What is the role of the Ten Commandments in the Christian's life?
What is the role of the Ten Commandments in the Christian's life? Dr. William Wood explains how the Ten Commandments lay out what the Christian life looks like and how to avoid the extremes of legalism or licentiousness.
We can actually put this question a little bit differently in saying, "What's not the role of the 10 Commandments in the Christian life?" And I say that because there's a sense where the Ten Commandments form a programmatic image for the life of faith. These Ten Commandments, or "10 words," form the core of what's called God's moral law. Our God reveals what it means to live a righteous and faithful life before him. And as the core, all the various other commandments that you come across in Scripture in one way or another relate to the Ten Commandments. The book of Deuteronomy, for example, is by and large an exposition of the Ten Commandments. In fact, the larger part of the first section of the book of Deuteronomy is structured along the various Ten Commandments. Same thing with the first 10 chapters of the book of Proverbs. The wisdom that Solomon is articulating in those 10 chapters—it's all derived from the Ten Commandments in one way or another.
We can actually put this question a little bit differently in saying, "What's not the role of the 10 Commandments in the Christian life?" And I say that because there's a sense where the Ten Commandments form a programmatic image for the life of faith. These Ten Commandments, or "10 words," form the core of what's called God's moral law. Our God reveals what it means to live a righteous and faithful life before him. And as the core, all the various other commandments that you come across in Scripture in one way or another relate to the Ten Commandments. The book of Deuteronomy, for example, is by and large an exposition of the Ten Commandments. In fact, the larger part of the first section of the book of Deuteronomy is structured along the various Ten Commandments. Same thing with the first 10 chapters of the book of Proverbs. The wisdom that Solomon is articulating in those 10 chapters—it's all derived from the Ten Commandments in one way or another.
