While they are beautifully made and often colored a radiant gold-yellow, it is not appropriate to use a rubber chicken to represent the LORD your God. The LORD can't be contained or described by a rubber chicken.

Is it absurd to think that you would do that? Perhaps. But when you look at the whole of your life, how often do other things, people, or pastimes take the place of God? Perhaps not by eliminating what is holy from your life, but by edging it out until you're left holding onto the equivalent of a rubber chicken instead of the LORD who can set you free?

Today we talk about the Second of the Ten Commandments. And baseball. Really.

So many people believe that the Ten Commandments are an important part of life, but so few of them can tell you what they are. There are a lot of reasons for that, including the fact that there aren't ten commandments and the fact that different faith groups read the same scriptures and separate them in different ways, leading to disputes about which one is more important or whether some parts are one command or many. And when we strive to make a certain set in a certain order be the one that we want to go with, we are faced with the reality that the Bible lists them twice and the two don't match. Different order, different wording - does that change what they mean?

We're going to spend the next weeks breaking down and understanding these commands which have molded a significant part of our world for thousands of years. We'll start with the first commandment - as soon as we figure out what it is...

"I'm grateful - don't do it again!"

Paul wraps his letter to the Philippians up with this awkward-sounding (to us) "Thank you - No thank you" thing which is intended to help share the joy of the gospel with them and with others. How? And why do we care?

Join our walk through the last verses of the book of Philippians and find out!