Adult Confirmation: Ten Commandments--Second Table (part two)

After a break last week due to the flooding (my church was flooded), we finished up the 10 Commandments this week.

Sixth Commandment

Diagnostic Questions

• Am I content in my spouse (delight)? (married) 
• Am I content in my chastity (delight)? (single) 

Only commandment with a “do do” not a “do not do and do do”

Chaste – purity

Opposites:

• Impure 
• Lust 
• Indecent 

Lord gives us rules about having sex: appropriate only for a husband and wife with each other—and that’s it.

Sexual immorality is now such the norm that being chaste is considered immoral.

Sexual immorality is the only internal, rather than external, sin. It is a joining not only of flesh, but of spirit.

Intimacy is much more than our culture acknowledges.

Picture of…

• …responsibility: parent 
• …irresponsibility: sex 

Sex must be the act of someone responsible, not irresponsible. Not recreational, but procreational.

Different risks for sex:

• Man’s risk is minimal 
• Woman risks pregnancy 

Feminism should be about accountability for men, rather than “reducing” risk for women

Abstinence is the negative side of chastity. Continence is the gift of perpetual abstinence.

Can be broken in:

• Adultery: sexual activity with someone not your spouse 
• Fornication: any sexual activity by unmarried people 
• Divorce: two reason that are acceptable (but not necessary)— 
• Abandonment 
• Abuse (understood as a form of abandonment) 
• Adultery 
• Marriage: between one man and one woman 
• Polygamy is tolerated, but never okay (never ends well) 
• Homosexuality is not allowed 
• Pornography: sexually explicit writing and images (dulls our conscience so we become unaware of our sin—addictive like drugs and alcohol; doesn’t manifest itself like other addictions, masquerades as a secret) 

Chastity includes our eyes and imagination

There is a lot of guilt and shame associated with the sixth commandment: nakedness and depression; whether you commit sexual sin or have it committed against you.

“What I have called clean do not call unclean.”

Does marriage belong to the church or state? It’s God’s own separate institution, which means it is apart from both.

Seventh Commandment

Not just stewards, but owners

Commands us to be generous, sin is to be greedy (lust for stuff)

Laziness is a sin against the 7th commandment (diligence)

Anti-socialism commandment

• Inflation is theft (manipulation of value) 
• Usury in the realm of theft 
• Debt is destabilizing 

Economics is a continued meditation on the 7th commandment

Eighth Commandment

Anti-gossip commandment (intent to destroy reputation)

Establishes the judiciary and courts

Attempt to protect neighbor’s reputation in private first (then public if necessary); unless it is a false teaching, then address it publicly

Test for bringing sin to light: you risk your own reputation, be willing to bring it to court (Luther’s test)

Ninth and Tenth Commandment

Contentment

10th: enticement

Every sin starts with 9th and 10th commandments (faulty desire)

1st and 2nd + 9th and 10th are matters of the heart (others with mouth and actions)