Welcome to the first episode of a new 5:16 Podcast series: "Understanding the Ten Commandments."

This podcast is a ministry of Community Bible Church in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. As we move through our Exodus series on Sunday mornings, we hope this podcast serves as a fun and helpful supplement alongside what's happening in the life of the church and aids you in diving deeper into each commandment.

In this episode, Pastor Steve Foster and Pastor Zach Benton introduce the Ten Commandments and discuss what they mean for believers today.

This week we will be exploring the sixth commandment in Exodus 20:13, Honoring Human Life.
Two words in Hebrew. That is all the sixth commandment is.
Lo tirtsakh (Hebrew)
You shall not murder. Or, perhaps more literally, "never murder."
These two words carry so much weight.
Respect life. Honor life. Protect life.
Stand in awe at the wonder, beauty, and dignity of human life.
From the moment of conception, life is a miraculous thing. In all of our intelligence and technology, we cannot replicate life. It is beyond us. It is incomprehensible. It is divine.
Each person is made in the image of God. This fact alone is enough to make us stop and think. We are the representatives of God on earth. How we treat one another is a reflection of our view of God.
Each human life is sacred and should be treated as such.
The principle is simple but living it out is not easy...and not always clear.
What about capital punishment? What about fighting in a war?
The sixth commandment also touches on such contemporary issues as abortion, euthanasia, eugenics, racial discrimination, suicide, self-defense, drug abuse, verbal abuse, and even AI.
Two words in Hebrew...with tons and tons of meaning.
We will scratch the surface on Sunday and remind ourselves of how amazing, beautiful, and sacred is human life... and how important it is to see each person as made in the image of God.
We will also celebrate communion on Sunday as fellow partakers of God's amazing grace!
May God fill us with His Spirit so that we can live each day as His ambassadors and ministers of reconciliation on this earth!

This week we will be exploring the fifth commandment in Exodus 20:12, Honoring Your Parents.
Interestingly, the early rabbis called this commandment the most difficult to keep.
Perhaps because the other commandments deal with what we are not to do, but this one tells us what we are to do...and there are no limits put on what it means to honor our parents.
And we all know that even the best of parents are imperfect!
But not only is the fifth commandment difficult, it is also determinative.
Honoring your father and mother sits right in the middle of the Ten Commandments for a reason.
The family is central.
How we treat our parents, and how we relate to one another in our families, impacts our relationship with God and our relationship with others.
And if there is one thing that is apparent in our culture today, it is that the family is increasingly being dismissed, attacked, redefined, and destroyed.
On Sunday, we will examine what the fifth commandment means, why it is important, and how it is to be applied in our lives today.
May God open our eyes, heal our hearts, and strengthen our families for His glory and our good!

This week Pastor Zach will be teaching through Exodus 20:8-11, Practicing Rest.
Sabbath rest.
If we had to guess God's ten biggest commandments to Israel, we probably wouldn't have included this one.
Work six days and rest on the seventh. Is that really such an important command?
But to a bunch of slaves leaving Egypt learning to reorient their entire lives around God's creation rhythm was vital. Slaves were not in control of their own time. Now, as God's freed people, they were. And how they lived their lives, day after day, week after week, year after year, was to be a sign to the rest of the world of who they were.
We will explore God's fourth commandment in more detail on Sunday and learn what it means to experience Christ's rest as God's redeemed people today.
May God refresh our hearts and reorient our lives as we learn to follow Him!

This week we will be exploring Exodus 20:7 together, Honoring God's Name.

This week we will be exploring Exodus 20:1-6 together, Worshiping God Alone.
It is appropriate that in this season of celebrating America's 250th birthday, we are also examining the book of Exodus and the journey to true freedom. It is also appropriate that we are beginning our study in the Ten Commandments.
The Ten Commandments were the "constitution" of the people of Israel as they were birthed as a new nation. They formed the backbone of how they were to live, how they were to think, how they were to relate to others, and how they were to worship God alone.
The first two commandments are the first two commandments for a reason.
You shall have no other gods before Me.
You shall not make for yourself an idol.
For many people, these two commands make no sense. Why not just start with the "ethical demands"? Don't murder. Don't steal. Don't lie. These are what really matter in human behavior, right?
But the Ten Commandments give us a foundational truth right at the start. Eliminate God and you have no basis for any ethical demands. Worship the wrong God and you will live in the wrong way. Reduce God to an idol that you can control and you will reduce everyone down to a level that you can control.
Unless we submit to God...unless we worship Him alone...unless we are governed by a love for Him above all else...then we will not live the way that we were created to live.
It is that simple.
Worshiping God is not an addendum to life. It is its very foundation.
May God enlarge our vision of Who He is. May He correct our vision of Who He is. And may He captivate our hearts so that we truly love Him with all of our heart, with all of our soul, with all of our mind, and with all of our strength.

We will be kicking off the next section of Exodus (chapters 20-24) this Sunday (9am, 10:45am).
In this 13-week series, we will be covering the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20), the Book of the Covenant (Exodus 21-23), and the ratification of the Mosaic covenant (Exodus 24).
This is a vital part of Scripture to understand! Not only because of the foundational aspects of the Ten Commandments but also because of the objections that many people have to some of the laws in the OT and the misunderstanding of how the Mosaic Covenant applies to believers today.
Over the next 3 months, we will be diving into some foundational biblical principles and some deeper theological issues related to the covenants, the law, and the age of grace. Fun stuff! And, oh, so practical and relevant to what we are facing today in our world.
Pick up a study guide this Sunday and join us for this journey through Exodus 20-24 (or download it online at 516church.org/digitalresources). A donation of $5 will cover the cost of printing the study guide.
Make the study of God's Word a priority in your daily life...and join a community group or your family or your friends in going through this study together. Small group discussion questions are provided each week in the study guide.

Pastor Ken Courville teaches through Exodus 19.