Ten Commandments

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15)

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Believe it or not, the secret to finding True Love is by following God’s Commandments!

Jesus revealed that life is about building healthy, loving relationships with God and one another when he summed up the Ten Commandments into two. When asked which of the commandments was the greatest in the law, he replied:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets. (Matt. 22:35-40)

Boundaries and guidelines are essential for building healthy relationships. The Commandments were established to help us live in peace and harmony with God and one another.

By identifying the first greatest commandment, Christ shows us the importance of putting God first in our lives. Everything else, including building loving relationships, will fall into place.

When it comes to matters of the heart, Jesus points to the Source of True Love. We cannot genuinely love our neighbors as ourselves until we first experience God’s unconditional love for us.

St. John, the Apostle of Love, reminds us that, “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19).

Jesus revealed that he and the Father are one (John 10:30), and that we can show our love for him by following the Ten Commandments:

If you love me, you will keep my commandments . . . Whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me. And whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him . . . Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.  Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; yet the word you hear is not mine but that of the Father who sent me. (John 14:15, 21, 23)

The Ten Commandments, or Decalogue, were given to us through Moses on Mount Sinai, and are found in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5. Both passages are essentially the same with slightly different arrangements. Origen of Alexandria, in the 3rd century, based the Decalogue on Exodus 20 while St. Augustine, in the 4th century, relied more on Deuteronomy 5.

In the following Decalogue based on Deuteronomy 5, the first three commandments deal with our relationship with God while the other seven commandments deal with our relationship with one another:

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”

1. I am the Lord your God: You shall not have strange gods before me.
2. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
3. Remember to keep holy the Lord’s Day.

“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

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According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

The division and numbering of the Commandments have varied in the course of history. The present catechism follows the division of the Commandments established by St. Augustine, which has become traditional in the Catholic Church. It is also that of the Lutheran confessions. The Greek Fathers worked out a slightly different division, which is found in the Orthodox Churches and Reformed communities. (CCC 2066).

Since the time of the early Christians, the Ten Commandments were used to teach the faithful as well as form the basis of an examination of conscience to improve one’s moral and spiritual life.

Ever since St. Augustine, the Ten Commandments have occupied a predominant place in the catechesis of baptismal candidates and the faithful. In the fifteenth century, the custom arose of expressing the commandments of the Decalogue in rhymed formulae, easy to memorize and in positive form. They are still in use today. The catechisms of the Church have often expounded Christian morality by following the order of the Ten Commandments. (CCC 2065).

Even though we may not know the Ten Commandments by heart, we still have a sense of right and wrong. Our Lord proclaimed: “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts” (Jeremiah 31:33, Hebrews 8:10, Hebrews 10:16).

Love is the Fulfillment of the Law

If we strive to love God and love our neighbor for the sake of God, we can be sure that we are fulfilling the law written on our hearts and minds.

Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.  The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery; you shall not kill; you shall not steal; you shall not covet,” and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this saying, [namely] “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  Love does no evil to the neighbor; hence, love is the fulfillment of the law. (Romans 13:8-13)