To give Jeremy Brooks’ article its full title: ‘Are the Ten Commandments Relevant Today? An Exposition of Exodus 20:1- 2’. 1 Why do I call it misleading, sad and revealing? Since he was purporting to deal with the ten commandments and their relevance today, surely Brooks should have given us what the apostles have to say on the subject, should he not? Exodus 20:1-2, yes, but the believer’s paramount authority for all his belief and practice is the apostolic writings. Surely that must be a given. 2 I hope nobody runs away with idea that this means I have no time for the Old Testament. Far from it! 3 The question is, however, how do we read the Old Testament? It must be through the eyes of the New. And if the believer’s paramount authority – note my word – is not the apostolic writings, what is? So, I say again, any work on the relevance of the ten commandments today, if it’s worth its salt, must be crammed full of apostolic passages on the subject. Brooks, alas, gives us none. None! And this is more than strange. For although you would never guess it from Brooks’ article, Paul, in particular, did use the ten commandments when pressing progressive sanctification on believers. |