Christian religion is canonical. It is built not only on sincere and deep faith, but also on specific laws, common truths, which, through holy people, were transmitted by God to ordinary people to atone for their sins and gain eternal life of the soul in paradise after death. That is why all followers of Christianity need to know the meaning of the main terms and events in the history of their religion.
Commandments: the meaning of the term
Before you begin to study the history of the emergence of the commandments and the subsequent development of Christianity, it is necessary to understand what the meaning of the word "commandment" is. It, of course, has a religious meaning and is used mainly to refer to certain holy postulates transmitted from Jesus Christ to people. So, the commandments are a certain prescription regarding the moral life of a person in accordance with religious norms. This word also has a second meaning. A commandment can be a rule, a law, a provision on any norms.human life, not related to religion. The use of this term can be found in poems, odes, poetry or prose of high style, since this word is a means of expressing pathos in the text.
The story of the ten commandments
Christians are known to have received the knowledge of the Ten Commandments of the Lord from Moses, the son of Abraham. God appeared to the future prophet at the foot of Mount Horeb in the form of a burning bush and commanded to free the Jewish people from the power of the Egyptians. Pharaoh did not want to let the slaves go, so the Lord sent ten Egyptian plagues to his country for disobedience. Moses led his people across the Red Sea, the waters of which parted by divine will and let the Jews through to the other side. The army of the Egyptians died in its waves, unable to catch up with the runaway slaves.
Later on Mount Sinai, the Lord revealed to Moses the ten commandments, which later became the canons of life for the Jewish people.
The Ten Divine Commandments
The Ten Commandments of God are as follows:
- Thou sh alt have no other God but Me.
- Don't make yourself an idol.
- Don't just say the name of the Lord your God.
- Remember the Sabbath day, keep it holy.
- Honor your father and your mother.
- Thou sh alt not kill.
- Do not commit adultery.
- Don't steal.
- Do not slander your friend with false testimonies.
- Do not covet your neighbor's wife.
In these testaments, the Lord calls people to mutual love, respect,honesty, as well as love for God in response to God's love for man, his creation. The fulfillment of the commandments is very important, because thanks to this a person will be able to save his soul and find eternal rest in paradise after death for his righteousness during life.
The meaning of the Lord's commandments
- The meaning of the first commandment is the covenant of the Lord that God is one, that a Christian cannot worship any other deity.
- The second commandment is directly related to the first, because it refers to the worship of a person to anyone other than God, which a righteous Christian should not do in any case.
- The third covenant means that a person should not pronounce the name of the Lord just like that, if he does not put into his words a sacred meaning, reverence for God.
- The meaning of the fourth commandment is a covenant that people perform all their daily duties on the first six days of the week, and devote the last, seventh day to serving God (prayers, awareness of their sins, repentance for them). The fact is that the seventh and last day of the week used to be called Saturday.
- The fifth commandment obliges people to honor their parents, who gave them life, fed, raised and educated.
- The sixth commandment says that a person should not kill other people, because they are all God's creations. To kill what the Lord has created is a grave sin, one of the biggest in the Christian religion.
- The seventh commandment warns a person against carnal sin as one of the most serious. Lordwarns people against this sin, unless it is connected with subsequent childbearing.
- The Eighth Testament says that you should never take someone else's, what is not given to you.
- You can not slander other people, exposing them in a bad light in the eyes of society. So says the ninth commandment.
- The meaning of the last commandment is that in no case should a person commit the sin of betrayal, namely, to desire the wife of his friend, because this sin is one of the worst, if not the most.
The commandments of Christ
The commandments of Jesus Christ are no less important for any believer than the postulates listed above. These canons not only say what a righteous person should or should not do, but also what place people occupy on earth ("You are the s alt of the earth", "You are the light of the world"). They give people an idea about many aspects of life (for example, who the Lord calls blessed and who should be judged for sins) rather than a code of laws, but nevertheless they are also a must-read for every believer.
