Ten WORDS

It was fun for me the other day (in OT studies at Canowindra, with Russ Hodge) trying to put the ideas involved in the ten commandments into one (hyphenated) word each. The Jew's apparently know them as the Ten Words, also noting that 10 times God speaks in the Creation story. Then afterwards I tried to just see how each one connected with the BIG PICTURE & expressed it, even at the expense of surpassing the word limit. Here is what I came up with:

God’s Gracious Gift of Ten Commands

One  is  Yahweh;  Honour  Yahweh  as  No.1,  as  God!
2. No technological images of Yahweh!(only living ones created by him & procreated by us, in fulfilling his mandate to us)
3. Honour God’s name! (Names are important & linked to the person, at least through language, which must be important in linking the human race too)
4. Copy God’s  (use of time, & his priority of regularly celebrating not only his work, but his friends/family,)   Sabbath.
5. Honour your earthly parents (who are meant to mirror and concretize God’s authority/ relationship to  you).
6. Dishonour not the other sex nor your words to them (nor the covenant relationship of a man & woman leaving their own father & mother & being formed into a new family unit - by God).
7. Dishonour not the right to existence of  an image of God in God’s world (as though you yourself could choose whether another image of God should live on God’s earth or not. For who made you a ruler or judge over others?).
8. Dishonour not people’s capacity (as images of Yahweh) to rule over the stuff (things & places) of God’s world (since God has given us such authority).
9. Dishonour not your neighbour’s nearness & trust (since it is God who ordained the boundaries of our existence in time & space; and you know more about your neighbour who lives beside you trusting you. You are responsible for that knowledge, to use it to bless, not curse, your neighbour).
10. Dishonour not your own lack of things (in general & in particular, even though you have the capacity to change many things there are some things you are simply stuck with - or without) at God’s ultimate discretion, since God is One!.