Ten Commandments or Ten Suggestions?

I vividly remember my first visit to Rome. Strangely, what struck me the most was the Italian idea of a red light. At red lights, we slowed, but we didn’t stop. We just kept oozing until cars or busses that were bigger than us brought us to a halt; once we were back to cars our own size, we threaded our way through the mayhem to the other side.

Accidents were common. It wasn’t unusual to see two drivers outside their cars, fists raised, yelling at each other in punctuated Italian.

Our host was an American who had lived in Italy for several years. Remembering our American sensibilities to traffic law and order, he tried to explain the Italian perspective on traffic lights: “In Rome, traffic lights are not absolutes; they’re just good suggestions.”

It’s not hard to recognize a society with a casual attitude towards traffic lights. Nor is it difficult to recognize one with a casual attitude towards God’s Law. Without agreement on a higher moral authority than our own interests, the biggest, the brightest, and the strongest win at getting their way at the expense of the weak and the slow.

God’s Law is much more than good advice. It is a statement of reality—the reality of a universe based on self-sacrificing love. If we allow God to give us new hearts—hearts cleansed from selfishness and capable of loving others—we will feel perfectly comfortable living with this reality. This is what God means when He says, “I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them.” Heb. 10:16.

But if self-love is the controlling interest of our lives, God’s moral absolutes will be inconvenient to keep. They will get in the way of our desires and become a burden. At best, they will be good advice for how people should treat us, but certainly nothing for which we should be held accountable.

A good suggestion is just that—something to consider, but not something to obey. And certainly not something to die for. Viewing God’s Law as good advice or a list of good suggestions leaves us with another problem. The Bible says that “sin is the transgression of the law.” 1 John 3:4. But if we treat God’s Law as something negotiable, something we can pick and choose from, what happens to our definition of sin? If we won’t commit ourselves to an absolute moral standard, then we have no way to determine what is good or evil.

A world built on the law of self interest is a world filled with injustice, hatred, broken hearts, dishonesty, and greed. Who would want to live in a world like this? Look around you. You are in one. Thankfully, however, we do not have to choose to live by its spirit. Jesus demonstrated by His righteous life how to live the Law of heaven in this world. He taught His disciples to pray, “Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.” This means that it is possible for us to live the will of God right here.

Ten Commandments or ten suggestions? The choice is yours. How you view God’s moral Law reveals by which reality you choose to live—the reality of selfless love or the reality of selfish convenience.