes for belief. Involuntary doubt refers to hesitation in believing, difficulty in overcoming objections connected with the faith, or also anxiety aroused by its obscurity. If deliberately cultivated doubt can lead to spiritual blindness.
2091 The first commandment is also concerned with sins against hope, namely, despair and presumption:
By despair, man ceases to hope for his personal salvation from God, for help in attaining it or for the forgiveness of his sins. Despair is contrary to God's goodness, to his justice - for the Lord is faithful to his promises - and to his mercy.
2092 There are two kinds of presumption. Either man presumes upon his own capacities, (hoping to be able to save himself without help from on high), or he presumes upon God's almighty power or his mercy (hoping to obtain his forgiveness without conversion and glory without merit).
2093 Faith in God's love encompasses the call and the obligation to respond with sincere love to divine charity. The first commandment enjoins us to love God above everything and all creatures for him and because of him. (Deut 6:4-5)
2097 To adore God is to acknowledge, in respect and absolute submission, the "nothingness of the creature" who would not exist but for God. To adore God is to praise and exalt him and to humble oneself… The worship of the one God sets man free from turning in on himself, from the slavery of sin and the idolatry of the world.
2099 It is right to offer sacrifice to God as a sign of adoration and gratitude, supplication and communion: "Every action done so as to cling to God in communion of holiness, and thus achieve blessedness, is a true sacrifice." (St. Augustine, De civ Dei 10,6:PL 41,283)
2100 Outward sacrifice, to be genuine, must be the expression of spiritual sacrifice: "The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit. . . . " (Ps 51:17) The prophets of the Old Covenant often denounced sacrifices that were not from the heart or not coupled with love of neighbor. (Am 5:21-25; Isa 1:10-20) Jesus recalls the words of the prophet Hosea: "I desire mercy, and not sacrifice." (Mt 9:13; 12:7; Hos 6:6) The only perfect sacrifice is the one that Christ offered on the cross as a total offering to the Father's love and for our salvation. (Heb 9:13-14) By uniting ourselves with his sacrifice we can make our lives a sacrifice to God.
2133 "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your strength" (Deut 6:5).
2134 The first commandment summons man to believe in God, to hope in him, and to love him above all else.

Early Church Fathers
St. Justin, Dial. cum Tryphone Judaeo 11,1:PG 6,497
We do not place our hope in some other god, for there is none, but in the same God as you do: the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Discussion
Christians combine the first two commandments of Mosaic Law into the first commandment of the Ten Commandments. 

Conclusion
Binding on Christians

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