The Ten Commandments Episode 1 Overview

<p>Relationship is the key value in the whole theme of the commandments, because God wants us to be fulfilled in life through relationships, both with Himself, and with one another. We find then that the first four commandments deal with our relationship with God, and that the next six deal with our relationships with one another. That is why the New Covenant had a promise that the law would be written in our hearts by The Holy Spirit, a person, who can indwell us and make alive the spirit of the law, and the standards of God's wisdom for our relationships. This can now be done on the powerful basis of love and grace, instead of legalism.</p> <p>God has designed the Commandments as a sequence of steps where success in any one commandment leads to an understanding of the next. Obedience to the first commandment gives understanding of the second commandment, and in the same way, failure in say, the sixth commandment means a lack of understanding in the fifth. The fifth commandment says ‘Honour your father and your mother’, and the sixth says ‘You shall not kill’. So how are these related?</p> <p>If we look at the personal relationships Involved, we see that commandment number five, honouring our parents, speaks about the very first relationship we experience as human beings, a relationships with authority. In this relationship we are being taught, in a very natural way, to trust another person for the needs in our life. In a perfect world, with perfect people this trust would grow and grow, but we don't live in a perfect world. Have you ever seen children get angry? That is because they’re frustrated at not getting what they want, even from parents that they trust and that loves them, and so we all fail in the fifth Commandment.</p> <p>The reason that this relates to the sixth commandment is found in the statement that Jesus made in the sermon on the mount, when He said 'In the law it says thou shalt not kill, but I say unto you, be not angry with your brother without cause. Put in simple terms - anger kills.