Question: What’s the longest chapter in the entire Bible? Psalm 119 with 176 verses! Question: What is its subject? Love and reverence for God’s laws and teachings! 

This chapter also has the most complicated structure in the entire Bible, so this masterpiece required a huge amount of time and effort! The author worked long and hard to give top honors to the subject of God’s perfect laws!

The whole Bible emphasizes how God wants all His people, including young children, to learn, love and live by His commandments.

The Number 10

The subject of the Ten Commandments is of supreme importance. Authors have written hundreds of books on the subject. On a scale of 1 to 10, the Ten Commandments are a perfect 10!

The number 10 is a very special number, and it occurs quite often in the Bible. People ordinarily have 10 fingers and 10 toes! The word tithe means tenth. The prefix deca means 10. The prefix deci means tenth. Those prefixes occur in many of our English words. Our decimal numeral system is based on the number 10. The Ten Commandments are often referred to as the Decalogue.  

So the fact that the essential commandments of God, the practical and perfect principles for life, are 10 in number—no more and no less—is awesome.

Miracles Prove the Ten Commandments Are
Super-important!

God used spectacular miracles to emphasize how important the Ten Commandments are! To begin with, God used 10 plagues and many, many other miracles to liberate the whole nation of Israel from Egypt!

Then God led them to Mt. Sinai, the site of the burning bush miracle (Exodus 3:1-12; 19:1-15). In the morning of what was later called the Feast of Pentecost, there were thunderings, lightnings, a thick cloud and an extremely loud sound of a trumpet (verse 16). Then God descended in blazing fire and smoke as the whole mountain quaked (verse 18). Moses went up the mountain and stayed in the presence of God for 40 days, miraculously fasting from all food and water during that time (Exodus 24:18; 34:28).

Then God loudly announced all the Ten Commandments so all the Israelites could hear God speaking (Exodus 20:22; Deuteronomy 4:36; 5:4, 24-26).

God then wrote all the words on the front and back sides of two tablets of stone—with His finger! (Exodus 32:15). Probably all Ten Commandments were engraved on each stone. Since this covenant (a type of contract) was between God and Israel, one “copy” would belong to God and the other “copy” would belong to Israel.

When Moses came down from the presence of God, his face shone so brightly he had to put a veil over his face (Exodus 34:29-35).

Israel was later instructed to permanently keep those two “tablets of the covenant” inside the “ark of the covenant” (Exodus 31:18; Deuteronomy 9:9; 10:1-5, 8).

These facts and miracles plus many more demonstrate how God views the Ten Commandments! To summarize, they are God’s royal rules for relationships and lasting success and happiness!

The Ten Commandments Show Us How to Love! 

The whole Bible is God’s love story. Here is an acronym that explains this love: This Book Instructs Believers: Love Everybody! First of all, it’s because God greatly loves us that He gave us His laws to guide and bless us and keep us out of trouble (Psalm 119:105). Then the first four of the Commandments sum up how we should love God, and the last six of the Commandments sum up how we should love other people! 

We show love for God by not sinning, but what is “sin?” It is the breaking of God’s laws! (Romans 7:7; 1 John 3:4).

When someone asked, “‘Which is the great commandment in the law?’ Jesus said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets’” (Matthew 22:36-40).

God first revealed these two great commandments in “the Law and the Prophets,” a phrase that means the Old Testament! Jesus was quoting Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18.

Notice the word “hang” in Matthew 22:40. I imagine you are familiar with mobiles. Imagine a wire labeled “Love” coming down from God that holds a wire cross piece. At one end of the cross piece, a wire hangs down that is labeled “Love God.” At the other end, a wire hangs down labeled “Love People.” Under “Love God,” a cross piece has four wires hanging down that hold the first four of the Ten Commandments. Under “Love People,” a cross piece has six wires hanging down that hold the last six of the Ten Commandments. Then hanging under each of the Ten Commandments is a whole bunch of other spiritual laws. This “mobile” is a good illustration of how God views His commandments.

False Religious Teachings Are Illogical!

God says His precious laws are blessings, not burdens, but because human nature tends to be stubborn and rebellious, many people come up with all kinds of excuses for not obeying God. Furthermore, Satan the devil hates God’s laws, and he does all he can to deceive and destroy people.

Some people have the idea that the Ten Commandments were merely Ten Suggestions! Or that they were only temporary, just meant for Israel in the Old Testament. Or that God changed His mind and decided the Ten Commandments are unnecessary! Those are crazy ideas. Malachi 3:6 says, “For I the Lord do not change!”

What is logical—what makes sense? God created everything including the laws of science. Everything in our awesome universe—from a giant galaxy to a tiny atom—“obeys” God’s laws of physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, mathematics, etc. If laws are good for everything else, why would laws not be good for human beings?

Think of a parent saying the following to his child: “Because I am loving and merciful, I’m not going to give you any rules. I’ll give you suggestions, but I won’t make you do anything and I won’t stop you from doing anything that is bad.” That would be an awful parent! A wise and loving parent has rules and discipline, but is merciful and forgives when the child is truly sorry for disobeying. Likewise, our heavenly Father has the perfect balance of justice and mercy, of discipline and forgiveness (Hebrews 12:1-11).  

Some people complain that God’s Commandments are “restrictive,” although there are only 10 of them! The million-plus federal laws and regulations of the United States are collectively way, way more restrictive! And if people would obey the Ten Commandments, we wouldn’t need the countless other laws to try to stop bad behavior! Actually, the Bible calls the Ten Commandments God’s “perfect law of liberty” (James 1:25; 2:12). People have the greatest freedoms—physically, mentally and spiritually—when they obey God.

Some people complain the Ten Commandments are “negative” because some say, “You shall not . . .” Actually, the commandments are very positive! “You shall not steal” implies that you are free to choose and do zillions of good things that don’t involve stealing!

Some people think, “Jesus kept the Ten Commandments for us so we don’t have to keep them.” That’s ridiculous! Think of a policeman stopping me for running red lights. What if I say this: “Officer, my friend Joe has been stopping at all the red lights in my place so I don’t have to stop for them.” The policeman would think I’m nuts!

It’s true that forgiveness, eternal life and other blessings are gargantuan gifts from God so we cannot earn them by keeping God’s laws. (God offers us “grace,” of which a primary meaning is “gift” and “gifts.”) To illustrate, I can’t expect my city to give me a financial reward because I’ve been obeying the city laws. But if I refuse to obey the city laws, I’ll lose my freedom. I’ll go to jail. Likewise, obeying God won’t earn salvation, but if I kept stubbornly refusing to obey God’s laws, I would end up losing my opportunity for eternal life.

The New Testament Also Teaches Obedience to the Ten Commandments

Jesus Christ taught obedience to the Ten Commandments (Matthew 5:17-28; 19:17-19; 23:23; John 14:6, 15, 21; 15:10). He also came to earth to be our role model so we can “follow His steps” (Matthew 16:24; John 10:4; 1 Corinthians 11:1; 1 Peter 2:21). We are to be followers and imitators of Christ.

John is known as the “apostle of love,” and he frequently emphasized the true love that includes obeying God’s commandments. For example, see 1 John 2:4-6; 3:3-8, 22, 24; 5:2-3; 2 John 6; 3 John 11.

Revelation 14:12 identifies the saints as “those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.” One of the last verses of the Bible, Revelation 22:14, says, “Blessed are those who do His commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life.”

The author of that longest psalm, Psalm 119, wrote: “Oh, how I love Your law!” and “I love Your commandments” (Psalm 119:97 and 127). What a great example for all of us to follow! May each of us become increasingly dedicated to learning, loving and living by God’s wonderful, wonderful Ten Commandments!

In this series the next article will explain the First Commandment of God. Look in the next United News for the next article in this installment. 

Note to Parents Regarding: Ten Commandments Series

With this issue of United News, we begin a series on the Ten Commandments. With the introductory article and a concluding article, we expect 12 installments. To accompany this series, we also highly recommend our United Church of God booklet, The Ten Commandments.

A primary goal is to word each article in ways that are especially clear and easy to understand so young people—teens and children—will find them interesting, memorable and motivational.

Many people have regarded the sixth chapter of Deuteronomy as the most important chapter in all the Old Testament. Why? Because it is mostly about the most valuable treasure you can bequeath to your children—passing the legacy of God’s precious truth to the next generation—about diligently teaching our children to learn, love and live by God’s Word and laws. They are the foundation of knowing right from wrong. They are the fundamentals of good character and godly wisdom. See Psalm 19:7-14; 111:10; Proverbs 4:1-13; Luke 2:52.

Your children are your disciples, and God clearly wants you to use the many opportunities each day—on the Sabbath and every day—to teach, model, clarify, apply, illustrate, remind and praise God’s commandments. This is learning by immersion—children being immersed in a family focused on God’s Word. Our ardent desire is to assist you as parents and other family members as you pursue this highest of high priorities.

Deuteronomy 6 follows perfectly after chapter 5 in which Moses repeated the Ten Commandments to remind them to “learn them and be careful to observe them” (Deuteronomy 6;1). And notice God’s passionate plea in verse 29: “Oh, that they had such a heart in them that they would fear Me and always keep all My commandments, that it might be well with them and with their children forever!”

Deuteronomy is an awesome sermon in which God places great emphasis on parents—both fathers and mothers—teaching His commandments to their children and grandchildren. See Deuteronomy 4:9-10, 40; 11:18-21, 26-28, 32; 12:28-32; 31:12-13; 32:45-47; and all of chapters 5 and 6. Children are like sponges. Childhood is the best time to learn and absorb anything. See Proverbs 22:6.  

Exactly how parents use these articles depends on the age of each child and other factors. With a very young child, you can use each article as an outline to help you in explaining each commandment in your own words. When the child is a little older, you can read it word-for-word to the child and add your explanations. With a little older child, you can take turns reading it together and discuss it. With a teenager, you can urge him or her to read it, and hopefully you and your teen will spend some time discussing it. See also “The Rewards of Reading Together” at www.ucg.org/the-good-news/the-rewards-of-reading-together.  

Memorizing scriptures is highly valuable for adults and children! See “Your Word I Have Hidden in My Heart” at www.ucg.org/beyond-today/your-word-i-have-hidden-in-my-heart. And family prayer is priceless for several reasons including the reinforcing of family Bible study. See “Teach Your Children How to Pray” at www.ucg.org/the-good-news/teach-your-children-how-to-pray.  

Also, you may reference the Family Study Guides featured on the members’ site. These Family Study Guides just recently went through the Ten Commandments and can help further your discussions with your children. You can access the Family Study Guides here: www.ucg.org/members/family-study-guides.

Of course, we hope that all of our United News subscribers will want to read the articles to better comprehend, contemplate, cherish and commit to God’s holy commandments.

God says, “I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts” (Hebrews 8:10). God’s plan is to rely on parents to help engrave those laws on the hearts of their children. 

This article is part of a series. To read other articles that focus on the Ten Commandments in this series please go to the following website: https://www.ucg.org/tags/the-ten-commandments-series.