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This Sunday Rev. Irwin wrapped up a series of sermons on the Ten Commandments. After service, I was trying to remember the first one. I knew it had to do with the supremacy of God, but I couldn't remember if it included the prohibition of graven images. I had to go look it up.
When I was a kid, The Ten Commandments, were embroidered on samplers, like the one on the left, and hung on the walls of homes. They were posted in shops and public buildings and claimed a prominent place in church entrances. Nowadays, they are invisible in public spaces. Samplers are not often worked in homes any more and if they are, the subject is more likely to be about gardens or golf than about God.
So, if you're like me and struggling to remember which one comes first and where the divisions are, there's a simplified version.
The Ten Commandments.
- Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
- Thou shalt not make any graven image nor bow down to them, nor serve them.
- Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
- Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.
- Honour thy father and thy mother.
- Thou shalt not kill.
- Thou shalt not commit adultery.
- Thou shalt not steal.
- Thou shalt not bear false witness.
- Thou shalt not covet they neighbour's wife, nor his house, nor his field, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor is ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbour's.
You can read the complete, Biblical version from Exodus,here.
If you want the one from Deuteronomy, look here.
by Alice Valdal
There's a fig tree on the grounds of SPPC.
I grew up in a colder climate than Victoria's so I find the presence of a fig tree amazing all by itself, but as a reminder of Christian life, it is even more wonderful. As a farm girl, I get the agrarian metaphors in the Bible,-- seed cast on good soil or poor, sheep and shepherds, the lily of the field, the mustard seed -- all of these conjure up real, physical images for me, but the fig tree has always been a mystery, an exotic from a foreign land. But here it is, growing happily just off the parking lot of my church.
So, I looked it up.
Fig trees require well-drained and fertile soil.
Now that sounds like a parable all by itself.
They need to be protected from cold winter winds.
Don't we all experience seasons of faith when we need a little protection from the cold and wind of unbelief?
Fig trees need adequate room to grow and respond well to a little fertilizer.
The church provides that space for believers to grow, to deepen their faith and to develop their skills. We all benefit from the enriching experience of fellowship.
Fig trees don't require much care, but some judicious pruning will improve the crop.
Ouch. Who wants to be pruned? Yet it is necessary in our Christian journey that we examine our lives and discard the elements that draw us away from God.
Well treated, a fig tree produces an abundance of fruit.
Now that's more like it. Nurtured in the soil of the church, we can all yield a rich harvest for Christ.
No wonder the Bible is rife with references to the fig tree, its very nature cries out for parable and metaphor. In the Old Testament, verse after verse uses the image of "everyone sitting under his own fig tree" to denote a time of plenty and peace. By contrast, times of strife and war and famine are described as the fig tree dried up and withered, or cut down or shattered.
The Gospels of Matthew and Mark both recount the tale of Jesus cursing a fig tree because it bore no fruit. Again, in the Gospel of Luke Jesus tells a parable of a fig tree, to show the Master's disappointment when his tree is barren.
From Deuteronomy where the Lord promises His people "a land of wheat and barley, vines and fig trees," to John's vision in Revelations where "the stars in the sky fell to earth,as figs drop from a fig tree when shaken by a strong wind," the fig tree is used to preach and to prophecy, to teach and to discipline.
How appropriate that our church has a fig tree.
