Exodus 20:1-17
1 And God spoke all these words:
2 “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
3 “You shall have no other gods before[a] me.
4 “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.
7 “You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.
8 “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any alien residing in your towns. 11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
12 “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you.
13 “You shall not murder.
14 “You shall not commit adultery.
15 “You shall not steal.
16 “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.
17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”
18 When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance 19 and said to Moses, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die.”
The Ten Commandments is a great lesson to teach and should be revisited in each age group. I’ve taught it to preschoolers, 1st and 2nd grade, junior high, and this was my first time teaching it to high schoolers. My goal is always to get them to understand how it applies to real life.
I can’t help but mention those people who claim that there’s no problem with putting the Ten Commandments in government buildings because “they’re just good rules for everybody to follow” and that they’re not inherently religious. The first seven verses—half of the Commandments are devoted to how we interact with God. These people must either be unfamiliar with what the Commandments actually are, or literally unable to see how non-Judeo-Christian people see the world.
For a Christian, however, these are the principle rules to follow.
The List
Today, I didn’t bother having the students read the passage. They’ve read it many times in class already. So I started with having them list the Commandments from memory. This is especially tricky because different religious branches number them differently. Even among Christians. Check it out.
The class was able to name nine, which is not bad. They forgot “craven images,” which is an easy one to forget. Then I gave them a handout with the list.
What is the easiest Commandment to keep?
“No murder!”
“What about bugs?”
Exactly. What about bugs? Is murder limited solely to humans?
“What if a mosquito bites me?”
In this translation, it says specifically not to murder. This is the phrasing most churches and temples use now. However, for a long time, it was “Thou shall not kill.” If a mosquito bites you and you hit back, maybe it’s not murder. But if killing bugs could be murder, stomping on ants would be. It’s killing for no reason. In the end, I admit that it’s unlikely that this Commandment would apply to animals, but cruelty to animals is still wrong.
What else?
“Adultery.”
Really? You guys think it’s easy?
“None of us are married!”
Does adultery only apply to marriage? Can it apply to any committed relationship? They hadn’t considered that. Also, how far do you have to go for it to be considered adultery? Is kissing enough? They hadn’t considered. Also, committing adultery may not only apply to the person in the relationship. If you knowingly act with somebody in a relationship, does that count as adultery?
Any others?
“Honor your mother and father.”
“Really?”
“Really?”
“That one’s HARD.”
What are the hardest Commandments to keep?
The Commandment says, “honor your mother and father.” Does that mean obey them? Do you have to do everything they say? What if they’re wrong?
“Today, I was laying down on the pew during the call to worship. My father dragged me up by my ear.”
I don’t want to comment on the methods, but we’re supposed to stand at that point.
What happens when you become an adult? I’m married now and I simply have to put my wife’s needs ahead of my mother’s. That’s how marriage works. Am I still honoring her? The big what if: you have parents who are destructive to your life or even abusive. How much are you required to honor them? I concede that honor is a two way street. You really honor things that honor you back.
The same kid with the ear: “Does this mean I don’t have to listen to my father?”
I know all of your parents. They may not be perfect, but they’re all decent. But maybe honoring and obeying aren’t always the same thing.
Anything else?
“Lying!”
Is it really about all lying? This translation says specifically not “give false testimony.” Does that only mean in court? Many other translations say “bear false witness against.” That may not mean only court, but it may apply to any accusations you make. That sounds a lot like mean rumors. Plus what about false compliments? “You look great! I love your hair!” Are we expected to be honest all the time? Are you even able to be a good person if you’re always honest? This one is tough.
I decide to bring up a few others.
Taking the Lord’s name in vain
Some people think this applies to any kind of vulgarity. But is the name of the Lord really the F bomb? What is even the purpose of this Commandment?
“Is it like when you get angry and shout Jesus’ name?”
It is.
“How is that different from praying?”
Would you like it if somebody shouted your name when they got upset or stubbed their toe? But what if they thanked you when you did something right? Or asked for your help when you really needed it?
Remembering the Sabbath Day
What are you guys going to do after church today?
“Homework.”
“Homework.”
“We’re going to go out to eat, then go to my grandmother’s for dinner.”
“I have to clean the garage, THEN do my homework!”
So, you guys are working on the Sabbath? You’re not supposed to do ANY work. I’m as guilty as they are. I’m going to clean out the fridge, then go food shopping. Not only that, but I missed church almost all of August because I was working. This is tough. We’re supposed to spend the day resting and contemplating God. Doing family stuff is okay, probably, but working is not.
“Why does it mention aliens? You can’t make aliens work?”
It doesn’t just mention aliens—who are foreigners—it also mentions servants. This means you can’t force somebody else to work, even if they don’t believe in the same religion as you. It’s tempting to treat somebody differently just because they don’t follow the same rules as you, but you are supposed to be kind to everybody.
How many Commandments have you broken?
Don’t tell me which ones, just how many?
“Seven.”
“Eight.”
“Eight.”
“Eight.”
“Nine.”
That’s a lot. Are we all sinners? They stare at the ground. Nobody is perfect. While these are the most important rules to follow, we will break some of them. It’s hard to do the right thing. If it wasn’t we all would all the time.
But remember, if we believe all sins are forgiven. But part of believing is to try as hard as you can, to know when you’re wrong, and to try to do better. Belief isn’t talk; it’s action.
So don’t feel so bad!
A promise
I want everybody to pick a Commandment that they’re not going to break this week.
“Murder!”
I should have seen that coming.
Let’s say one you broke this past week. And pick a hard one. It should be a challenge.
“Taking the Lord’s name in vain. I say Jesus Christ when I get impatient.”
“Lying.”
“The Lord’s name.”
“Honor your parents. I’m going to be nice to my mom.”
“Lying.”
I announce to the class that I’m not going to covet. Far too often, I’m jealous of other people, the professional success they have and the money that goes with it. Being bitter hurts me, so I’m not going to do it.
Keeping the Commandments
This was one of my best lessons. With the younger kids, I would be more inclined to give them explicit definitions of each Commandment. With the older kids, I’d rather have them thinking. Being a good person is never black and white and nobody is 100% good. I hope that I left them thinking about how to be a better person.
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Monday, October 3, 2011
Revelation 22:1-5
Revelation 22:1-5
1 Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. 3 No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. 4 They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5 There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.
Preparing this lesson was difficult. I dislike teaching the Book of Revelation. I find it’s so often used by religious fundamentalists to justify extreme positions. People use descriptions of the apocalypse to scare people about what will happen if they don’t follow the rules. This goes against several central tenets of Christianity (hope, forgiveness, love).
Also, I dislike discussing heaven. I feel like trying to describe heaven is a silly endeavor. Heaven is supposed to be greater than you can imagine, so why are you imagining it? Additionally, the concept of making sacrifices now for heaven later makes it sound like living a good Christian life is a punishment. People should believe that being a good Christian makes you feel good.
I decided to use my concerns in my lesson.
What is Heaven like?
I started by asking my students to describe heaven.
“White clouds. Gates. Dudes with harps.”
“White clouds.”
Okay, nobody is allowed to say something somebody else already said. So no white clouds.
“All the dead people I know waiting for me.”
“Everybody has their own mansion.”
“I’m not allowed to name anything anybody else said? Heath Ledger.”
I described my heaven as sitting on a dock in the mountains, playing Civilization with my friends.
What was Israel like?
So now I asked the students to describe what Israel was like when this passage was written. They immediately jumped on war-torn (I pointed out that Revelation was written about the time that the Temple was destroyed in Jerusalem, one of the major acts of warfare in the Judeo-Christian history). It took a surprisingly long time for them to admit it was a desert. I pointed out how not only does this mean very little water, it also means little variety in food. I explained how without greenhouses and planes, food could only be harvested during specific seasons and otherwise had to be dried.
Has anybody ever had dried fruit? They agree that raisins are great, but they dislike prunes and craisins. None of them have had dried apples, but I assure them that they’re disappointing.
We turn back to review the passage again. This description of Heaven includes “the healing of the nations,” “the river of the water of life,” and “the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month.” People tend to see in heaven what they don’t have. I ask my students, is there somebody who died that they miss? An uncle. Do they have to share a room? And who want to live in a Heath ledger-less world? I admit that I miss the friend group I left behind in LA and I explain that Civilization is a board game that has been out of print for more than 20 years. Copies of it cost around $200. It is very natural to expect Heaven to reward us with those things that we lack now.
How does Heaven compare to what we already have?
But all of us forgot to include in Heaven the things we have now. I even forgot to mention my wife. I love my wife a great deal and I would not want any kind of existence without her. But because I already have her now, it is natural to forget to include her in my picture of Heaven. That is the very definition of taking something for granted. I reminded my students that as much as we hope to be rewarded later, we should remember that God has given many great things in our life already and we should be thankful for those.
We have access to enormous amounts of food all year round. The early Christians would view our supermarkets as Heaven. They couldn’t possibly understand how greenhouses allow us to grow plants off season, how refrigerators allow us to keep food all year long, and how planes allow us to transport food from where it is currently in season to us. While these are exactly what they want in Heaven, they are unimaginable to somebody living in the late first century.
And this may be what Heaven is like. At several points the Bible explains how the intentions of God are unknowable. This is helpful when the world is too complicated for us to understand. We have trouble reconciling a God that is all-loving with a God who allows disasters and tragedies to occur. Christians are taught to have faith that God knows what he’s doing and we might not be able to understand it. Similarly, Heaven is likely something unknowable, unimaginable, but it is exactly what we need. It might not even be someplace we go when we die. It might be the place inside ourselves that lights up when we are closest to God, when we’re following His path, when we’re helping other people and sharing love. We have faith that God understands.
1 Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. 3 No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. 4 They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5 There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.
Preparing this lesson was difficult. I dislike teaching the Book of Revelation. I find it’s so often used by religious fundamentalists to justify extreme positions. People use descriptions of the apocalypse to scare people about what will happen if they don’t follow the rules. This goes against several central tenets of Christianity (hope, forgiveness, love).
Also, I dislike discussing heaven. I feel like trying to describe heaven is a silly endeavor. Heaven is supposed to be greater than you can imagine, so why are you imagining it? Additionally, the concept of making sacrifices now for heaven later makes it sound like living a good Christian life is a punishment. People should believe that being a good Christian makes you feel good.
I decided to use my concerns in my lesson.
What is Heaven like?
I started by asking my students to describe heaven.
“White clouds. Gates. Dudes with harps.”
“White clouds.”
Okay, nobody is allowed to say something somebody else already said. So no white clouds.
“All the dead people I know waiting for me.”
“Everybody has their own mansion.”
“I’m not allowed to name anything anybody else said? Heath Ledger.”
I described my heaven as sitting on a dock in the mountains, playing Civilization with my friends.
What was Israel like?
So now I asked the students to describe what Israel was like when this passage was written. They immediately jumped on war-torn (I pointed out that Revelation was written about the time that the Temple was destroyed in Jerusalem, one of the major acts of warfare in the Judeo-Christian history). It took a surprisingly long time for them to admit it was a desert. I pointed out how not only does this mean very little water, it also means little variety in food. I explained how without greenhouses and planes, food could only be harvested during specific seasons and otherwise had to be dried.
Has anybody ever had dried fruit? They agree that raisins are great, but they dislike prunes and craisins. None of them have had dried apples, but I assure them that they’re disappointing.
We turn back to review the passage again. This description of Heaven includes “the healing of the nations,” “the river of the water of life,” and “the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month.” People tend to see in heaven what they don’t have. I ask my students, is there somebody who died that they miss? An uncle. Do they have to share a room? And who want to live in a Heath ledger-less world? I admit that I miss the friend group I left behind in LA and I explain that Civilization is a board game that has been out of print for more than 20 years. Copies of it cost around $200. It is very natural to expect Heaven to reward us with those things that we lack now.
How does Heaven compare to what we already have?
But all of us forgot to include in Heaven the things we have now. I even forgot to mention my wife. I love my wife a great deal and I would not want any kind of existence without her. But because I already have her now, it is natural to forget to include her in my picture of Heaven. That is the very definition of taking something for granted. I reminded my students that as much as we hope to be rewarded later, we should remember that God has given many great things in our life already and we should be thankful for those.
We have access to enormous amounts of food all year round. The early Christians would view our supermarkets as Heaven. They couldn’t possibly understand how greenhouses allow us to grow plants off season, how refrigerators allow us to keep food all year long, and how planes allow us to transport food from where it is currently in season to us. While these are exactly what they want in Heaven, they are unimaginable to somebody living in the late first century.
And this may be what Heaven is like. At several points the Bible explains how the intentions of God are unknowable. This is helpful when the world is too complicated for us to understand. We have trouble reconciling a God that is all-loving with a God who allows disasters and tragedies to occur. Christians are taught to have faith that God knows what he’s doing and we might not be able to understand it. Similarly, Heaven is likely something unknowable, unimaginable, but it is exactly what we need. It might not even be someplace we go when we die. It might be the place inside ourselves that lights up when we are closest to God, when we’re following His path, when we’re helping other people and sharing love. We have faith that God understands.
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