These are specific decrees. They sound like commands, orders being given right? We would agree, they are! It is our understanding that all statutes are a type of command, but not all commands are statutes. For example, the 10 Commandments are like the chapters in a book, a high level view of what we cannot do pertaining to different areas. Within each chapter command we find further instruction on what obeying that commandment looks like. We hope this is making some sense.
As a review, a commandment is an order or charge given us to keep or observe the 10 commandments, observing His Feast Days and the Sabbath, etc , judgments tell us how to handle situations that arise between His own people, and statutes are the decrees or requirements describing how to live in obedience to Him.
The word for law can, and contextually should be, understood as being inclusive of commandments, judgments, and statutes given to us by the Creator through Moses. Both uses of the word are correct in different areas of the Bible. For more on this understanding, we recommend you watch our Pauline Paradox series.
We defined a charge as something to be looked over, kept, or observed. The charge is not something separate from them. We are to watch over, keep, guard, and observe the statutes, judgments, and commandments. Even well-off workers may find themselves unfairly denied a reasonable share of the fruits of their labor. Modern workplaces and societies are no less susceptible to bribery, corruption, and bias than ancient Israel was.
According to the United Nations, the greatest impediment to economic growth in less developed countries is lapses in the impartial rule of law. This statute seems to recognize that in general those who have the power to demand bribes are more at fault than those who acquiesce in paying them, for the prohibition is against accepting bribes, not against paying them. Moses sets up a system of trial courts and courts of appeal that are surprisingly similar to the structure of modern courts of law.
He commands the people to obey their decisions. Workplaces today are governed by laws, regulations, and customs with procedures, courts, and appeal processes to interpret and apply them appropriately. We are to obey these legal structures, as Paul also affirmed Rom.
In some countries, laws and regulations are routinely ignored by those in power or circumvented by bribery, corruption, or violence. In other countries, businesses and other workplace institutions seldom intentionally break the law, but may try to contravene it through nuisance lawsuits, political favors, or lobbying that opposes the common good.
But Christians are called to respect the rule of law, to obey it, uphold it, and seek to strengthen it. This is not to say that civil disobedience never has a place. Some laws are unjust and must be broken if change is not feasible. But these instances are rare and always involve personal sacrifice in pursuit of the common good. Subverting the law for self-interested purposes, by contrast, is not justifiable. According to Deuteronomy both priests and judges—or as we might say today, both the spirit and the letter—are essential to the Law.
If we find ourselves tied up in knots, exploiting legal technicalities in order to justify questionable practices, perhaps we need a good theologian as much as a good lawyer. Imagine a modern-day Christian asking his or her pastor to help think through a major decision at work when the ethical or legal issues seem complicated. For this to be worthwhile, the pastor needs to understand that work is a deeply spiritual endeavor and they need to learn how to offer useful assistance to workers.
Perhaps a first step would simply be to ask people about their work. Just as people and institutions must not contravene legitimate authority, people in positions of power must not use their authority illegitimately.
Moses specifically deals with the case of a king. He must not acquire many horses for himself…and he must not acquire many wives…also silver and gold he must not acquire in great quantity for himself. When he has taken the throne of his kingdom, he shall have a copy of this law written for him…. It shall remain with him and he shall read it…diligently observing all the words of this law and these statutes, neither exalting himself above other members of the community nor turning aside from the commandment, either to the right or to the left.
In this text we see two restrictions on the use of authority—those in authority are not above the law but must obey and uphold it, and those in authority must not abuse their power by enriching themselves. Similarly, officials may use their power to enrich themselves receiving bribes, zoning, and licensing exemptions, access to privileged information, or personal use of public or private property.
Sometimes special perks are granted to those in power as a matter of policy or law, but this does not really eliminate the offense. When those in power use their authority not simply to gain special privileges but to create monopolies for their cronies, to appropriate vast lands and assets, and to jail, torture, or kill opponents, the stakes become deadly. There is no difference in kind between petty abuses of power and totalitarian oppression, merely in degree.
The more authority you have, the greater the temptation to act as though you are above the law. Moses prescribes an antidote. Not only must he read it, but he must develop the skill to interpret and apply it rightly and fairly. By this the king learns to revere the Lord and fulfill the responsibilities God has given him.
He is reminded that he too is under authority. The same is true today for those who bear authority of any kind, even if simply authority to do their own work. Derived from a word which signifies to bear witness to testify. From a word which means to place in trust, mean something entrusted to man, "that is committed to thee"; appointments of God, which consequently have to do with the conscience, for which man is responsible, as an intelligent being.
Derived from a word signifying to govern, to judge or determine, mean judicial ordinances and decisions; legal sanctions. The verb from which this word is formed means to engrave or inscribe. The word means a definite, prescribed, written law—that moral law of God which is engraven on the fleshy tables of the heart; the in most and spiritual apprehension of his will: not so obvious as the law and testimonies, and a matter of more direct spiritual communication than his precepts; the latter being more elaborated by the efforts of the mind itself, divinely guided.
There are two terms, quite distinct in the Hebrew, but both rendered "word. From this very circumstance it is evident they are not synonymous. The ten commandments are called by this term in Exodus. In this psalm it may be considered as, —. From November 03, Sermon. The differences between the words you mention, and perhaps others, is more a matter of muance than substance.
As an example, in the US there are two sets of documents, the US Code, which is the laws passed by Congress, and the Code of Federal regulations, which are regulations published by regulatory agencies of the executive branch. Both give guidance to what a person should do.
And both are different from testimonies, which are statements given under oath, for example in court, in front of a committee of the House of Representatives, or Senate, or in front of a Federal Regulatory Agency.
As to the words in your list, they are all ways of referring to God's communication with his chosen people. I'd like to just give more clarity when it comes to the meaning of Judgments.
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Learn more. False Distinction 5: Commandments vs. Statutes, Ordinances and Decrees See main document : for False distinctions This verse is most powerful, because the very first statutes and the ordinances Moses speaks is the 10 commandments! Proof 2:Ezekiel The weekly Sabbath is referred to twice as "my statutes and my ordinances". This is powerful because the weekly Sabbath is referred to twice as " my statutes and my ordinances". Notwithstanding the children rebelled against me: they walked not in my statutes, neither kept my ordinances to do them, which if a man do, he shall even live in them; they polluted my sabbaths: then I said, I would pour out my fury upon them, to accomplish my anger against them in the wilderness.
Proof 3:Malachi Malachi closes the book with an admonition to keep God's law and only mentions "statutes and judgments" that obviously must include the 10 commandments. I would be unthinkable for such a doxology to exclude the decalogue This is powerful because Malachi closes the book with an admonition to keep God's law and only mentions statutes and judgments that obviously must include the 10 commandments. It would be unthinkable for him to give a grand call to keep God's law and leave the 10 commandments out of this call!
Proof 4:Nehemiah The weekly Sabbath is lumped in with "right judgments, true laws, good statutes, commandments" without any differentiation. This is powerful because the ten commandments given at Sinai, specifically the weekly Sabbath, are called "right judgments, true laws, good statutes, commandments" without differentiating between any of them.
Sabbatarians will argue that the Jews would apply "commandments" to the Sabbath and "statutes" to the cerimonial law, but such a distinction was never used by the Jews, nor can it be proven in the Bible. This distinction is a Sabbatarian myth unsupported by the Bible and the record of history.
In other words, they learned about the Sabbath from the book of the law! Proof 5: Leviticus 19 The chapter is a complete unit that lists 5 of the 10 Commandments as well as 24 references to the "ceremonial law" and calls them My statures and all My ordinances without differentiation. The words "law" and "commandment" are absent!
Lev 19 is perhaps the most powerful chapter in the Bible to prove the Sabbatarian distinction between the ten commandments and the ceremonial law is a false distinction.
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