Theology articles

The Ten Commandments, Part III: Blasphemy

What’s in a Name?

I know that this series is taking the commandments rather out of order, but it’s my series and I’ll do it in any order I want to! This part is on what is commonly known as the blasphemy law. There has been some discussion about blasphemy in the news recently, about whether the blasphemy laws in this country should be repealed or not. I don’t really want to focus too much on that, and instead go back to the Old Testament to try and understand some of the context of God’s name!

So, without further ado, let’s dive in to Exodus. We’ll look at the relevant passage from Exodus 20, if you want to follow along.

The blasphemy law occurs in verse 7:

You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.

How are we to interpret this commandment? Well, the understanding I grew up with was that we were not to use “God” or “Jesus” as a swear word. Admittedly that is a fairly simplistic understanding, but I think it’s fairly accurate: using God’s name in that way would be completely disrespectful, and - I believe - it’s right to teach people that this law forbids that.

However, as we shall see, the Israelites at the time would have understood a lot more from this commandment. The key thing is, our understanding of “name” is probably a little different to how it would have been interpreted in the ancient world.

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The Ten Commandments, Part II: Idolatry

In the first part of this series, I looked at the context for the ten commandments. What I want to do with the rest of this series is to take a closer look at one or two of the other commandments, to see if there is any meaning to them beyond the popular understanding. In this article I will be looking at the second commandment: Idolatry.

‘You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.’

Deuteronomy 5:8-10

The first thing to mention is, there is an awful lot in those verses! Compared to the first commandment – a mere eight words long – this is much longer and more complex. I don’t want to go into the reasons behind that for the time being (mainly because I don’t actually know!), but I want to focus more on what is forbidden here.

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The Ten Commandments, Part I: Context

In this series I want to look at the Ten Commandments – or at least, certain aspects of them. I expect many of us who are Christians will be very familiar with the ten commandments – perhaps even knowing them off by heart (when I was younger, I learnt them in the form of a song…)

However, I believe that it is due to this familiarity that we don’t often look at the ten commandments in very much detail, at what they are actually saying in context. So, what I would like to do here is examine the relevant scripture passages to try and determine the context of the ten commandments, and what they would mean in that context.

Before reading on, you may wish to refresh your memory: read through Exodus 20 and / or Deuteronomy 5.

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To Purgatory, or not to Purgatory?

This week saw Pope Benedict announce that to celebrate 150 years since the Virgin Mary appeared to a peasant girl in Lourdes pilgrims traveling to the town could claim time off from Purgatory. This has caused widespread confusion and opposition amongst Protestants, who both denounce the authority of the Pope and don’t generally believe in Purgatory either. This is a can of worms unlike any that’s been seen in recent years, and may take a while to settle.

Now, I’m no Biblical scholar, but I do have some thoughts I would like to share on this topic, exploring the nature of forgiveness, sin, Purgatory, judgement, hell and heaven. Not necessarily in that order.

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