Protect Your Neighbors’ Well-being – The Sixth Commandment

Protect Your Neighbors’ Well-being

The Sixth Commandment

Deuteronomy 22:8

“When you build a new house, you shall make a parapet for your roof, that you may not bring the guilt of blood upon your house, if anyone should fall from it.”

1 Corinthians 8.9-12

Here is yet another way that neighbors exercised responsibility for one another’s well-being. Since Israelites frequented their roofs for a variety of reasons, a railing was an essential safety measure. Today we put fences around pools, cut back bushes that obstruct the view of traffic, take precautions when burning in the open air, and enforce other measures that indicate we understand the wisdom and necessity of thinking about others and their well-being as part of our civic duty.

In this series of In the Gates we present a detailed explanation of the Law of God, beginning with the Ten Commandments, and working through the statutes and rules that accompany each commandment. For a practical guide to the role of God’s Law in the practice of ethics, get The Ground for Christian Ethics by going to www.MyParuchia.com and click on our Book Store.

–

In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T.M. Moore, editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).

Scripture quotations in this article are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, (c) copyright 2001, 2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.