DECEPTIONS FOUND IN THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. The Ten Commandments Are The Only Words Stated In The Bible To Be Written By God Himself. Yet people dismiss them and abbreviate them thinking that by so doing they are being intelligent.

Are the abbreviated version of the Ten Commandments deceptive?

Harry Riches,  Answers

Deception comes in many forms and when we do not have full information we can easily be deceived. This is the case with the Ten Commandments.

The biggest deception comes with the First of the Ten Commandments, which is often stated as You Shall Have No Gods Before Me.

For a Hindu, “have no gods before me” would be understood as the person is saying that he desires you to worship him.

You can argue it is easily understood that worship of a human is not what is meant by “no gods before me”. Still the question remains, Who is me?

This abbreviated version of the First Commandment is very deceptive. It does not tell us who is God.

The Roman Catholics abbreviate the First and Second commandments into You Shall Have No Gods Before Me. They say that this covers what is written in the Second Commandment as well as the First Commandment.

The Second Commandment speaks about forming images of any likeness that is in Heaven, on Earth or under the Earth. Anyone bowing before those images violates that commandment. So it is a violation first to create an image and it is a violation to bow before them. There would be no reason for the Roman Catholic Church authorities not to promote the Second Commandment would there now?

The Second Commandment also says more than forbidding the fashioning of images and bowing before them. There is also a statement of how iniquity is passed down from generation to generation and how people can be blessed of God. This is lost in the abbreviation ”you shall have no other gods before me” or “you shall make no graven images”.

The Third Commandment tells us more than You Shall Not Take The Lord’s Name In Vain. However, if the First Commandment states that God is “me”, then taking God’s name in vain becomes a pointless matter. But there is more to the story if the full commandments are understood.

The Fourth Commandment is a contentious matter. You Shall Observe The Sabbath or You Shall Keep The Sabbath are two variations of the Fourth Commandment and they both carry different connotations. There are also other variations such as Keep The Sabbath Day Holy and Observe The Sabbath Day And Keep It Holy. These abbreviations do not begin with “You shall remember the Sabbath Day”. There is a big difference in what the word “remember” means and implies and the words “keep” and “observe” mean.

The Fifth Commandment is often abbreviated Honor Your Mother and Father. Once more there is much missing that has major implications when fully understood in the light of the promises of God.

Abbreviations may seem to make life easier, but in reality, they can become unintentionally deceptive and undermine the truth. So often this happens in the course of ordinary life. Unless people seek to understand the meaning of the abbreviations, they will remain ignorant and suffer as a result.

In the Bible we read the following:

• My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me. And since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children. (Hosea 4:6)

For any person who calls himself or herself a Christian or a Jew and who does not understand the only words that were written by God Himself, then that person ought to take notice of what is written in the Book of Hosea as quoted above.

The Ten Commandments Were Designed For You To Enjoy And Possess Life