Honor Your Father and Your Mother, II

Heidelberg Catechism: Lord’s Day 39

Scripture Texts: Exodus 20:12; Ephesians 6:1-4

Some of you may have been enjoying the college basketball March Madness as they whittled 64 teams down to two.  Tomorrow night University of Connecticut and San Diego State University will play for the national championship.

One of the things that make these kinds of competitions enjoyable and fun to watch is something that is almost unseen, but assumed and foundational to all sport.  Rules and referees.  The athletes can go after it as hard and strong and fast as they can, but they have to do what they do within all kinds of limits and boundaries.  There are rules about when you start, what you can and can’t do, and what happens if you break a rule, step out of bounds, foul someone, take too many steps, etc.

If you are going to have any kind of order and structure and stability in human society you have to have rules and laws.  And to have rules and laws you have to have those who have authority to carry out and enforce and keep those laws.  Without rules and rulers you have anarchy, lawlessness, disorder and chaos.  “Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”

Along with the Ten Commandments God gave an entire system of laws to Israel so that Israel could be a viable nation and a stable community able to live peaceable and orderly lives in the Promised Land.

The Fifth Commandment is the law about those who have authority to enforce those laws.  The seriousness of this commandment for the people of Israel is seen in the very next chapter of Exodus.