Nightline on the 2nd Commandment: Feat. M. Driscoll

Watch it Now: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvfIU6gtGZs

"For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven(ESV)." - Matthew 5:20

So the two tablets are a hot topic again!? Or so it would seem according to NBC News Nightline with its most recent series on the Ten Commandments.

It seems that The 10 are both in vogue and at the same time very uncool. In terms of commandment keeping, the South still ranks pretty low by everyone's standards. For example, according to the FBI (http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/ranks/rank21.html) South Carolina ranks #1 in violent crimes per capita according to the 2006 statistical data. Even if the numbers are skewed, we're still in pretty bad shape. So while Chick-Fil-A may be opening another business around the corner, the heart of the south still pumps out enough sin to beat its democrat votin' counterparts every day of the week- and 'twice on Sunday'. In a culture whose majority goes to church and votes republican, the fact is the 'Bible Belt' is loose around a belly gorged on the delicacies of other gods.

In the Carolinas you see it everywhere. Posted on some marquis, decorating the I85 mile, or stuck down in someone's lawn like an old testament election sign: the constant reminders of Israel's Old Testament contract with Yahweh. The first 4 being the most revolutionary and the first being the most vital. For, as Luther pointed out, you can't really break any of the other ones without first breaking it.

I moved to Greenville, South Carolina at the age of 10, went to a Christian middle school, and graduated from a public high school in town. After over a year abroad I came back to boost my grades at a local Christian college before finishing my education at Clemson University. I've got more eyewitness testimony of Carolina hypocrisy than I need for a lifetime. Once you've lived here that long, you don't need an FBI statistic to tell you what you already know. Religion is broken. As one local pastor says, "There ain't no future in it."

Other religions had written the latter ones for the most part, but no one ever prefaced their moral requirements with "I am YAHWEH who brought you out of the land of egypt, out of the house of bondage..." I'd say whatever follows should take on a significantly different character than any other moral list. Because if it's true, it means the Law-Giver is first Creator, second Redeemer, and as the O.T. draws out- Husband. In that context, these vows for Israel were anything but arbitrary. To those of you who hear this as counterintuitive coming from an evangelical pastor, you may need to take a second look at Christianity altogether. (To whom I'd recommend The Prodigal God by Timothy Keller). At the risk of reductionism, the message of the entire Bible was never meant to be an anvil over the head of humanity. It does claim to present a God who is both good and sovereign at the same time and who, for His own sake, chose to make a world that could brake. The result is a love that must also be broken, suffer, and die in human flesh. This is precisely what we find in the person and work of the God-Man Jesus, a rabbi-carpenter.

Imagine with me some of the major 'Mounts' of the Bible. You've got Mt. Sinai: Ten Commandments, thunder, smoke etc. Later, somewhere on the northern coast of the sea of Galilee, Jesus gives a sermon (Sermon on the Mount) interpreting the Mosaic Law. You've also got the Mount of Transfiguration, a cloud, a loud voice, brilliance and light. And finally, 'the Hill of the Scull', where Jesus is brutally executed above a street outside Jerusalem.

Across these hills one can view some major features of the Christian message. Israel received a law from a God that just freed them from slavery. They could never keep it perfectly. They were always law-breakers and simultaneously loved by God like a son. Jesus comes- he, the perfect Israelite, the perfect son, keeps the whole law perfectly, and yet dies the death of one who broke it at every point. On the other side of a rolled away stone, Jesus emerges as the once-for-all human who lives, dies, and is made alive- and better. His new contract(covenant) is a meal to remember that His body saves the human race from slavery to sin and baptism (burial and resurrection) to evoke the memory of His passage through death to steal the teeth from it on our behalf.

Apart from Jesus, those two tablets can only partially reveal that we don't meet God's standard. Most theists already recognize this. And most atheists will admit they can't even meet their own standards for 'goodness'. So, even if a person buys the law-breaker message, that's still only enough to wanna make them eat the end of a gun! Point being, the 10 commandments can only tell us we fall short. We can't ever hit the target by trying to keep them.

For my money, Jesus is the best topic of conversation. If you can use how hypocritical we ALL are as a springboard- so be it, but let's not pretend that more billboards or yard signs will ever transform the world better than a resurrected Jesus. Though, I'm not so sure they're transforming anybody, except to either make them more despairing with no hope of freedom, or uglier still- more self-righteous.

For more on knowing God, but not through religion or irreligion check this out! (http://www.redeemer2.com/resources/papers/KnowGod.pdf)