The Bible Study Podcast, episode 32. Today, the Bible Study podcast looks at the Ten Commandments.

Welcome to the Bible Study podcast. I'm your host, Chris Christensen. For those of you who've been listening to

the show, we've been studying the book of Exodus, and this study will continue here in Exodus 20 today.

But before we read Exodus 20 and the Ten Commandments, let's put this in context, because I think

if you asked a lot of people what the Ten Commandments are, they'd at least be able to name

one or two of them,

thou shalt not murder and thou shalt not kill.

But why are there Ten Commandments, or why were these given to the people of Israel at the time,

or what was God about here?

So let's go back up a bit here for those of you who may not have been around, or who may have forgotten since last week.

But the book of

Exodus here is dealing with God bringing out from slavery in Egypt the people of Israel.

And so when he finds them, they are slaves in Egypt. There are a number of people, but they're

not a nation. They don't have a particular identity other than Egyptian slaves. So God brings them out of Egypt with the plagues

and such that he sends Egypt to show his mighty power and convince the Egyptians to let them go.

He saves them through the Red Sea and again delivers them using his mighty hand. He is patient

with them and provides them food and provides them water all the time they complain.

And then finally,

at this point in the story, he brings them to Mount Sinai. And there he's going to start to deliver them the law. And the first part of this law is the Ten Commandments. And when we say

the law, I think a lot of us look at the Ten Commandments

just that way. This is a series of things that you shouldn't do. This is a series of rules. And it is.

But why is God giving them rules in the first place? Well, the first answer is they don't have any.

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