I was baptized somewhere in my early teens. If I had to guess, I was somewhere in between 12 and 14. If you ask my mom, she probably remembers for sure. I don’t know if it’s the pregnancy brain, or that it happened so long ago, but there aren’t too many details I remember of that day. I remember I was baptized with two of my childhood church friends. I remember the water was warm. I remember that I didn’t want to say anything into the microphone to the congregation watching. When I emerged, my dad was on the other side of the baptismal with a towel and one of the biggest smiles on his face.

Isn’t it funny how following Jesus keeps you on your toes? In my years of knowing Him and walking with Him, my personal testimony is that He has never brought me to places I expected Him to. When I look back at my whole life– born and raised on Long Island, sent to the mission field in South Africa, moving as a newlywed to coastal North Carolina, and most recently, transplanted clear across the country to the mountains of Oregon– there are twists and turns God has set in motion that I could never have anticipated or foresaw myself going in His name.

If I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it a million times: “The Church would be so much easier to serve in… if it weren’t for the people!” And while I can agree; some people are hard to love because they neglect to treat their church family with the respect and love they’d like to be treated with. Some people are lonely or without blood-related family they can rely on, and so they lean on their church family more than the average person or they come across as clingy. Even more than that, there are some that are newer to the faith and have a more juvenile view of theology or their perception of God is a little more skewed.

Sometimes, we Christians have a bad habit of applying our personal politics too liberally to scripture. And I get it, this country was founded on Christian principles. It’s woven into the foundations of what we once were and there are many in the Church today that are desperately wanting to see our nation return to its Christian values.

But sometimes, for the sake of an argument, we go too far.

It’s so easy to read through the Old Testament and completely dismiss the laws, or the bloodlines, or the endless lists of parameters set in place for Israel. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read through the latter half of Exodus or the books of Leviticus or Numbers with glazed over eyes, reading it for just the surface value of what was going on. In truth, when you look below the surface value of Old Testament law, and you read it while asking yourself, “What does this show me about Jesus? Where is the cross and the gospel in this?” That’s when scripture begins to burst open and you can really see how God’s love and plan to redeem us is pouring out of every verse.

I say the word “slavery” and what do you think?

Do you think modern-day slavery? Do you think of vulnerable people that are snatched, stolen and taken to toil in terrible conditions and lifestyles?

Do you think of America in the 1800’s? When African people were sold off to work in fields and treated as less than even animals?

When I was pregnant with Piper, the craziest idea to wrap my head around was that she felt so far away and yet she was literally right with me all the time. It’s hard to reconcile those feelings: that your child, being grown inside your body, feels so far away because it take nine months to grow them. You can’t hold them. You can’t see them. You can’t track their progress outside of your own growing belly and the occasional scheduled sonogram. Sure, you feel your baby kick and move around inside you, and you talk to them constantly, but for some reason, in my brain, it always felt like my daughter was a million miles away. Until she was born, then POP! All of a sudden, she was real and there and bigger than I could imagine being stuffed up inside my belly.

When you’re a kid, you want your parents to pray for you for a lot of things. When you go to sleep, they say your bedtime prayers. When you sit down to eat, they pray for your food. When you fall down and get hurt, they pray over the scrapes and bumps.And for a kid, it feels like the prayers are better because it’s your mom or dad praying. The funny thing is, over the years that Sam and I have been in ministry, the premise is still the same for churchgoers to ask their pastors to pray on their behalf. Some people just feel that their pastor’s prayers are more effective or better heard by God.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him all creatures here below. Praise Him among ye heavenly host. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. These words start and end multitudes of church meetings every week, as Christians meet to praise the Lord and fellowship together. The hymn is so popular, it has come to be called simply, “The Doxology,” a word meaning an expression of praise to the Lord.

The final commandment is one that focuses less on outward actions and morality and turns inward. Each command that precedes it has to do with an external act– murder, obeying one's parents, theft, adultery, etc– and takes a look at an internal act that may not be readily apparent to another person, but takes place mostly in our hearts. Coveting. Desiring something that someone else has and we don’t. Letting jealousy run rampant in our hearts.

This ninth commandment sounds like something from the Bill of Rights or a rule in a court of law. In reality, it could apply to a legal testimony in a court of law, but in its most simple terms, this commandment warns us against lying or manipulating the truth. This commandment encompasses many different applications of falsifying truth. To put it mildly, it forbids those little, white lies that we convince ourselves are admissible and necessary. On the other extreme, it warns us against spreading or perpetuating rumors, exaggerating the truth, repeating stories without verifying information as truth, and keeping silent when we hear untrue stories to save face with others.

I have a friend who is the mother of two. When Sam and I lived in New York, we went to visit her and her family often. One Sunday, after church, we popped in to hear her very sternly scolding her oldest son who was probably about 11 or 12 years old at the time. Quietly, we sat down so she could do her thing. After sending him out to the yard and their townhome community with a roll of dog-poop bags, she turned to us shaking her head and explained that on their way home from church that day, she realized that he had stolen a candy bar while she was pumping gas. She said she didn’t care if it was a Snickers or a flat screen TV, her son wasn’t going to grow up to be a thief.

There is a lot of potential for sin surrounding sex. God has given us many parameters regarding it: who it is appropriate to have it with by gender and marital status. The freedom with which we are permitted to deal in it. No matter the way we look at it or try to slice the conversation, God is pretty clear about what He wants in that area for us.

Seems a pretty open and shut commandment. Don’t murder. Easy enough. Most people don’t really get the urge to premeditate and act on the actual slaying of another life.

But when God says “murder,” what does He actually mean? The word used here is “rasah,” which is a Hebrew word specifically meaning a premeditated killing. This would not apply to accidental killing, death related to self-defense, or death as punishment by law. To kill in the context of this word, rasah, is reserved for a murder born out of hatred or malice towards someone else. This could include vengeful murder handled outside of lawful verdict, assassination, and murdering due to bitterness or vindictiveness towards someone.

I remember being a kid, sitting in the church pew, and hearing this commandment. I remember looking over at my mom who was giving me a look that said, “Did you hear that?” I probably rolled my eyes because I thought God was backing her up on the whole 8 p.m. bedtime and doing my chores thing. Back then, that’s what honoring my parents meant: obeying them and following the rules. And sure, maybe that’s part of honoring– listening, heeding, and abiding. But it goes deeper than the age-old “because I said so” mentality that we’ve attached to that idea.

When you think of the Sabbath, what do you think of? Do you think of your local church service? Some worship songs, a message, and fellowship of other Christians? Do you think of your Sunday routine? Do you think of the last moments of family time before dreaded Monday morning?

Or do you think of rest? Do you think of a day where you don’t have to work or accomplish anything, and you just get to relax? Yes, our Sabbath in these times has come to mean church and Sunday morning, but in reality the Sabbath God is talking about in the ten commandments is a day of rest.