Ten Commandment Tuesday - How To Delete A Commandment You Don't Like

I Bring You These Fifteen... oops... Ten Commandments...

Are there 10 commandments? Mel Brooks told us that there were really 15 commandments but there was this issue coming down off Mt. Sinai. An atheist who didn't know anything about the bible he was arguing against said that there were over 600 commandments. I've been told that the 10 commandments are God's instructions to the Jews, so as gentiles they don't apply to us.

Are the 10 commandments the be-all, end-all of how God wants us to obey or are they merely guidelines?

The 10 Commandments seem to be a difficult to achieve moral imperative, but our salvation is no longer depending on the law, our salvation is in Christ. It is by our faith in Jesus Christ that we are saved, and that's only through God's grace. Does that mean that we can pitch the 10 Commandments off to the side and do what we want? Let me quote what Dennis Prager said at the beginning of this series:

[The 10 Commandments are] so relevant that the Ten Commandments are all that is necessary to make a good world, a world free of tyranny and cruelty... In 3,000 years no one has ever come up with a better system than the God-based Ten Commandments for making a better world. And no one ever will

And that's all we need to know, the 10 commandments are both marching order for the Jews, and guidelines for behavior as Christians. Having faith in Christ does not make murder or theft permissible because Jesus did not replace the 10 Commandments, what He did was make it proper application to the heart (Romans 8:1-4). Gotquestions.org tells us:

In place of the Old Testament law, Christians are under the law of Christ (Galatians 6:2), which is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind…and to love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37-39). If we obey those two commands, we will be fulfilling all that Christ requires of us: “All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:40)

So it's good to review the 10 commandments, 1-4 tells us how to love God and 5-10 tells us how to love each other... unless you're a Roman Catholic. Given the option to remove a commandment a good Protestant would remove #4 - remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy and I've already covered that commandment from the Protestant point of view. But no matter if you're a sabbatarian or someone that demands repeal of Commandment #4, one day off a week to rest, recuperate, and recharge is a good idea, and God is the creator of good ideas.


If you look at the Biblical Ten Commandments vs the Catholic 10 commandments you'll see that Commandment #4 is erased by the Roman... wait... no, they moved the Sabbath commandment up to #3, the Roman Catholic church completely tossed out Commandment #2 opening up the way to idols and graven images, then moved everything up one number split the 10th commandment apart to fill in the gap.

There's nothing in the text that hints that Exodus 20:17 should be split up into multiple commandments, so how did "you shall not covet your neighbor's wife" get it's own commandment? I didn't realize that the Vatican even cared about women, so what commandment didn't make the cut?

4 “You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, 6 but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.

It's not just a single sentence that got tossed, this is 3 entire verses. To question why the Roman Catholic Church deleted this entire portion is a point of contention, and to assume that it was done to justify the Roman Catholic Church's addiction to idolatry is "simply slander that grew out of the vitriol of the Reformation" claims Romeo Hontiveros of PagadianDiocese.org. But simple slander on my part does not explain the idolatry of the Roman Catholic Church.

Christianity originated as a movement within Judaism, a religion that did not tolerate figurative religious art. But in the catacombs of the city of Rome paintings began to appear, visual aids for underground Christian worship services. By the 8th century these simple paintings evolved into icons; paintings, mosaics, and statues of Jesus, Mary, angels, and narrative art describing concepts such as this one showing the idea of assent into heaven. This is a good idea when your audience is illiterate, is denied access to the bible, and the priest is purposely conducting the service in a language you can't understand (Latin).In the seventh and eighth centuries there were actual battles for and against the use of icons (Iconoclasm), this conflict was settled in time for the Roman Catholics split from the historically true Catholic church (Orthodox) in the Great Schism. Icons ruled the Christian world until the reformation when someone noticed a missing commandment.

The problem with icons is that even though you claim that they're just a representation of a person or an event, over the years they suddenly become just as important as that person or event. Each RCC church has a crucifix showing a hideously tortured Jesus hanging in his moment of death, but that's not the Gospel. Anyone can die on a cross, and in Rome hundreds of thousands of people did die on a cross. It's rising the from the dead that's the glorious part of the gospel.

Over on the side altars is a statue of Mary on one side, and a statue of Joseph on the other side. Other statues or paintings of saints may adorn the side altars, and it's the statue of Mary that concerns me the most. The Roman Catholic Church has attributed numerous occurrences to Mary, such as her heart and Jesus' heart united at Calvary, that she lived a sin-free life, that when Jesus asked her to be mother to his beloved disciple that meant that she became mother to all Christians, she is the protector of Christians, as she shelters them under her mantle, she is the mediatrix who intercedes for us to Jesus who intercedes for us to God. Nestorius, the Archbishop of Constantinople was branded a heretic for stating that Mary was merely a human being. He was attacked both verbally and physically by shocked Marians and was exiled to a monistary in the Egyptian desert that was perpetually under attacks by bandits.

So statues of Mary fill the landscape performing miracles. Some cry, some grow taller and smile, here's one that cries tears of blood, here's a Vietnamese crying Mary, here's one that wins a war and splits a hurricane, here's one that cured cancer, here's one that weeps, has an angel companion that sweats perfume and her tears heal unborn babies, here's one that weeps, heals, changes color, and moves, she even resurrects discarded bathtubs. The statue of Mary is trotted out, and idolized in up to 10 different feast days on the RCC calendar and Pope Frances actually crowns a statue of Mary proclaiming her the "Queen of Heaven"

Matt Slick brings it all together when he says:

Catholicism says that divine worship is for God only, yet it also says it is okay to bow down before a statue of Mary, pray to Mary, believe that Mary delivers us from death, believe Mary atoned for us, etc., as long as you don't give her "divine worship."  In other words, you can do almost anything worship-wise to Mary as you would to God - just don't call it "divine worship."

The Roman Catholic definition of idolatry it claims that "the idolater credits the image he reveres with Divinity or Divine powers". Stopping a war, diverting a hurricane, weeping, smiling, growing, healing, changing color, and hanging out with a sweaty angel - these sound like fairly powerful divine  powers, but Marian worship is merely considered a sacred tradition of the church. In the Catechism of the Catholic Church tradition and scripture come from a common source:

80 "Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture, then, are bound closely together, and communicate one with the other. For both of them, flowing out from the same divine well-spring, come together in some fashion to form one thing, and move towards the same goal."

So in the world of the Catholic apologists scripture and tradition are inexorably bound together, but out here in the real world we see that tradition may not actually be bound to scripture, or come from scripture, or even liked by scripture:

5 The Pharisees and the scribes asked Him, “Why do Your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with impure hands?” 6 And He said to them, “Rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honors Me with their lips,But their heart is far away from Me. 7 But in vain do they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.’ 8 Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men.” 9 He was also saying to them, “You are experts at setting aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition. (Mark 7:5-9)

Setting aside the commandment of God? They erased it from the list in order to justify their Marian idolatry