"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments." - Exodus 20:4-6
The commandment that tells us not to make any graven images, bow down to them, etc., is widely accepted as the second of the Ten Commandments, but Catholics and some Protestants, including Martin Luther, have eliminated this important commandment. They don’t want to acknowledge the verses that specifically prohibit idolatry because their church and their homes are filled with graven images, and they do bow down to them. Their solution to this dilemma is that they just refuse to acknowledge that as one of the ten commandments.
In Deuteronomy 10:4, the list is actually called the "Ten Commandments," so they still have to somehow come up with ten. The way they do this is by splitting another of the commandments, “Thou shalt not covet,” into two parts. They’ll take the commandment not to covet and separate it by examples of things we should not be coveting. According to them, commandment #9 is, "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife," and commandment #10 is, "Thou shalt not covet anything else that is thy neighbor's."
| Catholic version of 10 commandments |
In the New Testament, Jesus quotes the commandment as, “Thou shalt not covet.” When he lists the five commandments that deal with loving your fellow man, he leaves off the additional clarification about specific things people should not covet. All throughout the New Testament, this commandment is quoted as simply, “Thou shalt not covet,” so it is clearly one all-encompassing commandment that deals with the sin of covetousness.
If you talk to a real hard-core Protestant, they’ll tell you, “I am Catholic.” Do you know why they’re called Protestant? They’re Protestant Catholics. That’s why if you go to a Protestant church today, they will say “We believe in the holy Catholic church," which they recite as part of the "Apostle's Creed." I talked to a Dutch Reformed guy and he said, "We’re the real Catholics. We're just not ROMAN Catholics."
People will mistakenly think that Baptists are Protestants or that Protestants are like Baptists. The truth is that Protestants have a lot of beliefs and practices in common with Catholics, which is why I often refer to them as “Catholic Lite.” The fact that even Martin Luther embraced the Catholic version of the Ten Commandments is just one example of how similar Catholics and Protestants really are.
The Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:2-1)
#1. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
#2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.
#3. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
#4. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
#5. Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
#6. Thou shalt not kill.
#7. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
#8. Thou shalt not steal.
#9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
#10 Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.”
Here is a sermon to go with this article.
