Weightier Matters Beneath the 10 Commandments

Summary

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BibleProject Podcast

Episode: Weightier Matters Beneath the 10 Commandments

Release Date: June 22, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this concluding episode of the Ten Commandments ("Ten Words") series, hosts Tim Mackie and John Collins explore what lies beneath the surface of the biblical commands. They argue that the Ten Words are not merely rules to follow but are a framework for wisdom and a moral imagination—world-building for a just and meaningful life. The conversation shows how the commands aim to shape a people of wisdom, justice, mercy, and faithfulness, culminating in the person and work of Jesus.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Ten Commandments: Not Just Rules, But a Moral Universe

• The Hebrew Bible does not actually call them "Ten Commandments" but "Ten Words" (devarim), indicating something broader than a list of rules ([03:02]-[04:27]).
• The Ten Words are "creating a moral imagination and a moral universe within which we live" (Tim Mackie, [04:50]).
• The first word orients the reader to ultimate reality: "I am Yahweh, your Elohim, who brought you up out of the land of Israel... out of the house of slavery" ([05:00]-[05:23]).

2. Connecting Creation & Commandments

• Genesis 1 features ten divine speeches ("And God said..."), paralleling the Ten Words at Sinai. Both are world-building, one for the physical cosmos, the other for the moral cosmos ([06:16]-[07:41]).
• "If the Ten Words in Exodus are world building, a moral universe, then in the seven day creation story, that is another world building story building the cosmos." (Tim Mackie, [06:52])

3. Commandments Shape Reality & Behavior

• Our choices flow from our view of reality, often unconsciously. The Ten Words fundamentally shape how we interpret the world and respond to it ([07:53]-[09:42]).
• John Collins shares a personal story: after their "Do Not Steal" episode, he found a $5 bill on a run and instinctively preserved it for the owner, showing how meditating on the commandments shaped his behavior ([10:04]-[10:54]).
  • "I was living in this new universe in a new way. Through the 10 words... It didn't feel like a rule... It just felt like, cool. I get to participate in something more significant." (John Collins, [10:52]-[11:08])

4. The Commands as Wisdom Literature

• The Bible's laws are better seen as wisdom rather than strict regulations. Moses in Deuteronomy frames the statutes as "your wisdom and discernment before the eyes of all the people" ([13:12]-[15:37]).
  • "Righteousness is like the standard; justice is the thing that you do to get a situation up to the standard." (Tim Mackie, [14:39])
• Wisdom (chokhmah), discernment (bina), and understanding are central ([15:38]-[16:43]).
• Wisdom is not just good advice; to reject wisdom is to "choose death and destruction" ([16:43]-[16:57]).

5. Life & Death, Good & Bad: A Genesis Echo

• Deuteronomy 30 frames the choice: "I am setting before you today life and good, death and bad." This echoes the Garden of Eden's two trees ([16:57]-[18:11]).
  • "The tree of life is also about knowing good and bad, but in a way that leads to life. And the tree of knowing good and bad could have been called the tree of death." (John Collins, [18:01]-[18:11])

6. Wisdom in Practice: Real-Life Moral Complexity

• The podcast emphasizes that biblical laws are like "case studies" or "parables," not exhaustive legal codes but tools for wisdom and discernment ([24:34]-[26:34]).

  • "You said something provocative, though. You said laws are case studies, and then you call them parables." (John Collins, [26:34])

• Example: Do not kill. Later case laws add nuance—accidents, intent, etc.—showing that understanding the values beneath is crucial.

When Laws Conflict: The Heart of Biblical Wisdom

• Mosaic law sometimes appears contradictory; but if viewed as wisdom, these tensions require discernment and weighing of "weightier matters" ([28:46]-[30:19]).

• Jesus and the Woman Caught in Adultery (John 8):

  • The law prescribes stoning for adultery, yet Jesus responds with, "Let the person who's never committed sin throw the first stone" ([29:31]).
  • Jesus' response demonstrates prioritizing mercy over strict legalism ([29:31]-[30:19]).
  • "The greater value is actually creating a community of mercy in that moment... Should every human be killed for every mistake that they make? And Jesus doesn't think so." (Tim Mackie, [29:50]-[30:19])

• Jesus' Disciples Pluck Grain on Sabbath (Matthew 12):

  • Disciples pluck grain for food on Sabbath, sparking conflict between the law of rest and provision for basic needs ([31:14]-[33:55]).
  • Jesus responds with scriptural examples, showing that mercy and need can outweigh ritual prescriptions ([35:08]-[37:05]).
  • Jesus highlights "the heavier matters of the Torah: justice, mercy, and faithfulness" (Tim Mackie, [38:18])
    • "So in Jesus's view, the commands are like surface manifestations of all these different ways you could apply heavier values." ([38:09])
    • "In Jesus's mind, justice, mercy and faithfulness are the values of the moral universe." ([38:15])

7. Jesus: The Fulfillment and Embodiment of Wisdom

• In Jesus, wisdom, righteousness, holiness, and redemption are embodied (see 1 Corinthians) ([40:41]-[41:29]).
  • "So wisdom is about discernment between good and bad, so you can choose the way into life. Righteousness is right relationships... Holiness is about a life so dedicated to being in union with God's own life... Redemption is about transferring someone... back into God's family and possession." (Tim Mackie, [41:28]-[41:29])
• The Ten Words point toward a greater value—love—culminating in Jesus’ act of self-giving on the cross ([42:01]-[43:34]).
  • "If we were to boil it down to one value and look to one person's life to incarnate that value, I can't think of any better story to tell than the story of Jesus." (Tim Mackie, [43:11])
• Jesus as wisdom is not just an example to follow, but someone to be joined with, through practices like baptism, communion, meditating on scripture, and doing life in community ([44:00]-[46:37]).
  • "We actually will find true life and wisdom by joining our lives to his." (Tim Mackie, [44:37])

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Memorable Quotes and Moments

On Wisdom:

• “All of God's commands work this way. Every rule and regulation in the Bible is an opportunity for us to look underneath and find God's wisdom.” — John Collins ([00:32])
• "To live with wisdom is to live in a way that leads to life. You're living in tune with reality." — Tim Mackie ([01:04])

Personal Story:

• "I was living in this new universe in a new way. Through the 10 words... It just felt like, cool. I get to participate in something more significant.” — John Collins ([10:52]-[11:08])

On Jesus and the Law:

• "The greater value is actually creating a community of mercy in that moment... Should every human be killed for every mistake that they make? And Jesus doesn't think so." — Tim Mackie ([29:50]-[30:19])
• "In Jesus mind, justice, mercy, and faithfulness are the values of the moral universe." — Tim Mackie ([38:15])
• "If we were to boil it down to one value and look to one person's life to incarnate that value, I can't think of any better story to tell than the story of Jesus." — Tim Mackie ([43:11])
• "We actually will find true life and wisdom by joining our lives to his." — Tim Mackie ([44:37])

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Important Timestamps

• [00:05] Opening theme: The Ten Words as more than rules
• [03:02] Exploring the Hebrew term "Ten Words" vs. "Ten Commandments"
• [06:16]-[07:41] Parallels between Genesis creation narrative and the Ten Words
• [10:04]-[11:08] John’s story of how meditating on the commandments shaped his actions
• [13:12]-[16:43] Laws as wisdom; the words chokhmah (wisdom) and bina (discernment)
• [16:57]-[18:25] Life and death, good and bad—linking Deuteronomy and Genesis
• [24:34]-[26:34] Laws as parables/case studies
• [28:46]-[30:19] When biblical laws appear to conflict; the need for wisdom and weighing values
• [31:14]-[38:18] Jesus, Sabbath, hunger, and the "weightier matters": justice, mercy, faithfulness
• [40:41]-[44:08] Jesus as the embodied wisdom of God; the fulfillment of the law
• [46:10]-[47:32] Closing reflections: Practicing wisdom together in community

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Final Takeaways

• The Ten Commandments ("Ten Words") are invitations to a wise, just, and flourishing life, not simple, isolated rules.
• Meditating on the value beneath each command shapes our character and communities, aligning us with the "moral universe" God desires.
• Biblical wisdom embraces complexity—sometimes values and commands are in tension, and wisdom means discerning what is most life-giving in context.
• For Christians, Jesus embodies the wisdom, justice, and love toward which the commandments point; joining our lives with his is the path to true life.

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Note: This summary focuses solely on the substantive content of the episode and excludes promotional or non-content material.

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Transcript

[John Collins]

We've come to the final episode in our series on the Ten Commandments, or as the Bible calls them, the ten words. Now, all along we've kept referring to this idea. The 10 words are not simply rules or commands to check off a list. These 10 words orient us to true reality.

[Tim Mackie]

They are creating a moral imagination and a moral universe, a set of claims about what is really true about the world we inhabit.

[John Collins]

All of God's commands work this way. Every rule and regulation in the Bible is an opportunity for us to look underneath and find God's wisdom.

[Tim Mackie]

The most common word other than command or statute or rule or regulation that's used to describe how God is trying to get his people to live is the word wisdom. The 10 words are aimed at instilling wisdom in God's covenant partners.

[John Collins]

Now, we may think of wisdom as just advice. You can take it or leave it, but in the Bible, wisdom is essential.

[Tim Mackie]

To live with wisdom is to live in a way that leads to life. You're living in tune with reality. So it's the difference between I'm doing it because God commanded me and I'm doing it because God loves me and is showing me the way to life.

[John Collins]

All of the commands in the Bible, they're pointing to weightier matters of life, matters that Jesus teaches us to keep from front and center.

[Tim Mackie]

In Jesus mind, justice, mercy, and faithfulness are the values of the moral universe. And the commands are like surface manifestations of all these different ways you could apply the heavier values. This isn't Jesus innovating. He's just carrying forward this tradition of seeing all the commands as facets of a diamond pointing to a common core.

[John Collins]

Today, Tim Mackey and I wrap up this series on the Ten Commandments by reflecting on God's commands as as wisdom that leads to life, and of course, as wisdom that leads us to Jesus himself.

[Tim Mackie]

He is the model and example of a true human fulfilling all the wisdom of God. And we actually will find true life and wisdom by joining our lives to his.

[John Collins]

Thanks for joining us. Here we go. Hey, Tim.

[Tim Mackie]

Hello. John Collins.

[John Collins]

Hello.

[Tim Mackie]

Hello.

[John Collins]

We're gonna wrap up our conversations on the 10 words.

[Tim Mackie]

Yes, we are. Yeah. Such a great set of conversations.

[John Collins]

You were kind of surprised, I was, at how much you enjoyed it, you know.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah, I always, of course, like talking with you through the Bible is one of my favorite parts of this whole project. So that's always fun. But I think coming in, I just didn't quite know if we would have enough to talk about for the Ten Commandments, but I was surprised about where the conversation went and really enjoyed it.

[John Collins]

Yeah, me too.

[Tim Mackie]

Like, my own appreciation of the 10 commands deepened in the process of talking through them with you.

[John Collins]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Tim Mackie]

So we're trying to practice the communal value of meditating. So remember our conversation about how within The Torah, these 10 things are never referred to as the 10 commands.

[John Collins]

Yeah. But when they're introduced as a unique set, they're not called commands.

[Tim Mackie]

When God's speech in Exodus 21:17 is referred to as, like, a speech, it's called the ten words.

[John Collins]

Yeah, the devarim.

[Tim Mackie]

The devarim. Yes, exactly. So we spent a while pondering that fact. One puzzle, if you go through the speech is that there aren't 10 commands. There's actually a lot more if you're just looking at sentences that have commands.

[John Collins]

Yeah.

[Tim Mackie]

So there will not be. For you other Elohim, there's number one, you will not make an idol. You will not worship them. That's the third. The idol man. Yeah. You will not serve them. That's the fourth.

[John Collins]

Okay.

[Tim Mackie]

You will not carry the name. That's the fifth, remember? That's the sixth.

[John Collins]

Remember the Sabbath.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah. Six days, labor and do your work. The seventh is the Sabbath. Don't do any work. So already we're up to what is traditionally command number four, but we technically already have, like.

[John Collins]

It's stated in eight different commands so far.

[Tim Mackie]

Exactly. So you go through. There's more than 10 sentences that have a command.

[John Collins]

Yeah.

[Tim Mackie]

So that's kind of the puzzle. Right.

[John Collins]

Okay. So the words aren't the commands.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah. So the words are not identical to command. So words is more general. 10 matters. Yeah. Well, what are the 10 matters? Because there's a bunch of words in here that are not strictly commands.

[John Collins]

And we didn't limit ourselves to a list of rules. We thought about them in terms of a way to think about ourselves and the whole world.

[Tim Mackie]

That's right, Exactly. They are creating a moral imagination and a moral universe within which we live. And the first thing is, who or what is ultimate reality? The first words really are, I am Yahweh, your Elohim, who brought you up out of the land of Israel. That's a matter out of the house of slavery. I am. I think that's the takeaway, is that these 10 matters are a way of world building.

[John Collins]

So what was surprising to me was that the world building exercise felt so compelling to me. Right. Like, do not steal feels pretty drab. You know, a kindergarten rule.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah, yeah.

[John Collins]

But the world building we did around helping our Communities steward what God's given to each of us in like a communal way. Felt so rich and big and beautiful.

[Tim Mackie]

That's right. Yeah. Don't commit adultery. And then we flipped it over. Contribute to creating a culture that supports and encourages lifelong covenant commitments so that families can flourish. So you flip it over. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right.

[John Collins]

You did mention to me just recently that Genesis 1 has 10 words.

[Tim Mackie]

That's right.

[John Collins]

And I wanted to ask you a little bit more about that.

[Tim Mackie]

Oh, great.

[John Collins]

So there's seven days in Genesis 1.

[Tim Mackie]

Yes.

[John Collins]

Six days where he creates. Where God creates. And in that whole poetic narrative, there's 10 separate times where what happens?

[Tim Mackie]

10 moments in the story where the phrase. And God said.

[John Collins]

And God said.

[Tim Mackie]

And then there's a quotation of something God says. Yeah, so God speaks a total of. Yeah. 10 times.

[John Collins]

So God speaks 10 times 10 words.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah, totally. Exactly. Yes. So if the 10 words in Exodus are world building, a moral universe, then in the seven day creation story, that is another world building story building the cosmos.

[John Collins]

Very literally world building.

[Tim Mackie]

Literally a world building story about Yahweh building the world.

[John Collins]

So the ten words to Moses are a world building of your moral framework. And the 10 words in Genesis is God creating the cosmic framework.

[Tim Mackie]

Framework for everything. Yeah. Yeah, that's right.

[John Collins]

Okay, wow. Interesting.

[Tim Mackie]

And the 10 words that build the moral cosmos that are given to Moses are built on, or they're filling out the implications of the 10 words that created the cosmos as it were.

[John Collins]

Okay, what does that mean?

[Tim Mackie]

Yes. Yeah, maybe. I think it was a bit of what I was trying to say a couple minutes ago, but probably in clunky language, that the first word is I am Yahweh. Your Elohim.

[John Collins]

Yeah.

[Tim Mackie]

So your view of ultimate reality actually is what determines, I think, almost all of our conscious choices and behavior, whether we know or unconscious choices and behavior. I think that might be too general about a statement of human psychology. But for the most part, we go about our days making decisions based on what we think is the case about reality.

[John Collins]

There's so much information coming into our bodies.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah.

[John Collins]

We have to interpret it through a framework.

[Tim Mackie]

Yes, that's right.

[John Collins]

And so you are always kind of interpreting through what you kind of expect. You kind of have to.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah, we all are actually making decisions every day based on what we think is really true. And what we think is really true might not be what we think we think is true. What we think we think is true is what we tell ourselves.

[John Collins]

But our behavior communicates what we really believe.

[Tim Mackie]

And so The Ten Commandments are and the seven day Christian narrative are creating a set of claims about what is really true about the world we inhabit. And if you really believe another human is a sacred image of God, of transcendent value, not only not taking their stuff is a natural consequence of that, but then helping them care for the gifts God has given them will also follow. I think that's more I'm going for. When you said earlier, a few minutes ago, as we talked through them, they became compelling to you, the Ten Commandments in a new way. Is that what you're referring to? Like when you think through the value set underneath them, the moral universe they create. Is what you were saying earlier that you found that compelling?

[John Collins]

I found it shifting the way I viewed reality.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah.

[John Collins]

Like tinkering my framework in small and large ways so that now the way I kind of exist in the world felt different.

[Tim Mackie]

That's right.

[John Collins]

Felt like, oh, I think about things different. I don't know if I mentioned this, but you, in the Do Not Steal conversation, you describe that moment. You're on Mount Tabor, running, and you saw the Patagonia.

[Tim Mackie]

Oh, yeah.

[John Collins]

So you kind of. You told that whole story and then

[Tim Mackie]

the whole little, like, jacket.

[Camden McAfee]

Yeah.

[Tim Mackie]

The jacket that somebody left on the

[John Collins]

bench and should that be mine? And that whole conversation in your mind, it was maybe just a week after that or two. I'm running through my park.

[Tim Mackie]

Oh, near your house?

[John Collins]

Near my house, yeah.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah.

[John Collins]

And There was a $5 bill on the trail. And because we had just had that conversation, I just kind of stopped and I kind of took it and I folded it nicely and I just put it in the crook of a tree. And I was like, if someone comes back to find it, they'll find it right here.

[Tim Mackie]

They'll be so stoked.

[John Collins]

Yeah. It just felt like the most natural, right thing to do.

[Tim Mackie]

I see. You didn't have to convince yourself.

[John Collins]

I didn't have to. I didn't have to have the.

[Tim Mackie]

I had to convince myself not to pick up the. Well, we had just had the conversation.

[John Collins]

That's funny.

[Tim Mackie]

Okay, guys.

[John Collins]

I was living in this new universe in a new way. Through the 10 words.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah.

[John Collins]

And it didn't feel like a rule. It didn't feel like, oh, cool, now God's pleased with me. Or I checked that off the list. It just felt like, cool. I get to participate in something more significant.

[Rachel or Zach or Sam (BibleProject community members)]

Excellent.

[Tim Mackie]

You're describing what I have experienced and what I think the 10 words are supposed to do. Okay. So if the ten words in the seven day Creation narrative. And what God first says to the people of Moses at Mount Sinai, if they're world building, that means they're also. They're aimed at shaping a people to live in a certain way, which is what's happening at Mount Sinai. When God speaks the 10 words to Israel, he's what do you say? Enlisting them as his partners and representatives to the nations to be the kingdom of priests. And the most common word other than like, command or statute or rule or regulation that's used to describe how God is trying to get his people to live. Like, we might think of common Bible words that describe a right way to live, righteous or holy. But, like, right up there, high on the list of words that describe how the laws are aimed to get people to live is the word wisdom. And for me, this is the second insight I became to appreciate more about the 10 words is that they really are a key. What do you say? A watershed moment in the developing theme of how all of God's commands are aimed at instilling wisdom in God's covenant partners. Moses straight up says it in Deuteronomy chapter four. And I don't think we looked at this in our little overview back at the beginning. I think we ended at Mount Sinai.

[John Collins]

Yeah.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah. So after Mount Sinai and after the journey through the wilderness that went terribly the 40 years, Moses, right before the Israelites are about to go into the promised land, gives a set of speeches that we called the Book of Deuteronomy. And he reflects back on what happened at Mount Sinai and the covenant and what God said. And the way he describes that moment in Deuteronomy 4 is so interesting. He's like. He's retelling this past event. He describes it this way. He says, look, now that is to you all, in this moment, I am teaching you all statutes and just rules. So statutes is our word chokim, which means inscribed, like, etched in stone.

[John Collins]

Okay.

[Tim Mackie]

Just like the ten words were written on the stone tablets. And then just rules is the Hebrew word mishpatim.

[John Collins]

Oh, for Mishpat.

[Tim Mackie]

For mishpat, which means action you undertake with a public kind of consequence.

[John Collins]

Public good.

[Tim Mackie]

Public good, yeah. To bend a certain situation in my community towards righteousness, towards right relationships between people. So mishpat is the action you take to create a situation of righteousness.

[John Collins]

That made that way more clear than that's ever been in my mind.

[Tim Mackie]

Oh, really?

[Camden McAfee]

Yeah.

[John Collins]

That's great.

[Tim Mackie]

Oh, yeah.

[John Collins]

Because we've talked about mishpat versus tzedikah.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah. Justice and righteousness.

[John Collins]

Yeah. Justice.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah. Righteousness is like the standard. Justice is the thing that you do to get a situation up to the standard.

[John Collins]

Cool.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah. Okay, so I'm teaching you statutes and just rules, just as Yahweh, my God commanded me. Referring to the 10, referring to. And are all the commandments referring to everything God said and all the others. Yeah, exactly. So you can observe them or follow them. In the middle of the land where you're going as you take possession of it, you must observe these diligently, for this is your wisdom, this is your discernment before the eyes of all of the people who are going to hear these statutes. So they can say, whoa, this great nation is so wise. They are so discerning.

[John Collins]

What's the word for discerning there?

[Tim Mackie]

It's the word bina. You love this word.

[Rachel or Zach or Sam (BibleProject community members)]

I do.

[Tim Mackie]

You've come to love this word. Yeah, yeah. Discernment.

[John Collins]

Understanding is often.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah, understanding, it's been. Which was related to the Hebrew preposition bain, which is between.

[John Collins]

Yeah, to. Between.

[Tim Mackie]

To be able to tell between good and bad. Yeah, yeah. So discernment is actually a good English word for it. How do you know one thing from another thing? You have to discern.

[John Collins]

How do you between.

[Tim Mackie]

How do you between it? So Moses explicitly says the laws are wisdom, and they're aimed at teaching you how to tell between good. And he doesn't say between good and bad, but that's what discernment means. And then also the Israel is to become this wise people as a model of a new way of being a group of humans together before other people groups. He just says it straight up, wisdom. So wisdom isn't just about good advice. I think sometimes we can use the word wisdom in English to mean, like, advice.

[John Collins]

Interesting.

[Tim Mackie]

Like, yeah, it's probably good. It's good advice. You could take it or leave it. But to not follow wisdom is to be a fool and to choose death and destruction.

[John Collins]

Yeah, the fight against the cosmos.

[Tim Mackie]

Exactly. Yes. To live with wisdom is to live in a way that leads to life. Wisdom is life. Which is what he goes on to say at another point in Deuteronomy, at the end of Deuteronomy, when again, he's trying to convince this generation to be faithful to Yahweh in the land. In Deuteronomy, chapter 30, he has another way. He talks about the commands. This is Deuteronomy 30, verse 15. He says, Moses says, look, I'm setting before you today life and good, death and bad. These are the exact terms from the Garden of Eden story. Life and death, good and bad. You have the tree of Knowing, good and bad, and then the tree of life. And then if you eat from the tree of Knowing, good and bad, it will lead to your death. Yeah. So I am setting before you life and good, death and bad.

[John Collins]

Okay, hold on.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah.

[John Collins]

Whoa. Something just clicked for me.

[Tim Mackie]

Whoa. Oh, great.

[John Collins]

The tree of life is also about knowing good and bad, but in a way that leads to life.

[Tim Mackie]

Oh, yeah, that's right.

[John Collins]

And the tree of Knowing good, bad could have been called the tree of death.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah, totally. Yeah. So both are trees of knowing, good and bad.

[Rachel or Zach or Sam (BibleProject community members)]

Right.

[Tim Mackie]

And both are trees of life or death.

[John Collins]

Yeah.

[Tim Mackie]

So it's really a tree of life and a tree of death.

[John Collins]

Right, but they're not called that. And it's almost an invitation into that little riddle.

[Tim Mackie]

That's good. That's great. Yeah, that's right.

[John Collins]

Okay, so.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah, sorry. That's right. Because the tree of Life, you will learn the difference between good and bad by doing what God says.

[John Collins]

Yeah.

[Tim Mackie]

Actually, so in a way, that's. You just summarize what Moses is about to say. So restate the first sentence I'm setting before you today. Life and good and death and bad. What I'm commanding you. There's the reference to all of the now 600 plus commands in the Torah, starting with the 10 words. What I am commanding you today is to love Yahweh, your God by walking in his ways, by keeping his commands, his statutes, his and his regulations. Then you will have life and you'll become numerous. There's Eden language again. Be fruitful and multiply. Yahweh will bless you. There's seven day creation language in the land. You're going a few sentences later. I invoke as witnesses against you today, the skies and the land. There's Genesis 1 language. Oh. The cosmos itself bears witness. Bears witness to the truth. Hmm, that's interesting. Yeah, it's sort of like if you choose not to follow these commands, you're living out of sync with reality.

[John Collins]

The cosmos has the right framework.

[Tim Mackie]

The cosmos is the framework. Yeah, that's right. So the skies and the land are watching you as witnesses to the truth that I have set before you. Life and death and blessing and curse. So choose life that you may live you and your offspring by loving Yahweh. And how do you love Yahweh? Listen to his voice and cling to him, for he is your life. So love and listening, life and good and blessing and listening to the voice, those are all different ways of Talking about living by the commands of God.

[John Collins]

If I just think about the whole set of conversations we had, I felt like we were trying to practice that we were listening in a new way. We were trying to see how it points to life and how it leads to blessing. And so is that what we mean by keeping the commands?

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah, yeah. Remember? So the conversation we had about honoring your parents, which has the little addition to it, so that. So that you can live long days in the land. In the land Yahweh, your God is giving you. So it's not just that. Honor your parents and then Yahweh will hook you up, do something good for you again. It's an invitation to actually live in reality. And when you live in reality, things are likely to go better. Like actually just of their own cause, effect sequence that unfolds from that. And that is part of the language of goodness and blessing in the Bible or wisdom. You're living in tune with reality. So it's the difference between I'm doing it because God commanded me and I'm doing it because God loves me and is showing me the way to life, and I ignore his command at my own peril.

[John Collins]

What we're talking about is like having good, meaningful relationships.

[Tim Mackie]

Yes.

[John Collins]

Living in communities that are good and vibrant and beautiful. Finding meaning and purpose and joy in your own life in the midst of all of the craziness, like we're talking

[Tim Mackie]

about that kind of life, man. You know, after our conversation about bearing false witness, word number nine, I still remember the lunch conversation that we had afterwards. And we don't have to bring up the particular example that you did, but you brought up an example happening like that week in Current Events. And it was an example about a group of people in American culture who were being brought up in a very public way and spoken about in a way that wasn't true.

[John Collins]

And they were being scapegoated.

[Tim Mackie]

Very obvious that this group of people was being misrepresented in a political discourse type situation. And it wasn't even that hard to find out what was being claimed about this subcultural group. Wasn't true.

[John Collins]

Right? Yeah.

[Tim Mackie]

But it really negatively affected them. And it is a sad moment in American history, I think.

[John Collins]

Yeah.

[Tim Mackie]

So it's not just that God's command was dishonored, it's that it had a very public impact on a group of people that, according to the Torah, ought to be cared for, you know, in a society that lives by God's wisdom.

[John Collins]

So that's life. Finding life.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah. Finding life. Yeah. Another Part of the second insight about appreciating the laws as wisdom for life is something we've talked about many times over the years, especially in our how to Read the Bible series. And we did a section on the laws or how to read the laws in the Torah. But I just want to bring it up again because it connects to what we're talking about is that the laws in the Bible are much more like parables or case studies. Whether they actually came from law codes that were consulted by judges and so on, we actually don't know. And I'll just remind myself and you of this fact that we both found interesting years ago, which is the one time or the first time you that figures called Judges are brought up among the people of Israel. It's a story where Moses is just working overtime trying to help people discern between good and bad, and he's exhausted.

[John Collins]

Is this in numbers?

[Tim Mackie]

It's in Exodus and Deuteronomy is referred back to. But especially it's right as they get to Mount Sinai and Moses, father in law, comes up to him and is like, dude, you need some help. You got lines of people waiting to hear what you think about, like whether somebody stole someone's donkey or didn't or what they owe somebody. And he just says, you gotta get help here. So what Moses, father in law, tells him is select from the people, a group of men who have standing in the community. They fear God, they're men of truth, and they hate dishonest gain. So he doesn't say like they've gone to law school or they're not scribes, experts in like the law codes. Right. He's talking about their character. Yeah. And then he says, appoint them and let them do justice to the people. And then if they have things they can't solve, they can bring that to you. When Moses later in Deuteronomy looks back on that event, what he summarizes it is, yeah, my father in law told me, choose wise and discerning and experienced men from among your tribes. So his summary is essentially people who have wisdom and discernment, which is what he said all of the laws are designed to do for all of the people. Okay, so we're back to the laws are to teach wisdom, which means that they are not comprehensive as a law code, but they do have an internal self hyperlinking system of taking a core value that's stated in the 10 and then unfolding it in a set of case studies that begin to teach you the values underneath the law.

[John Collins]

You said something Provocative, though. You said laws are case studies, and then you call them parables. Parables.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah, yeah. Like little. Little narratives that imagine something happening and then teaching you moral wisdom from it. And we can see that process at work, and we traced it in some of our examples. So do not kill.

[John Collins]

Yeah.

[Tim Mackie]

One of the ten words. Well, gosh, there's killing and there's killing. Right. I mean, there's so many different ways that one human can be involved in the death of another human. Those two words in Hebrew, lotir tsach, don't provide any of that nuance. But you turn to the next body of commands in the Exodus 21:23, and there's a whole set of case laws about. Well, let's say, like, two guys are out chopping wood, and let's say one of them has a stick in their hand. Or let's say he waited in a bush hiding for him. Let's say he accidentally struck him. So it begins to unfold it. Like, you can see that the later cases within the Torah are spelling out the core value underneath, just don't kill. But then there are later moments in the Torah where God will actually say to put someone to death. And on the surface, you could say, well, is that a contradiction? Didn't God say, don't kill? But if don't kill is wisdom, then what it's teaching you as a value? And there might be times. And this is actually leading up to the third insight that I came to appreciate. There might be times where different commands come into conflict with each other. And what are you supposed to do then? And you could just say, well, contradiction. Like, God said this in one place, God said that in another place. And they're the opposite. The Bible's incoherent. Or it could be that the Bible's wisdom literature is. And if you learn the values underneath, you actually will begin to learn how to create a system of weights and measures for which values are relevant in which type of circumstance. Again, which is why Moses says, choose people who are wise as opposed to choose people who have memorized the code.

[John Collins]

The story that keeps going through my mind as we talk is Jesus with the woman accused of adultery.

[Tim Mackie]

Sure. Yes. Yeah.

[John Collins]

Where there is a command, if you're caught in adultery, to be killed.

[Tim Mackie]

Right.

[John Collins]

There's a law in the Torah.

[Tim Mackie]

Yes. Yep. Both the man and the woman are subject to capital punishment. That's in Leviticus.

[John Collins]

And so in this story, this woman is caught.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah. The man's conveniently nowhere to be found. Yeah. Like, that's predictable. Right.

[Rachel or Zach or Sam (BibleProject community members)]

Right.

[Tim Mackie]

In that kind of cultural setting.

[John Collins]

And so there's this little kind of moment of, what are we gonna do? And people saying, well, she needs to be put to death.

[Tim Mackie]

Right.

[John Collins]

And then Jesus finds a way through it. That's different.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah. Well, what he says is, let the person who's never committed sin throw the first stone. So it's like a riddle, but the riddle saves the woman's life. So he actually knows this woman committed adultery because what he says.

[John Collins]

And he knows the law and the Torah.

[Tim Mackie]

That's right. He says to the woman, don't do that anymore. And he knows the law in the Torah. So what's the value? The greater value. And the greater value is actually creating a community of mercy in that moment, which is that this woman made a mistake. And should every human be killed for every mistake that they make? And Jesus doesn't think so.

[John Collins]

And Jesus is the one who thinks he came to fulfill the Torah.

[Tim Mackie]

That's right. Yeah. And so I'm so glad you brought this up. I actually have another example. Okay, so here we're now moving into the third thing that I wanted to bring up, which is viewing the laws as wisdom, I think can help us have a deeper appreciation for. For moments when different laws in the Torah come into conflict with each other. And if you kind of view the Bible as a moral rule book, you'll see that as a contradiction.

[John Collins]

Yeah.

[Tim Mackie]

If you view the Bible as wisdom, you'll see this as a moment that's true to life, which is there are moments in life where my values come into conflict with each other. And how do I sort out the difference between the two? So here's another example. It's a little more. Well, I don't know what. I'll just read it.

[John Collins]

It's a little more in the weeds.

[Tim Mackie]

More in the weeds. But it's a great example in the grain. Oh, in the grain. In the grain. Matthew, chapter 12. Jesus on the Sabbath was going through some grain fields. He's walking from one place to another, and his disciples are with him. And this is key. They were hungry. And so this is two chapters after Jesus's speech to his disciples saying, let's go out. I'm going to share my vocation with you of announcing the arrival of the kingdom of God. Don't take food. Don't take extra money. Don't take extra clothes. When you arrive into town, people that are receptive will take us in and they'll feed us, which means that they were hungry a lot.

[John Collins]

Yeah. So they're going to Pack it to lunch. You're going to be hungry a lot.

[Tim Mackie]

They're going from one town to another. They're hungry just like Jesus was in the wilderness.

[John Collins]

Yeah, this feels very wilderness. Give me today my daily bread.

[Tim Mackie]

Yep, yep. So they're going by a grain field. And this would not occur to me as a way to feed myself, but it was a different time and culture. And they're like, dude, there's a bunch of ripe grain right there on the edge of the road.

[John Collins]

Yeah, you guess you can nibble on it.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah. So they started plucking stalks of grain to eat. So what's funny is it was a number of years ago that I did this for the first time in my life.

[John Collins]

You mentioned this to me.

[Rachel or Zach or Sam (BibleProject community members)]

Yeah.

[Tim Mackie]

Partially inspired by this story, because I was like, how much can you actually feed yourself?

[John Collins]

Yeah.

[Tim Mackie]

It's slow work.

[John Collins]

Is it?

[Tim Mackie]

They're really buried in there. But they're fat.

[John Collins]

They're fat little kernels in there.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah. And they actually. They taste good. I was like, this is cool. This makes sense.

[John Collins]

That's a great little road snack.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah, totally. It's like the ancient version of a trail bar.

[John Collins]

It's kind of like a sunflower seed.

[Tim Mackie]

Wheat seeds. Anyhow, the Pharisees see this and they say, your disciples are doing what is not authorized on the Sabbath. So first of all, you can pluck and eat grain from a stranger's field. In the laws of the Torah, there are laws about that. You can't get out a sickle, start harvesting. Harvesting. No, but you can. You can nibble because the assumption is you're not going to take that much. But that's not what the Pharisees are concerned about. They're concerned about doing a kind of work on the Sabbath. So this is a perfect example of according to one law, if you're hungry, walking by your neighbor's farm, pick some grapes, pick some grain, do it. It's cool. And then there's another law that says, don't work on the Sabbath. In fact, that's one of the ten words.

[John Collins]

Yeah.

[Tim Mackie]

So here we are, two commands in the Torah in conflict with each other.

[John Collins]

Are they working on the Sabbath by plucking grain?

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah.

[John Collins]

Are they breaking that command?

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah. Are they breaking the Sabbath command by feeding themselves when they're hungry? That requires some effort. That's the issue. The Pharisees think, man, you've gone too far. You should just be hungry. And Jesus disagrees. And he gives three reasons why. He looked at them and he says, you know, haven't you guys Ever read the Bible? Which is kind of a dig, of course. And he quotes a story that comes from what we call the scroll of First Samuel, chapter 21. And it's a moment when David was fleeing from Saul with a crew of people and they were all hungry. It's very similar. And they go into the tabernacle, the house of God, and they ate the sacred bread of the presents, which they were not authorized to eat except for the priests alone.

[John Collins]

Yeah, that's off limits for sure.

[Tim Mackie]

Totally. Now, this is really interesting because if you go read the story, David goes to the priest and the priest is like, well, we just replaced the bread.

[John Collins]

So it's like the 11 stars.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah, it's a day old. It's the seven day old.

[John Collins]

It's a seven day old.

[Tim Mackie]

The bread gets replaced every seventh day. So the very fact that David gets some of this bread means that it is the Sabbath day, because that's the day you change out the bread. So it's pretty subtle what Jesus is doing here, but what he's saying is David went in and he had this bread that wasn't technically allowed to him on the Sabbath. And it was cool. The priest gave it to him. It was cool. And you notice they were hungry. So not only is it bread given on the Sabbath, but it's priestly bread. So what he's saying is, here's a biblical story where hunger and need meeting someone's hunger is actually on equal value as resting on the Sabbath day. That's the move he's making here. Then he goes on to say, and you know, speaking of priests and the Sabbath, haven't you ever read in the Torah, do you know the priests are working every Sabbath? They're offering sacrifices, they're cleaning up, they're

[John Collins]

working hard, dishing out the bread.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah. And he's like, what? So is like God contradicting God by telling the priest to work on the Sabbath? And then, last example is, if you had known what this means. And he quotes from the Prophet Hosea, Chapter 6, I Desire Mercy and not sacrifice. If you really had internalized what Hosea meant right there, Jesus says, then you would not condemn the innocent.

[John Collins]

Yeah.

[Tim Mackie]

So now he's hyperlinking to Hosea 6. That's a whole rabbit hole. It's super cool. But the word mercy there in Hebrew is chesed, loyal love. And it gets translated in the Septuagint as Eloise or mercy, which is a major theme in the Gospel of Matthew, that Jesus is constantly talking about God's mercy. How good is Life for the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. That's in the Beatitudes. Mercy is a huge theme in Matthew. And at the conclusion of Matthew, when he really lays into the Pharisees, what he says is, man, you guys are so good at tithing and giving a tenth of all your crops, even your tiny little herb bushes, you give a tenth of. But you have abandoned the heavier matters of the Torah, justice, mercy and faithfulness. So in Jesus view, the commands are like surface manifestations of all these different ways you could apply their ways in the heavier matters, the heavier values. And in Jesus mind, justice, mercy and faithfulness are the values of the moral universe.

[John Collins]

That's the wisdom that you gain.

[Tim Mackie]

Yes, justice, mercy and faithfulness. And then in another place, he'll just say, love, love God, love your neighbor. When someone says, what's the greatest command? So this was very common in Jesus culture. And Jesus is engaged in this process of reading the laws as wisdom, pointing to a deeper set of values that he can say we're three justice, mercy, faithfulness, or even as one love. But it's built into the commands. This isn't Jesus innovating. He's just carrying forward this tradition of seeing all the commands as facets of a diamond, pointing to a common core. And the 10 commandments, excuse me, the 10 words, which are full of many commandments, are like 101 teaching, wisdom, creating a moral universe of what it means to be an image of God. And Jesus drew great wisdom and built off of it. You can see that in his teachings, especially the Gospel of Matthew, which is really focused in on how Jesus teachings develop the wisdom of the laws of the Torah. We haven't even brought up the Sermon on the Mount and the case studies.

[John Collins]

Yeah.

[Tim Mackie]

Of don't murder and don't commit adultery. But you can see Jesus doing it right there. The same exact thing we've been talking about.

[John Collins]

When we do theme studies, we often get to this point where Jesus becomes the climax of the theme in an embodied way. So if we think about this theme of the commands of God for life, is there anything you can leave us with? I mean, doesn't the Apostle Paul call Jesus the wisdom of God?

[Tim Mackie]

He does, yes. Yeah. In 1 Corinthians, and the context is so cool, we don't have time to talk about it. But what he says is the Messiah Jesus became for us. Wisdom from God and righteousness and holiness and redemption. Just four character traits of God as wise, righteous, holy and redeemer that he says the Messiah. Jesus is the embodiment of all this. And they kind of go together in a way. So wisdom is about discernment between good and bad, so you can choose the way into life. Righteousness is right. Relationships.

[John Collins]

Yeah, the fruit of it.

[Tim Mackie]

The fruit of it, holiness is about a life so dedicated to being in union with God's own life and power that you like, radiate with God's own uniqueness. And then redemption is about transferring someone out of a state of slavery and whatever, bad badness, and transferring them back into God's family and possession, goodness. So in a way the laws are designed to do that. And here Paul's just saying Jesus is that he's all those things in human form. And I guess the way the apostles did it, the way the apostle Paul said was that the pinnacle moment of all those values coming into one event is when Jesus surrenders his life over to death and when he's hanging on the cross, issuing God's forgiveness to the people killing him. Something about that moment is like the moment which he calls a display of God's love. Yeah, yeah. So Jesus said it and Paul also said it, love fulfills the law. So I'm not trying to be trite in just saying love, it's about love. But like the life story of Jesus and leading up to the cross, there is something there about Jesus elevating the well being of others, not just equal to himself, but above his own wellbeing. There's something there that the laws themselves are all pointing us towards. Which if we were to boil it down to one value and look to one person's life to incarnate that value. I can't think of any better story to tell than the story of Jesus. Yeah, I think that's what it means to be a Christian is to see Jesus fulfilling the law in that way. Yeah.

[John Collins]

And is there something about not just looking to Jesus as an example, but to truly be a wise person? It's like we need. It's great that we're doing this and we're trying and we're like wrestling with the words and we're letting it form us. But it feels like the true power of that is when we're connecting to something.

[Tim Mackie]

Ah, I see. Or someone.

[John Collins]

Or someone. Yeah, like beyond more than ourselves. That's actually then helping us do that.

[Tim Mackie]

Sure. Yes. Yeah. So here we come into, I think the point of the gospel narratives and the claims that they make is that Jesus is the model and example of like the true human fulfilling all the wisdom of God. And so is a model for us, and then he actually is the first one to be that and do that on our behalf. Whereas Paul will say for us to

[John Collins]

be the person who can fulfill the law through love.

[Tim Mackie]

That's right, yeah. And I will have a complicated history of living up to that value, often compromising it, often fulfilling it depends on the day, on the weekend, and what gives me hope for my own moral maturity or the world's or humanity's as a whole. And it's certainly not our track record, but yeah, I think that's also what it means to be a Christian. But to say there is one who was the ultimate, wise, loving human who lived in union with the commands and wisdom of God, and that is God become human on our behalf, and we actually will find true life and wisdom by joining our lives to his. And how does one do that? Well, it begins in the New Testament with baptism and entry into the body of Jesus people, and through the Holy Spirit, a personal connection to the life of Jesus. So that becomes hard to tell my life from his life. This is the life of the Messiah living in me, Paul says, and then through the Lord's Supper, around a table, taking the bread and the cup together with a group of people that I'm committed to living out this wisdom with. You can make it a lot more complicated, but in the New Testament, that's kind of the core right there.

[John Collins]

Should we add on then, though, the scripture? Oh, yes, the thing we've been doing.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah. If I'm taking Paul as a cute. As he tells Timothy, don't neglect reading scripture out loud together, the public reading of scripture so that you can learn God's wisdom. Yeah, yeah.

[John Collins]

So all those things then help us participate in union with Jesus to figure out how to do this thing.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah.

[John Collins]

Be a wise person.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah, yeah. And the Ten Commandments are such a wonderful, short, dense summary, but that don't themselves state what are the core values. They force you to ponder and work out the values underneath them, which is the joy of meditating on them. And that's the journey that we started. We didn't finish it. I don't think you ever finished a journey like that. But you and I did start this. And like we said at the beginning, I think we both were surprised by what we discovered. And I'm finding it's opening up new insights as I go elsewhere in the Bible, especially in the commands of the Torah. So this was really a great series. I really enjoyed doing this. Yeah.

[John Collins]

Thanks for listening to bibleproject podcast. We finished all of the main episodes in the series where Tim and I walk through the Ten Commandments. But next week we're going to have a special Hyperlink episode. We're going to listen to clips from past series that touch on and hyperlink similar themes to the Ten Commandments. Bibleproject is a crowdfunded nonprofit and we exist to help people experience the Bible as a unified story that leads to Jesus. And everything that we create is free because it's been paid for by thousands of people just like you. Thank you so much for being a part of this with us.

[Rachel or Zach or Sam (BibleProject community members)]

Aloha. My name is Rachel and I'm from Hawaii. Hey, my name is Zach and I'm from Greensboro, North Carolina. I first heard about bibleproject from their Read Scripture videos many, many years ago. I use BibleProject for learning more context about Bible stories. I use BibleProject for my own personal study as well as preparing for sermons and message prep for my church. My favorite thing about Bible Project Project is the simplicity in which they point people to Jesus and the story of Scripture. We believe the Bible is a unified story that leads to Jesus. Bibleproject is a nonprofit funded by people like me. Find free videos, articles, podcasts, classes, and more on the BibleProject app [e-mail] hi,

[Camden McAfee]

my name is Camden McAfee. I'm from Minneapolis and I work on our content integration team here at bibleproject. We take our existing content and then look for ways that we can integrate it into other platforms and places like the YouVersion app. I first heard about the podcast when I got sick with the flu back in 2018 and I was like, what am I going to do with my time? And I found like 10 episodes of the podcast and I was hooked after that. One of the things that the podcast gave me was permission to be curious and to ask those questions that I previously had in the back of my mind that I didn't think you should bring to light and be able to hear a hard question asked about the Bible and to say, wow, that is a great question. There's a whole team of us that make the podcast come to life every week. For a full list of everyone involved in this episode, check out the show notes wherever you stream the podcast and on our app. See ya.

[Rachel or Zach or Sam (BibleProject community members)]

Sam.