Moses, the Ten Commandments, and Me: An Unauthorized Biography

Copyright © 2014 by Hal H. Eaton.

Cover Drawing by Lenora Rose

Library of Congress Control Number:     2014900669

ISBN:                  Hardcover                        978-1-4931-6250-5

                            Softcover                          978-1-4931-6249-9

                            eBook                               978-1-4931-6251-2

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 04/09/2014

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Contents

1.   About Preaching

2.   The Source of God’s Law

3.   The Source of God’s Glory

4.   The Setting of God’s Revelation

5.   The First Commandment—Priorities

6.   The Second Commandment—Spirituality

7.   The Third Commandment—Sincerity

8.   The Fourth Commandment—Rest

9.   The Fifth Commandment—Family

10.   The Sixth Commandment—Life

11.   The Seventh Commandment—Sexuality

12.   The Eighth Commandment—Economics

13.   The Ninth Commandment—Justice

14.   The Tenth Commandment—Self-control

15.   The Results of Obedience—Joy

16.   Here Stand I

Thanks…

This book is dedicated to all those who have had a positive influence on my life and on this publishing effort. My wife Marjorie has been my companion, scholar, and chief critic for sixty-six years. My thanks for assistance in the chores of computerizing this volume goes to my daughter Laura Phipps and to teacher Mikki Haas, whose college major, luckily for me, was simply Software. Lenora Rose has provided the art work for the book’s cover. Steve Bowen and Shawn Andrews have kept my aged computer operable.

It does, indeed, Take a village!

Preface

I’ve always said that everybody had one book in him and that very few had more than one. This is my book, Moses, the Ten Commandments, and Me. I had previously determined to use the title, Ten Commandments for Dummies, but copyrights on parts of that title prevented my doing so. That title was not presumptive concerning the ignorance of Bible readers, but suggested that some better interpretations of the revered laws are possible in this day and age as we search for God’s truth regarding human conduct.

This brief volume is simply the culmination of one man’s thoughts, analyses, and, at times, self-declared revelations of the predicaments that face mankind and his attempts to survive, with a modicum of self-respect, the accumulated problems of existence.

While publishing such a potpourri of random ideas may sound pretentious, I probably have only one book to offer. The usual hungers that drive authors to publish have diminished within me (at the age of eighty-seven) to the point that money, worldly acclaim, prestige, the furtherance of career, etc., are all but lost to me. That factor may make my contribution more honest, heartfelt, and acceptable—but no guarantees are offered, either by me or to me.

Back in the 1950s, prior to the meeting of the Roman Catholic Church’s Vatican Council II, the religion editor of a San Francisco newspaper was scheduled to attend and report on the meeting. To prepare for his mission, he asked a revered professor at Golden Gate Baptist Seminary, across the Golden Gate Bridge in Marin County, to recommend some theological books to be read prior to his journey. After reading the books, he inquired of the professor, For whom did these theologians write these books? His mentor replied, They wrote them for preachers, for interested laity, for Christians in general. No, they didn’t, the journalist replied. They were writing for each other!

I don’t personally know any real-life theologians, but I agree that most of their books have extremely limited appeal. One session on the pros and cons of the biblical doctrine of the gradually extirpated depravity of the vicarious atonement doesn’t do much for the development of my views regarding the workings of God.

So this will not attempt to be a scholarly treatise; don’t expect footnotes, or much in the way of quotes from other authors. References to biblical passages will not usually contain chapter and verse. Please don’t fault me for this omission. I’ve read so many bad ideas which were supported by vague scriptural references, footnotes, and quotes that I almost automatically ignore such supporting props for off-the-wall theories.

Don’t look for a lot of answers, either. You will find, instead, a lot of questions you may never have heard before. But in knowing the right questions, you will be more able to confound those who speak as if they have all the right answers. There are plenty of people around who offer answers to questions; we need more who will question the answers.

Many of the thoughts shared here undoubtedly came from sources other than my own creativity; they have been so firmly embedded in my thinking that I unabashedly use them as my own. If you see an idea that came from some other source (or even from you!), please forgive. If I occasionally slip up and quote from some source, rest assured that I don’t have Bartlett’s Quotations at hand to seek support for a position or idea. I have only been so deeply impressed by someone else’s thought that the gist of the idea has become a part of my own storehouse. I may even quote such previously written ideas incorrectly. I have used the thoughts so long that I have forgotten either the author or the source, and don’t know how to look up the reference.

One more thing—a good bit of the support for (or refutation of) ideas contained herein may appear to be tongue-in-cheek. A lighthearted answer may turn away wrath, or incur wrath; the choice is in your hands.

Accept these writings, then, as the views of one servant in the vineyard who has learned where the thorny weeds abound and where the grapes are sweetest.

Chapter 1

About Preaching

The Apostle Paul says that the gospel of Jesus Christ is spread by the foolishness of preaching.

Unfortunately, many of God’s preachers use Paul’s poetry as an excuse to preach foolishness. The message is diluted—and deluded—by self-serving interpretations of Bible verses, by applying ideas applicable in another age and setting to present times, and by preachers who fall prey to the siren-song of standing in a pulpit (of any size) and becoming the source of God’s Truth for Today.

The message of preaching is further distorted by our methodology of so-called worship. The preacher speaks, and the congregation is invited to respond verbally—but with only one acceptable and time-honored word—Amen.

I watched in amazement as a well-known television preacher castigated a group of people who disagreed with him and suggested strongly that they were being used as tools of the devil. When one member of the congregation stood and said he thought the preacher was the one in the wrong, the poor layman was escorted outside by the ministry’s security police and was arrested by local authorities. Charges were later dropped, but I almost drooled in anticipation of a court battle in which a preacher could harangue his enemies from the pulpit and have anyone who disagreed with him arrested, tried, and sentenced—for a difference of opinion.

All preaching would undoubtedly improve if congregations were free to shout, Bull feathers! or some similar word or phrase, to indicate disagreement, disapproval, or rejection of the ideas preached from pulpits, but supposedly originating from the mind, the heart, and, ostensibly, the mouth of God.

Frankly, I am always and immediately suspicious of the man of the cloth who tells me that he is simply passing along what God told him, just last night, to relay to me.

If you hear voices in the night, don’t tell your doctor; he will likely have you committed to the psychiatric ward. Don’t tell the police; they might lock you up for being a Satanic threat to society. Just tell it from the pulpit, and, depending on your charisma and winsomeness, to say nothing of your certitude, you may well become a television word-meister with an audience of millions and a chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce.

But if you tell me you have a Word from on High, you leave me with but two alternatives. If I believe you, I must immediately accept your words as ultimate truth, dedicate myself as your faithful follower, and provide all support possible (time, energy, and money) to your cause. After all, that was God speaking.

On the other hand, I cannot simply ignore your claim. If I do not believe you, I must brand you as either mistaken or fraudulent (the line between the two is almost impossible for me to draw, and I daresay that it may be equally difficult for you, too). But in fairness to myself and to those I might influence (family, friends, and congregation), I must let my conclusions be known.

This is in no way harsh or unjust or prejudicial or unfair to the one who claims to be the spokesman for God. By announcing divine origins for his claims, he necessitates my response in either accepting or condemning his demands on me. I cannot simply ignore them. The phrase, Silence gives consent, leaves me extremely uncomfortable when I think human beings are being led astray by one or another of God’s spokespersons.

Nor does my stance require that I reject the principle of God’s revelation to mankind. I believe in it—but for me, it is often vague, illusory, and ill-defined; thus, I put my imprimatur on any self-diagnosed revelation only after much introspection, cynical self-analysis, and reasoned argumentation. And I am extremely hesitant to ask others to act on my declaration of God’s revelation to me. If God directed me to write this book, it follows that he must have told you to read it—or at least to buy it! Such presumptions are beyond me, but are part and parcel of the religious book writers, publishers, and advertisers who often promise wondrous results for their products.

If my proclamation of God’s revelation appears self-serving (and it usually does!), then I must subject it to the same tests that I make of others’ claims. Skepticism concerning others’ announced revelations is equally relevant to my own.

So, about preaching: it is a method of communicating truth, but fraught with peril. Abuses proliferate; personalities intrude; language defies exactitude; what a speaker says and what a congregant hears can be entirely different; personal feelings imbue a prophet with resentment or nostalgia—in a word,