How often do we mistake cultural assumptions for biblical truths? And how is it that professed “people of the Book” can go years – sometimes even their entire lives – without questioning any of those assumptions?<\/p>\n\n\n
I think the poster child for this sort of profound oversight might be the second commandment:<\/p>\n\n\n
You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.<\/i> (Exodus 20:7)<\/p>\n\n\n
Why do we think that what is meant here is that God is deeply offended whenever someone smashes their thumb with a hammer and angrily screams out “Jesus Christ!”?<\/p>\n\n\n
I mean that is <\/b><\/i>bad and shouldn’t be done, but do we ever ask why such a sin made it on God’s Top Ten? And at the number two spot, no less!<\/p>\n\n\n
I first really started to question this when I moved to Haiti years ago. I noticed that Haitians simply don’t have a habit of using Jesus’ name as a curse word. It’s an American thing. Maybe some additional cultures do the same, but it’s not even a temptation in others.<\/p>\n\n\n
And I couldn’t imagine that any ancient Israelite was tempted to shout “Yahweh!” upon stubbing a toe.<\/p>\n\n\n
Why do we assume that “taking” the Lord’s name has something to do with speech? Where else do we use “take” as a synonym for “say”?\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
(Maybe there are some instances, but I can’t think of any off hand. Let me know if you can think of one.)<\/p>\n\n\n
We do, however, speak of a woman “taking” her husband’s name in a marriage ceremony. It has nothing to do with her saying <\/i>her husband’s name.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
It has everything to do with claiming a relationship to him<\/i>, identifying with him<\/i>, and being bound and committed to him<\/i>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
To take God’s name upon yourself in this sense and then to bring shame upon it or to act in a manner unworthy of it – now that seems to merit being on the Top Ten.<\/p>\n\n\n
Right after “Thou shall have no other God before me”.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
How often do we mistake cultural assumptions for biblical truths? And how is it that professed “people of the Book” can go years – sometimes even their entire lives – without questioning any of those assumptions? I think the poster child for this sort of profound oversight might be the second commandment: You shall not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2968"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2969,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2968\/revisions\/2969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}