The Story Chapter 5 Introduction

The presidential debate is going on right now as this introduction to Chapter 5 is being written. One of the big topics in the debate is the amount of regulation the government should have. People need rules to live by, they need a common understanding of how these rules will work.  But the debate is centering on how much regulation should be in place and who should enforce those regulations.

When God delivered the Israelites from slavery to freedom God brought them to Mt. Sinai for the purpose of looking at the governing rules for life.  Here they ratified something more than rules, they made a covenant with each other. Part of that covenant was how to live together to be God’s people, the chosen people. The people needed a common understanding of how to live together in community. Now some people might think that the rules are for the purpose of catching them up so that they could be punished. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

The rules, which we know as the 10 commandments, were not put in force for God to be like a distance government to enforce laws, but rather to provide a way for community to live together in harmony. The commandments are a gift from God who knew that without these rules to live by, the people of  the chosen nation would make bad decisions and the people would make life miserable for themselves. The 10 commandments were indispensable tools for improving every aspect of their lives. This is part of the covenant for the people to belong to God and God to claim the people, his beloved created ones, his chosen nation.

Think about it when these rules are broken and ignored, life gets pretty horrible. We see that Sin, the very Sin that we saw come into the world after humans use their free will to chose against God, destroys humans and brings chaos.

Feel free to review these God given regulations here.

How are we doing with God’s regulations today? What effects has that had on our society? Perhaps we should not be looking at presidential debates, but rather turn back to God’s regulations!