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Chapter 8 The Decalogue Taking Care of Our Relationship with God. Mr. Salter Morality. The Ten Commandments p 142. Know the 10 Commandments in order for the next test The Ten Commandments are listed on page 144. The Ten Commandments and the Kingdom of God p 142--145.
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Chapter 8The DecalogueTaking Care of Our Relationship with God Mr. Salter Morality
The Ten Commandments p 142 Know the 10 Commandments in order for the next test • The Ten Commandments are listed on page 144
The Ten Commandments and the Kingdom of God p 142--145 • The context in which the 10 Commandments were given: • These Jewish slaves had two things in common: • they had been enslaved, and • had a special covenant relationship with God, which they learned about through stories passed down in captivity from their ancestors • They had no law, no common culture, and no guidelines to help them live out their covenant relationship with God.
The Ten Commandments and the Kingdom of God p 142--145 • The Commandments summed up all the (613) laws of Moses found in the O.T. • Called Mosaic Law (The Law of Moses) • Jesus summed up the Ten Commandments with the two greatest commandments • “You shall love your God with all your heart, all your mind and all your soul” Dt. • “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Lv. 19:18; Mt 22: 36-40 • Thus Jesus tells us that “love is the way to live the commandments.”
The Ten Commandments and the Kingdom of God p 142--145 • “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, your mind and your soul.” Dt.6:4 • For Jews, this is Shema • Placed in the scroll in the doorpost
The Ten Commandments and the Kingdom of God p 142--145 • The Ten Commandments are not imposed on us by a distant God, rather they are an expression of the natural law • Being ‘of’ God • We take on God’s own mind and begin to think and understand as God does, and to act as God would act if He were human.
The First Commandment p146-153 • The 1st Commandment - I am the Lord your God have no gods before me - is a call “to believe in God, to hope in him, and to love him above all else” (CCC 2134; p146). • Accomplished primarily through prayer and worship of God • Prayer cultivates our relationship with God • We become like that which we worship
The First Commandment p146-153 • To the Hebrew slaves, God reveals himself as All-Powerful, Loving and Liberating (p146) • All-Powerful: • God single-handedly and freely created the universe from nothing and holds it in existence. • He is powerful enough to bring good out of evil (e.g., Jesus’ death). • Thus, we can place our hope in him. • All things will work out for our ultimate good, if we place our trust in him
The First Commandment p146-153 • Loving: • All loving and all-powerful can appear contradictory because he does not force his love on us (we can say no to God). He does not make us love him. • He demonstrates an apparent powerlessness as he awaits our response – because love is not love if it is forced. • He gives us a free will, so that we can freely say yes or no to his reign and rule in our life. • Rm 5:8: God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us
The First Commandment p146-153 • Liberating: • God created us to be free from all forms of slavery. • License (like any addiction) is a type of slavery because it inhibits us from becoming who we want to be. • Like sin it leads to chaotic, unhappy and unfulfilled lives. • It is the truth that sets us free (See Jn 8:31-33), knowing it and responsibly living it.
How can we stray from the 1st Commandment? p.149 • Indifference = neglect and ignore God, refusing to spend time in prayer, denying his ability to love and act through you • Ingratitude = we refuse to thank God for the many gifts we enjoy by not thanking him in prayer and by demonstrating a lack of generosity to others • Hatred of God = we blame him for our problems or for the state of the world. We harden our hearts against him
How can we stray from the 1st Commandment? p.149 • Apathy toward God = acedia, that is, not caring, being listless, lazy and bored in our relationship with God. • Evidence of acedia can be the lack of “the joy that comes from God” (CCC 2094; p149).
Distortion of Religious Practice p 151 • Religious practices/rituals express our belief in God, give us grace, and bring us closer to him • We pervert these practices/rituals when we attribute God-like power to these external actions rather than to God; • Thus we try to manipulate or control God through the use of them. • e.g., lighting a vigil candle, wearing scapular/ miraculous medal.
Atheism and False Gods p. 152 • Atheism rejects or denies God’s existence • In pagan times all believed in gods • Practical materialism = that the material world is all that exists • Atheistic humanism = man is an end in himself, the sole maker and supreme control of his own history (See CCC 2124; p152) • Social atheism = religion by its very nature deceives people, gives them false hope and discourages them from working for a better life. • Whereas in fact, religion encourages and spurs one to work for the good of society
Other offences against 1st Commandment p 152 • Tempting God - we demand God prove His power and love as a condition for our believing him • God often writes with crooked lines – he works in roundabout ways that we often can perceive only through faith • Sacrilege - treating profanely, or with disrespect, “the sacraments and other liturgical actions, as well as persons, things, or places consecrated to God. • Sacrilege is a grave sin esp. when committed against the Eucharist. • Simony - the buying and selling of spiritual things – such as God’s forgiveness.
The 2nd Commandment p. 154 • The 2nd Commandment: Keep holy the Lord’s name • A major violation: blasphemy = the use of the name of God, Jesus, the BV Mary, and the saints in an offensive way (CCC 2162; p154) • e.g., directing toward God words or gestures of malice, hostility or dishonor • Ideally, we should only speak God’s name to bless, honor and praise him. • Differs from sacrilege = primarily “treating” disrespectfully things, persons and places associated with sacred worship
The 2nd Commandment p. 154 • The sacred has a sense of how God created or designed things to be, thus how we should rightly treat or use things, e.g.: • Abortion is wrong because all life comes from God • Being disrespectful is wrong because we are all created in God’s image • Lying is wrong because we are made with intellects to know the truth about things • Adultery is wrong because we are designed by God in such a way as to form stable communities, committed relationships to have and raise children in • The sin of lying and adultery interferes with the way God designed things to be/operate.
The 3rd Commandment p.156 • The 3rd Commandment - Remember Keep Holy the Lord’s Day • The 3rd Commandment enjoins us to be attentive to our a) worship and b) leisure • We keep holy the Lord’s Day by participating at Mass on Sunday and by abstaining from activities or work that hinder us from the spiritual observance of the Lord’s Day • Resting on Sunday is an important component of keeping the Lord’s Day • Leisure gives us chance for recreation = re-creation