Whatever Happened To Tolerance – The First Commandment

Whatever Happened to Tolerance?

The First Commandment

Exodus, 20.2, 3; Deuteronomy 5.6, 7

“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.”

God is not very postmodern.

There’s just something so exclusive about the first commandment. In our “big tent” and tolerant age, nobody likes anyone whose attitude toward life is “my way or the highway.” Surely there’s room for diversity? Surely we can find more “inclusive” language to present the Christian God to our postmodern world? Alas, no; God is not very postmodern. He is Who He is, and Who He is determines what He commands, as we shall see in our study of the first commandment over the next several days. I suppose we could say to people, “All right, then; you can have your choice. But the choices are quite clear, at least as the first commandment sets them out. You can choose to worship and serve the God of the Bible, or you can reject His mandate and choose some other god, or choose no god at all.” The second choice is unwise, however, because, well, there are no other gods. And the third option is simply not workable, for anyone who rejects every god simply establishes himself as god, and that’s a job the pay grade of which is rather beyond our scale, if I might borrow a phrase. Let us not apologize for the stark exclusivity of God. As we shall see, there are very good reasons why the first commandment makes perfectly good sense.

Why not try asking a few people how they respond to the first commandment? Which option have they chosen, and have they found it workable?
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“In the Gates” is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T.M. Moore

T. M. Moore is 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.

Editor’s note: The use of a translation other than the Authorised Version in an article does not constitute an endorsement in whole or in part by The Christian Observer.