Pub Night Dallas is weekly gathering of Christ's followers exploring the Word and world together.
Tuesday
8:00pm
Union Bear (West Village next to Taco Diner)
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
Ten | The Rules of a People with a Beautiful Future
Wow, we still have a blog. Look at that. Since we’re here, I wanted to let everyone know what’s coming up at Pub Night Dallas.
In the 2nd book of the Bible, God rescued a large extended family, known at the time as the Hebrews (named after Abraham, a “wanderer”) or Israelites (named after Jacob, “wrestles with God”), from enslavement under the most powerful regime of the world in Egypt. And, in doing so, he gave them a destiny.
They would be a special nation, one that was rescued and lived as if they believed in the power of being thankful (for their rescue) and in the power of future rescue (of others). A people set apart, chosen to let the world know who the true Creator was, how he wanted us to live, and what he wanted us to do in the midst of a world that the preceding scriptures tell us haven’t exactly lived as if they knew God, what he was like or what he wanted.
How would they embrace this future? How would they actually “be” this kind of a nation?
What were they to be made up of?
Enter the Ten Commandments. At a mountain in the wilderness on their journey out of slavery, God comes to the leader of these now-liberated-but-homeless people, Moses, and gives him Ten Commandments to guide the people’s way. Far from being rules to see if the people could do the dance just because God said so, these were the guide rails to help the people become, well, the people.
These commandments became their stitches, those things that held them together.
It seems to be an innately human experience to shun rules. We don’t like to be told what to do. It seems restrictive, oppressive.
And, quite honestly, the Ten Commandments have been used this way. But this was not their intent.
They were intended to give a beautiful shape to the way this newly formed nation was to live and function. They were meant to provide freedom—you know, that thing that only comes when oppressive things are stripped away.
Come hear how these Ten rules were meant to give the people freedom and a future. Hopefully we’ll discover the freedom that Jesus gives us and the future we’re intended for.
