BibleProject - Weightier Matters Beneath the 10 Commandments

Episode Date: June 22, 2026

The 10 Commandments E14 — We’ve come to the end of our series on the 10 Commandments, which are known in the Bible as the 10 Words. All throughout this series, we’ve returned to the idea that these commands are not rules to check off a list, but rather God’s wisdom that leads to true life and flourishing. In this episode, Jon and Tim reflect on some final insights about how to approach the 10 Words (and all of biblical law) as wisdom literature, just as Jesus did. FULL SHOW NOTES For chapter-by-chapter summaries, biblical words, referenced Scriptures, and reflection questions, check out the full show notes for this episode. CHAPTERS Building a Moral Universe (0:00-11:39) Wisdom Leading to Life (11:39-23:40) Biblical Laws as Wisdom, Justice, Mercy, and Love (23:40-40:18) Jesus as the Embodiment of Wisdom (40:18-53:42) OFFICIAL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT View this episode’s official transcript. THE 10 COMMANDMENTS BIBLEPROJECT TRANSLATION View our full translation of the 10 Commandments. REFERENCED RESOURCES In chapter 3, Tim references episodes on biblical law from our How to Read the Bible series. Find those episodes here: The Purpose of the Law The Law as a Covenantal Partnership God's Wisdom in the Law The Law as a Revolution Jesus Fulfills the Law Law Q+R Find the 10 Commandments full collection of video, podcast, and written resources here. Check out Tim’s extensive collection of recommended books here. SHOW MUSIC “Nice Day ft. Marc Vanparla, John Lee” by Lofi Sunday “That Gospel ft. Bobcat” by Lofi Sunday “Blissful Thoughts ft. TBabz” by Lofi Sunday BibleProject theme song by TENTS  SHOW CREDITS Production of today’s episode is by Lindsey Ponder, producer, and Cooper Peltz, managing producer. Tyler Bailey is our supervising engineer, who also edited today’s episode and provided the sound design and mix. JB Witty writes the show notes. Our host and creative director is Jon Collins, and our lead scholar is Tim Mackie.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We've come to the final episode in our series on the Ten Commandments, or as the Bible calls them, the Ten Words. Now, all along, we've kept referring to this idea. The Ten Words are not simply rules or commands to check off a list. These ten words orient us to true reality. They are creating a moral imagination and a moral universe, a set of claims about what is really true about the world we inhabit. All of God's commands work this way. Every rule and regulation in the Bible is an opportunity for us to look underneath and find God's wisdom. The most common word other than command or statute or rule or regulation that's used to describe how God is trying to get its people to live is the word wisdom.

The 10 words are aimed at instilling wisdom in God's covenant partners. Now we may think of wisdom as just advice. You can take it or leave it. But in the Bible, wisdom is a sense. To live with wisdom is to live in a way that leads to life. You're living in tune with reality. So it's the difference between I'm doing it because God commanded me, and I'm doing it because God loves me and is showing me the way to life.

All of the commands in the Bible, they're pointing to weightier matters of life, matters that Jesus teaches us to keep front and center. In Jesus' mind, justice, mercy, and faithfulness are the values of the moral universe. and the commands are like surface manifestations of all these different ways you could apply, the heavier values. This isn't Jesus innovating. He's just carrying forward this tradition of seeing all the commands as facets of a diamond pointing to a common core. Today, Tim Mackey and I wrap up this series on the Ten Commandments by reflecting on God's commands as wisdom that leads to life.

And, of course, as wisdom that leads us to Jesus himself. He is the model and example of a true human, fulfilling all the wisdom of God. And we actually will find true life and wisdom by joining our lives to his. Thanks for joining us. Here we go. Hey, Tim. Hello, John Collins. Hello.

We're going to wrap up our conversations on the 10 words. Yes, we are. Yeah, such a great set of conversations. You were kind of surprised. I was. How much you enjoyed it? You know, yeah, I always. Of course, like talking with you through the Bible is one of my favorite parts of this whole project.

So that's always fun. But I think coming in, I just didn't quite know if we would have enough to talk about for the Ten Commandments. But I was surprised about where the conversation went and really enjoyed it. Yeah, me too. Like my own appreciation of the Ten Commands deepened in the process of talking through them with you. Yeah, absolutely. So we're trying to practice the communal value of meditating. So remember our conversation about how within the Torah,

these 10 things are never referred to as the 10 commands. Yeah. But when they're introduced as a unique set, they're not called commands. When God's speech in Exodus 20, verse 1 to 17, is referred to as like a speech. It's called the 10 words. Yeah. The devarim. The devereem.

Yes, exactly. So we spent a while pondering that fact. One puzzle, if you go through the speech, is that there aren't ten commands. There's actually a lot more if you're just looking at sentences that have commands. Yeah. So there will not be for you other Elohim.

There's number one. You will not make an idol. You will not worship them. That's the third, the idol, man. You will not serve them. That's the fourth. Okay. You will not carry the name.

That's the fifth. Remember, that's the sixth. Remember the Sabbath? Yeah. Six days labor and do your work. The seventh is a Sabbath. Don't do any work. Okay.

So already we're up to what is traditionally command number four, but we technically already have like... It's stated in eight different commands so far. Exactly. So you go through, there's more than ten sentences that have a command. Yeah. So that's kind of the puzzle here. Okay, so the words aren't the commands.

Yeah. So the words are not identical to command. So words is more general. Ten matters. Yeah. Well, what are the ten matters? Because there's a bunch of words in here that are not strictly command. And we didn't limit ourselves to a list of rules.

We thought about them in terms of a way to think about ourselves in the whole world. That's right. Exactly. They are creating a moral imagination and a moral universe. within which we live. And the first thing is who or what is ultimate reality. The first words really are, I am Yahweh your Elohim,

who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Out of the house of slavery, I am. I think that's the takeaway, is that these ten matters are a way of world-building. So what was surprising to me was that the world-building, exercise felt so compelling to me. Right? Like, do not steal feels pretty drab.

You know, a kindergarten rule. Yeah, yeah. But the world building we did around helping our communities steward what God's given to each of us in like a communal way. Yeah. Felt so rich.

Yeah, yeah. And big and beautiful. That's right. Yeah. Don't commit adults. and then we flipped it over, contribute to creating a culture that supports and encourages lifelong covenant commitments

so that families can flourish. So you flip it over. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. You did mention to me just recently that Genesis 1 has 10 words. That's right. And I wanted to ask you a little bit more about that. Oh, great.

So there's seven days in Genesis 1. Yes. six days where he creates, where God creates. And in that whole poetic narrative, there's ten separate times where what happens? Ten moments in the story were the phrase, and God said. And God said. And then there's a quotation of something God says. Yeah.

So God speaks a total of ten times. So God speaks ten times. Ten words. Yeah, totally. Exactly. Yes. So if the 10 words in Exodus are world building a moral universe, then in the 7-day creation story, that is another world-building story.

It's building the cosmos. It's very literally world-building. It's literally a world-building story about Yahweh building the world. So the 10 words to Moses are a world-building of your moral framework. And the 10 words in Genesis is God creating just the fabric. The cosmic framework. The framework for everything. Yeah.

Yeah, that's right. Okay, wow. Interesting. And the ten words that build the moral cosmos that are given to Moses are built on, or they're filling out the implications of the ten words that created the cosmos, as it were. Okay. What does that mean? Yes, yeah.

Maybe, I think it was a bit of what I was trying to say a couple of minutes ago. Okay. Probably in clunky language that the first word is, I am Yahweh, you're Elohim. Yeah. So your view of ultimate reality actually is what determines, I think, almost all of our conscious choices and behavior, whether we know or unconscious choices and behavior. I think that's pretty, that might be too general about a statement of human psychology. But for the most part, we go about our days making decisions based on what we think is the case about reality. There's so much information coming in to our bodies.

we have to interpret it through a framework. Yes, that's right. And so you are always kind of interpreting through what you kind of expect. You kind of have to. Yeah. We all are actually making decisions every day based on what we think is really true. And what we think is really true might not be what we think we think is true. What we think we think is true is what we tell ourselves.

But our behavior is... Communicates what we really believe is true. really believe. And so the Ten Commandments are, and the Seven Day Creation narrative, are creating a set of claims about what is really true about the world we inhabit. And if you really believe another human is a sacred image of God of transcendent value, not only not taking their stuff is a natural consequence of that, but then helping them care for the gifts God has given them will also follow. I think that's more I'm going for. When you said earlier a few minutes ago, as we talked through them, they became compelling to you, the Ten Commandments in a new way.

Is that what you're referring to? Like when you think through the value set underneath them, the moral universe they create is what you were saying earlier that you found that compelling. I found it shifting the way I viewed reality. Like tinkering my framework in small and large ways. so that now the way I kind of exist in the world felt different. That's right. It felt like, oh, I think about things different. I don't know if I mentioned this, but you, in the Do Not Steal conversation,

you describe that moment you're on Mount Tabor running and you saw the Patagonia. Oh, yeah. So you kind of, you told that whole story and then the whole little like. The jacket. Yeah. Yeah, the jacket. Yeah. That somebody left on the bench.

And should that be mine? And that whole conversation in your mind. It was maybe just a week after that or two, I'm running through my park. Oh, near your house. Near my house. Yeah, yeah. And it was a $5 bill on the trail. And because we had just had that conversation, I just kind of stopped and I kind of took it and I folded it nicely and I just put it in the crook of a tree.

And I was like, if someone comes back to find it, they'll find it right here. They'll be so stoked. Yeah. It just felt like the most natural right thing to do. I see. You didn't have to convince yourself. I didn't have to convince myself not to pick up that channel. Well, we had just had the conversation.

Yeah. Okay, got it. I was living in this moral universe in a new way through the 10 words. Yeah. And it didn't feel like a rule. I didn't feel like, oh, cool, now God's pleased with me or I checked that off the list. It just felt like, cool, I get to participate in something more significant. That's excellent.

You're describing what I have experienced and what I think the 10 words are, supposed to do. Okay, so if the 10 words in the 7-day creation narrative and what God first says to the people at Moses at Mount Sinai, if they're world building, that means they're also, they're aimed at shaping a people to live in a certain way, which is what's happening at Mount Sinai. When God speaks the 10 words to Israel, he's, what do you say? enlisting them as his partners and representatives to the nations, but to be the kingdom of priests.

And the most common word, other than like command or statute or rule or regulation, that's used to describe how God is trying to get its people to live, like we might think of common Bible words that describe a right way to live, righteous or holy. But like right up there, high on the list of words that describe how the laws are aimed to get people to live is the word wisdom. And for me, this is the second insight I became to appreciate more about the ten words,

is that they really are a key, what do you say, a watershed moment in the developing theme of how all of God's commands are aimed at instilling wisdom in God's covenant partners. Moses straight up says it in Deuteronomy chapter four and I don't think we looked at this in our little overview back at the beginning I think we ended at Mount Sinai. Yeah. So after Mount Sinai and after the journey through the wilderness that went terribly the 40 years, Moses right before the Israelites were about to go into the promised land

gives a set of speeches that we called the Book of Deuteronomy. and he reflects back on what happened at Mount Sinai and the covenant and what God said. And the way he describes that moment in Deuteronomy 4 is so interesting. He's like he's retelling this past event. He describes it this way. He says, look, now that is to you all in this moment, I am teaching you all statutes and just rules.

So statutes is our word chokim which means inscribed, etched in stone. Okay. Just like the ten words were written on the stone tablets. And then just rules is the Hebrew word Mishpatim.

Oh, for Mishpatim. From Mishpah, which means action you undertake with a public kind of consequence. A public good. A public good, yeah, to bend a certain situation in my community

towards righteousness, towards right relationships between people. So Mishpa is the action you take to create a situation of righteousness. That made that way more clear than that's ever been in my mind. Oh, really? Yeah, that's great. Oh, yeah.

Because we've talked about Mishpah versus Sedericaa. Yeah, justice and righteousness. Yeah, just right. Yeah. Righteousness is like the standard. Justice is the thing that you do to get a situation up to the standard. Cool. Yeah.

Okay. So I'm teaching you statutes and just rules just as Yahweh, my God, commanded me. Referring to the tent? Referring to everything God said at Mount Sinai and all the others. Yeah, exactly. So you can observe them or follow them in the middle of the land where you're going as you take possession of it. You must observe these diligently. For this is your wisdom.

This is your discernment before the eyes of all of the people who are going to hear these. statutes. So they can say, whoa, this great nation is so wise. They are so discerning. What's the word for discerning there? It's the word, bina. You love this word. I do. You've come to love this word. Yeah. Beina. Discernment. Understanding is often. Yeah, understanding. It's been, which was related to the Hebrew preposition, bain, which is between. Yeah, to between. To be able to tell between good and bad. Yeah. Yeah. So discernment is actually a good English word for it. Okay. Okay. How do you know one thing from another thing? You have to discern. How do you between? How do you between it? So Moses explicitly says the laws are wisdom. And they're aimed at teaching you

how to tell between good and, he doesn't say between good and bad, but that's what discernment means. And then also the Israel is to become this wise people as a model. of a new way of being a group of humans together before other people groups. He just says it, straight up, wisdom. So wisdom isn't just about good advice. I think sometimes we can use the word wisdom in English to mean like advice.

Interesting. Like, yeah, it's probably good, good advice. You could take it or leave it. But to not follow wisdom is to be a fool. and to choose death and destruction. Yeah, the fight against the cosmos. Exactly, yes. To live with wisdom is to live in a way that leads to life.

Wisdom is life, which is what he goes on to say at another point in Deuteronomy, at the end of Deuteronomy, when again he's trying to convince this generation to be faithful to Yahweh in the land. In Deuteronomy chapter 30, he has another way he talks about the commands. This is Deuteroni 30, verse 15. He says, Moses says, look, I'm setting before you today, life and good, death, and bad. These are the exact terms from the Garden of Eden story. Life and death, good and bad. You have the tree of knowing good and bad, and then the tree of life,

and then if you eat from the tree of knowing good and bad, it will lead to your death. Yeah. So I am setting before you life and good, death, and bad. Okay, hold on. Yeah. Whoa. Something just clicked for me. Oh, great. The tree of life is also about knowing good and bad, but in a way that leads to life. Oh, yeah, that's right. And the tree of knowing good and bad could have been called the tree of death.

Yeah, totally. So both are trees of knowing good and bad. Right. And both are trees of life or death. Yeah. So it's really a tree of life and a tree of death. Right. But they're not called that. And it's almost an invitation into that little riddle. That's good.

That's great. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's right. Because the tree of life, you will learn the difference between good and bad by doing what God says. Yeah. Actually, so in a way that you just summarize what Moses is about to say. So I'll restate the first sentence. I'm setting before you today, life and good and death and bad.

What I'm commanding you, there's a reference to all of the now 600 plus. commands in the Torah starting with the 10 words what I'm commanding you today is to love Yahweh your God by walking in his ways by keeping his commands his statutes and his regulations then you will have life and you'll become numerous there's Eden language again be fruitful and multiply Yahweh will bless you there's seven-day creation language in the land you're going a few sentences later I in invoke as witnesses against you today, the sky is in the land. There's Genesis 1 language.

Oh, the cosmos itself. Bears witness. Bears witness to the truth. That's interesting. Yeah. It's sort of like, if you choose not to follow these commands, you're living out of sync with reality. The cosmos has the right framework. The cosmos is the framework.

Yeah, that's right. So the skies in the land are watching you as witnesses to the truth that I, I have set before you life and death and blessing and curse. So choose life that you may live, you and your offspring, by loving Yahweh. And how do you love Yahweh? Listen to his voice and cling to him, for he is your life. So love and listening, life and good and blessing, and listening to the voice. Those are all different ways of talking about living by the commands of God.

If I just think about the whole set of conversations we had, I felt like we were trying to practice that. We were listening in a new way. We were trying to see how it points to life and how it leads to blessing. And so is that what we mean by keeping the commands? Yeah, yeah. Remember, so the conversation we had about honoring your parents, which has the little addition to it, so that you can live long days in the land. in the land Yahweh your God is giving you. So it's not just that honor your parents

and then Yahweh will hook you up, do something good for you. Again, it's an invitation to actually live in reality. And when you live in reality, things are likely to go better. Like actually just of their own cause-effect sequence that unfolds from that. And that is part of the language

of goodness and blessing in the Bible or wisdom. You're living in tune with reality. So it's the difference between I'm doing it because God commanded me, and I'm doing it because God loves me and is showing me the way to life, and I ignore his command at my own peril. What we're talking about is like having good, meaningful relationships, living in communities that are good and vibrant and beautiful, finding meaning and purpose and joy in your own life

in the midst of all of the craziness. Like we're talking about that kind of life. Man, you know, after our conversation about bearing false witness, word number nine, I still remember the lunch conversation that we had afterwards. And we don't have to bring up the particular example that you did, but you brought up an example happening like that week in current events. And it was an example about a group of people in American culture who were being brought up in a very public way. and spoken about in a way that wasn't truthful. And it was very obvious that this group of people was being misrepresented in a political discourse type situation.

And it wasn't even that hard to find out what was being claimed about this subcultural group wasn't true. But it really negatively affected them, and it's a sad moment in American history, I think. So it's not just that God's come. command was dishonored. It's that it had a very public impact on a group of people that, according to the Torah, ought to be cared for, you know, in society that lives by God's wisdom. So that's life, finding life. Yeah, finding life. Yeah. Another part of the second insight about

appreciating the laws as wisdom for life is something we've talked about many times over the years, especially in our how to read the Bible series, and we did a section on the laws, how to read the laws in the Torah. But I just want to bring it up again, because it connects to what we're talking about, is that the laws in the Bible are much more like parables or case studies,

whether they actually came from law codes that were consulted by judges and so on. We actually don't know. And I'll just remind myself and you of the fact that we both found interesting years ago when we had that conversation, which is the one time or the first time that figures called judges are brought up among the people of Israel. It's a story where Moses is just working overtime trying to help people discern between good and bad. And he's exhausted.

Is this in numbers? It's in Exodus and Deuteronomy is referred back to. But especially it's right as they get to Mount Sinai. And Moses's father-in-law comes up to him. like, dude, you need some help. You got lines of people waiting to hear what you think about like whether somebody stole someone's donkey or she didn't or what they owe somebody. And he just says, you got to get help here. So what Moses' father-in-law tells him is select from the people, a group of men who have standing in the community, they fear God, they're men of truth, and they hate dishonest gain.

So he doesn't say like they've gone to law school or they're not scribes, experts in like the law codes. He's talking about their character. And then he says, appoint them and let them do justice to the people. And then if they have things they can't solve, they can bring that to you.

When Moses later in Deuteronomy looks back on that event, what he summarizes it is, yeah, my father-in-law told me choose wise and discerned. and experienced men from among your tribes. So his summary is essentially people who have wisdom and discernment, which is what he said.

All of the laws are designed to do for all of the people. Okay. So we're back to the laws are to teach wisdom, which means that they are not comprehensive as a law code, but they do have an internal self-hyperlinking system of taking a core value that's stated in the 10 and then unfolding it in a set of case studies

that begin to teach you the values underneath the law. You said something provocative, though. You said law is our case studies, and then you call them... Parables? Parables. Yeah.

Yeah, like little narratives that imagine something happening and then teaching you moral wisdom from it. And we can see that process. that work, and we traced it in some of our examples. So, do not kill. Yeah. One of the ten words.

Well, gosh, there's killing and there's killing. Right? I mean, there's so many different ways that one human can be involved in the death of another human. Those two words in Hebrew, Lothir Tzach, don't provide any of that nuance,

but you turn to the next body of commands in Exodus 21 to 23. and there's a whole set of case laws about, well, let's say, like, two guys are out chopping wood, and let's say one of them has a stick in their hand, or let's say he waited in a bush hiding for him. Let's say he accidentally struck him.

So it begins to unfold it. Like, you can see that the later cases within the Torah are spelling out the core value underneath. Just don't kill. But then there are later moments in the Torah where God will actually, say to put someone to death. And on the surface, you could say, well, is that a contradiction? Didn't God say don't kill? But if don't kill is wisdom, then what it's teaching you is a value,

and there might be times, and this is actually leading up to the third insight that I can to appreciate, there might be times where different commands come into conflict with each other. And what are you supposed to do then? And you could just say, well, contradiction. Like God said this in one place, said that in another place, and they're the opposite. The Bible's incoherent. Or it could be that the Bible's wisdom literature, and if you learn the values underneath, you actually will begin to learn how to

create a system of weights and measures for which values are relevant in which type of circumstance. Again, which is why Moses says choose people who are wise, as opposed to choose people who have memorized the code.

The story that keeps going through my mind as we talk is Jesus with the woman accused of Oh, sure. Sure. Yes. Yeah. Where there is a command if you're caught in adultery to be killed, right? There's a law in the Torah. Yes. Yep. Both the man and the woman are subject to capital punishment. That's in Leviticus. And so in this story, this woman is caught. Yeah, the man's conveniently nowhere to be found. Yeah. Like that's predictable, right? In that kind of cultural setting. And so there's this little kind of moment of what are we going to do? And people saying, well, we need, she needs to be put to death. Right.

And then Jesus, like, finds a way through it that's different. Yeah. Well, what he says is let the person who's never committed sin throw the first stone. So it's like a riddle. But the riddle saves the woman's life. So he actually knows this woman committed adultery because what he said. And he knows the law in the Torah. That's right.

He says to the woman, don't do that anymore. And he knows the law in the Torah. So what's the value, the greater value? And the greater value is actually creating a community of mercy in that moment, which is that this woman made a mistake. And should every human be killed for every mistake that they make? and Jesus doesn't think so and Jesus is the one who thinks he came to fulfill the Torah

that's right yeah and so I'm so glad you brought this up I actually have another example that is exactly so here we're now moving into the third thing that I wanted to bring up which is viewing the laws as wisdom I think can help us

have a deeper appreciation for moments when different laws in the Torah come into conflict with each other and if you kind of view the Bible as a moral rulebook, you'll see that as a contradiction. If you view the Bible as wisdom, you'll see this as a moment that's true to life,

which is there are moments in life where my values come into conflict with each other and how do I sort out the difference between the two? So here's another example. It's a little more, well, I don't know what, I'll just read it. It's a little more in the weeds. More in the weeds, but it's a great example. The grain.

In the grain. In the grain. Matthew chapter 12, Jesus, on the Sabbath, was going through some grain fields. It was walking from one place to another. And his disciples are with him. And this is key. They were hungry.

And so this is two chapters after Jesus' speech to his disciples saying, let's go out. I'm going to share my vocation with you of announcing the arrival of kingdom of God. Don't take food. don't take extra money, don't take extra clothes. When you arrive into town, people that are receptive will take us in and they'll feed us. Which means that they were hungry a lot. Yeah.

You're not going from a pack in a lunch, you're going to be hungry a lot. They're going from one town to another and they're hungry. Just like Jesus was in the wilderness. Yeah, this feels very wilderness. Give me today my daily bread. Yep. Yeah. So they're going to buy a grain field, and this would not occur to me as a way to feed myself,

but it was a different time and culture. And they're like, dude, there's a bunch of ripe grain right there on the edge of the road. Yeah, you're just getting nibble on it. Yeah. So they started plucking stalks of grain to eat. So what's funny is it was a number of years ago that I did this for the first time in my life. You mentioned this to me, yeah. Inspired by this story.

Because I was like, how much can you actually feed yourself? Yeah. It's slow. work. Is it? They're really buried in there. Oh. But they're fat.

They're fat. Little kernels in there. Yeah. And they actually, they taste good. Yeah. I was like, this is cool. This is, I, this makes sense. That's a great little road snack.

Yeah, totally. It's like the ancient version of a trail bar. It's kind of like a sunflower seed. Wheat seeds. Anyhow, the Pharisees see this. And they say, your disciples are doing what is not authorized on the Sabbath. So first of all, you can pluck and eat grain from a stranger's field in the laws of the Torah. There are laws about that.

Yeah. You can't get out a sickle. They can start harvesting. No, but you can nibble. Because the assumption is you're not going to take that much. Yeah. But that's not what the Pharisees are concerned about. They're concerned about doing a kind of work on the Sabbath.

Yeah. So this is a perfect example of, according to one law, If you're hungry, walking by your neighbor's farm, pick some grapes, pick some grain, do it. It's cool. And then there's another law that says, don't work on the Sabbath. In fact, that's one of the ten words. Yeah. So here we are.

Two commands in the Torah in conflict with each other. Are they working on the Sabbath by plucking grain? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Are they breaking that command? Yeah, are they breaking the Sabbath command by feeding themselves when they're hungry that requires some effort? That's the issue. The Pharisees think, and you've gone too far.

You should just be hungry. And Jesus disagrees. And he gives three reasons why. He looked to them and he says, you know, haven't you guys ever read the Bible? Which is kind of a dig, of course. And he quotes a story that comes from what we call the scroll of 1st Samuel chapter 21.

And it's a moment when David was fleeing from Saul. with a crew, a people, and they were all hungry. It's very similar. And they go into the tabernacle, the house of God. And they ate the sacred bread of the presents, which they were not authorized to eat, except for the priests alone. Yeah, that's off limits for sure.

Totally. Now, this is really interesting, because if you go read the story David goes to the priest and the priest is like, well, we just replaced the bread. So it's like the left hours. Today. It's day old.

It's the seven day old bread. It's the seven day old bread. The bread gets replaced every seventh day. Okay. So the very fact that David gets some of this bread means that it is the Sabbath day because that's the day you change out the bread. So it's pretty subtle what Jesus is doing here.

But what he's saying is David went in and he had this bread that wasn't technically allowed to him on the Sabbath. And it was cool. The priest gave it to him. It was cool. And you notice they were hungry. So not only is it bread given on the Sabbath, but it's priestly bread. So what he's saying is here's a biblical story where hunger and need,

meeting someone's hunger, is actually on. on equal value as resting on the Sabbath's day. That's the move he's making here. Then he goes on to say, and, you know, speaking of priests and the Sabbath, haven't you ever read in the Torah, do you know the priests are working every Sabbath? They're offering sacrifices or cleaning up.

They're working hard. They're switching out the bread. Yeah, and he's like, what? So is like God contradicting God by telling the priest to work on the Sabbath? And then the last example is, if you had known what this means, and he quotes from the prophet Hosea, chapter 6, I desire mercy and not sacrifice.

If you really had internalized what Josea meant right there, Jesus says, then you would not condemn the innocent. So now he's hyperlinking to Joseus 6. That's a whole rabbit hole. It's super cool. But the word mercy there in Hebrew is ches. loyal love. And it gets translated in the Septuagint as Ellaos or mercy,

which is a major theme in the Gospel of Matthew, that Jesus is constantly talking about God's mercy, how good is life for the merciful, for they will be shown mercy that's in the beatitudes. Mercy is a huge theme in Matthew. And at the conclusion of Matthew, when he really lays into the Pharisees, what he says is, man, you guys are so good at tie.

and giving a tenth of all your crops, even your tiny little herb bushes you give a tenth of, but you have abandoned the heavier matters of the Torah, justice, mercy, and faithfulness. So in Jesus' view, the commands are like surface manifestations of all these different ways you could apply. There ways in. The heavier matters, the heavier values.

And in Jesus' mind, justice, mercy, and faithfulness are the values of the moral universe. That's the wisdom that you gain. Yes. Justice, mercy, and faithfulness. And then in another place, he'll just say, love. Love God, love your neighbor. When someone says, what's the greatest command? So this was very common in Jesus' culture, and Jesus is engaged in this process,

of reading the laws as wisdom, pointing to a deeper set of values that he can say we're three, justice, mercy, faithfulness, or even as one love. But it's built into the commands. This isn't Jesus innovating. He's just carrying forward this tradition of seeing all the commands as facets of a diamond pointing to a common core. And the ten commandments, excuse me, the ten words, which are full of many commandments, are like a 101, teaching wisdom, creating a moral universe of what it means to be an image of God. And Jesus drew great wisdom and built off of it.

You can see that in his teachings, especially the Gospel of Matthew, which is really focused in on how Jesus' teachings develop the wisdom of the laws of the Torah. We haven't even brought up the sermon on the Mount and the case studies of don't murder and don't commit adultery. but you can see Jesus doing it right there the same exact thing we've been talking about when we do theme studies we often get to this point where Jesus becomes the climax of the theme in an embodied way

so if we think about this theme of the commands of God for life is there anything you can leave us with I mean doesn't the Apostle Paul call Jesus the wisdom of God he does yes yeah in one Corinthians.

And the context is so cool. We don't have time to talk about it. But what he says is the Messiah Jesus became for us wisdom from God and righteousness and holiness and redemption.

Four character traits of God as wise, righteous, holy, and redeemer. That he says the Messiah Jesus is the embodiment of all those. And they kind of go together in a way. So wisdom is about discernment between good and bad so you can choose the way into life.

Righteousness is right relationships. Yeah, the fruit of it. The fruit of it. Holiness is about a life so dedicated to being in union with God's own life and power that you radiate with God's own uniqueness. And then redemption is about transferring someone out of a state of slavery and whatever bad, badness, and transferring them back into God's family and possession and goodness.

So in a way, the laws are designed to do that. And here, Paul's just saying Jesus is that. He's all those things in human form. And I guess the way the apostles did it, the way the apostle Paul said was that the pinnacle moment of all those values coming into one event is when Jesus surrenders his life over to death. And when he's hanging on the cross issuing God's forgiveness to the people killing him. Something about that moment is like the moment, which he calls a display of God's love. Yeah. Yeah, so Jesus said it, and Paul also said it.

Love fulfills the law. So I'm not trying to be trite in just saying love. It's about love. But like the life story of Jesus and leading up to the cross, there is something there about Jesus elevating the well-being of others, not just equal to himself, but above his own well-being. There's something there that the laws themselves are all, pointing us towards, which if we were to boil it down to one value and look to one person's

life, right, to incarnate that value, I can't think of any better story to tell than the story of Jesus. Yeah. I think that's what it means to be a Christian, is to see Jesus fulfilling the law in that way. Yeah. And is there something about not just looking to Jesus as an example, example, but to truly be a wise person, it's like we need, it's great that we're doing this and we're trying and we're like wrestling with the words and we're letting it form us. But it feels like the true power of that is when we're connecting to something. Ah, I see. Or someone. Or someone.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. More than ourselves. Yeah. That's actually then helping us do that. Sure.

Yes. Yeah, so here we come into, I think, the point of the gospel narratives and the claims that they make is that Jesus is the model and example of, like, the true human, fulfilling all the wisdom of God. And so it's a model for us. And then he actually is the first one to be that and do that on our behalf, whereas Paul will say, for us. To be the person who can fulfill the law through love. That's right, yeah. And I will have a complicated history of living up to that value, often compromising it, often fulfilling it. It depends on the day, on the week.

And what gives me hope for my own moral maturity or the worlds or humanities as a whole? And it's certainly not our track record. But yeah, I think this is also what it means to be a Christian, but to say there is one who was the ultimate, wise, loving human, who lived in union with the commands and wisdom of God, and that is God become human on our behalf. And we actually will find true life and wisdom by joining our lives to His. And how does one do that?

Well, it begins in the New Testament, with baptism, an entry into the body of Jesus' people. And through the Holy Spirit, a personal connection to the life of Jesus so that it becomes hard to tell my life from his life. It's the life of the Messiah living in me, Paul says. And then through the Lord's Supper, around a table, taking the bread and the cup together with a group of people that I'm committed to living out this wisdom with.

you can make it a lot more complicated, but in the New Testament, that's kind of the core right there. Should we add on then, though, the scripture? Oh, yes. The thing we've been doing? Yeah, if I'm taking Paul as acute, as he tells Timothy, don't neglect, reading scripture out loud together, the public reading of scripture, so that you can learn God's wisdom. Yeah. Yeah.

So all those things then help us participate in union with Jesus to, figure how to do this thing. Yeah. Be a wise person. Yeah. Yeah. And the Ten Commandments are such a wonderful,

short, dense summary. But they don't themselves state what are the core values. They force you to ponder and work out the values underneath them, which is the joy of meditating on them. And that's

yeah, that's the journey. that we started. We didn't finish it. I don't think you've ever finished a journey like that. But you and I did start this. And like we said at the beginning, I think we both were surprised by what we discovered. And I'm finding it's opening up new insights

as I go elsewhere in the Bible, especially in the commands of the Torah. This was really a great series. I really enjoyed doing this. Yeah. Thanks for listening to Bible Project podcast. We finished all of the main. episodes in the series where Tim and I walk through the Ten Commandments. But next week, we're going to have a special

hyperlink episode. We're going to listen to clips from past series that touch on and hyperlink similar themes to the Ten Commandments. Bible Project is a crowdfunded nonprofit, and we exist to help people experience the Bible as a unified story that leads to Jesus. And everything that we create is free because it's been paid for by thousands of people just like you. Thank you so much for being a part of this Aloha. My name is Rachel and I'm from Hawaii. Hey, my name is Zach and I'm from Greensboro, North Carolina. I first heard about Bible Project from the read scripture videos many, many years ago. I use Bible Project for learning more context about Bible stories.

I use Bible Project for my own personal study as well as preparing for sermons and message prep for my church. My favorite thing about Bible projects is the simplicity in which they point people to Jesus in the story of Scripture. We believe the Bible is a unified story that leads to Jesus. Bible Project is a non-profit funded by people like me. Find free videos, articles, podcast, classes, and more on the Bible Project app. And aboutproject.com. Hi, my name is Camden McAfee. I'm from Minneapolis, and I work on our content integration team here at Bible Project. We take our existing content and then look for ways that we can integrate it into other platforms and places like a U-Version app.

I first heard about the podcast when I got sick with the flu back in 2018. And I was like, what am I going to do with my time? And I found like 10 episodes of the podcast, and I was hooked after that. One of the things that the podcast gave me was permission to be curious and to ask those questions that I previously had in the back of my mind that I didn't think you should bring to light and be able to hear a hard question asked about the Bible and to say, wow, that is a great question. There's a whole team of us that make the podcast come to life every week.

For a fullest of everyone involved in this episode, check out the show notes wherever you stream the podcast and on our app. See ya.