Ten Commandments Still Relevant for Believers?

Ten Commandments still relevant for believers, Mohler says to begin sermon series

September 21, 2006
By Jeff Robinson and Garrett E. Wishall

The Ten Commandments are still relevant for Christians today, but many evangelicals who fervently argue that they should be posted in public places do not know them, R. Albert Mohler Jr. said Aug. 31 in a chapel service at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

In the first sermon of a 10-part series on the Law of God as given to Moses, Mohler said the Ten Commandments are often despised by contemporary culture because the modern age is one that rejects binding authority.

"Who, after all, can tell us what we must and must not do?" Mohler said. "Who can tell us how we are to live? Who can tell us whom we are to serve? And then, you turn on the television or look at the newspaper or listen to the Supreme Court and hear controversies over the Ten Commandments. Should they or should they not be posted in public places?

"I will defend the constitutionality of posting the Ten Commandments in a public place. But I find it rather perplexing that many of those who seem most ardently committed to the posting of the Ten Commandments can neither recite them nor faithfully say that they have taught them to their own children. In our day, they seem to serve something of a symbolic role. We know how many there are, we're just not sure what they are."

Preaching from Exodus 20, Mohler unpacked the first commandment, "You will have no other Gods before me." The Law of God is unambiguous in its insistence that the God of Scripture demands absolute and undivided allegiance, Mohler said.

While it is easy to spot false gods within the culture, Mohler argued that "other gods" such as "the god of the American dream," are present in places where Christian theology is supposedly taught and believed. But the one true God has made clear in Scripture His character and attributes, as well as His demand for exclusive worship, Mohler said.

"[There is] the well-intended deity of American popular culture—the lighter-than-air dehydrated just-add-water god," he said. "And, as one author says, there is the 'break glass in case of emergency' deity.

For full article click here.