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Laws

            Praise the Lord. Blessed are those who fear the Lord, who find great delight in his commands. (Psalm 112:1)

 

          “You shall have no other gods before me. (Exodus 20:3)

 

          Are you happy about gravity? The day/night cycle? Season? The way plants grow and animals grow? The fact that chicken generally tastes like chicken ever time instead of tasting like chicken one day and week old vomit the next? When we think of the commands of the Lord, we tend to think in terms of “Thou shalt not kill,” not what one might call “natural laws.” Granted, there are natural laws we don’t tend to like, such as excess calories turn into fat. Two I’m finding somewhat difficult at work is that flowers cannot move through plexiglass and that one more flowerpot will not fit in this box.

As you read about my irritations with natural law, did you smirk? They really are silly. It’s impossible to calculate the benefit of physical laws remaining basically constant. Life would be a problem if gravity didn’t work for a randomly chosen 10% of the time. And we tend to get upset when people die because they’ve eaten tainted chicken.

So what about the other kinds of laws that the Lord has established? Shouldn’t we be just as grateful? With that in mind, let’s consider an example from the Ten Commandments. How reasonable is it for God to say “You shall have no other gods before me”? If you check a study Bible, it’s likely to point out that “before” can be translated “besides.” Basically, God is saying that we’re not to consider any other god to God. He’s it, period. Odin, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or even Nature are not only not to take His place, but they’re not to be runners up. You don’t have the option of “God and” – only of “God or.”

Is this unreasonable? Let’s consider other relationships. If you’re a citizen of America, is America going to consider it appropriate to demand your loyalty to America? Will the nation think you’re American if you act against America by acting on behalf of a hostile nation? Is your employer likely be willing to keep you on the payroll if you also work for the competition? How many times do you think you can marry another spouse or have sexual relationships with other folks before your spouse says, “Nope!” Even supposing such duality of relationships were acceptable, how long do you think it would be before you started betraying one for the benefit of the other? How long before you start playing them off against each other.

Exclusivity is normal in our legal contracts, and Exodus 20 is part of a legal contract between the Jews and God. It makes perfect sense that, to be a Jew, one would be required to be a Jew, to follow the laws given to the Jews. But this is actually the less important of the two reasons why we should have no other God before the Lord. Let’s return to the idea that God is it, period. If Odin, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or Nature are not actually gods then granting them the status of god alongside God is logically unjustified. It follows logically that if the thing we are putting anywhere near God is not truly a god, and not truly His equal, we are deceived or are deceiving ourselves and possibly others. If there is no other god, then God’s telling us not to have any god before Him not only makes logical sense, it makes psychological sense. It has nothing to do with God protecting His ego.

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