This seems like an easy question, after all we learned them in Sunday School or something like that.  I still remember my own perplexity when my friend and co-worker in children’s ministries, Linda, brought me a pencil that we had been handing out to the kids who learned to recite the commandments.  She told me that a parent had complained that the pencil did not have the “real” commandments on it.  I looked at it carefully (something that I should have done earlier) and realized what had happened.  We had bought pencils from a different tradition.

Did you know that the commandments are numbered differently by the Jewish, Catholic, and non-Catholic traditions? While all look to Exodus 20:2-17 for the commandments, not all see the same commandments. The Jewish tradition usually speaks of the 10 “words” rather than commandments and thus start with “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt.” While the Christian tradition would see this as an introduction rather than a commandment.  That explains why the Jewish tradition is different, what about the Catholic tradition?

The Roman Catholic tradition sees the first commandment as what we would call the second one.  In order to get 10, and there must be 10 because Exodus 34:28 and Deut. 10:4 speak about the 10 “words” or “statements” that were given to Moses, split up what we would see as the last commandment.  That is we would see “Thou shalt not covet . . .” as all one commandment.  The Roman Catholic system of numbering splits up the “thou shalt not covet your neighbor’s house” from the rest of the “thou shalt not covets.”

So now you know, there are different ways of numbering the 10 commandments.  All of this of course is of much smaller importance than the question, “how are you doing obeying them?” If you need help, that is why Christ came.  He obeyed what you didn’t.

Look to the Lamb,

DSL

PS I was thinking about all of this because of an article in the newest version of Bible Study Magazine from Logos.  For more information about this great tool for the study of the word point your browser to http://www.biblestudymagazine.com Let them know that DrSamLam sent you.