1. I Am the Lord Your God | 5 Minute Video
God Wants Us to Be Free
Although the First Commandment (“I am the Lord your God”) appears simple at first glance, it actually set into motion the most revolutionary idea in human history — ethical monotheism, the belief that there is one God whose main wish is that people treat each other decently. Dennis Prager explains that without this commandment, the following nine mean little. With it, the Ten Commandments becomes world-changing.
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Script:
What is the first of the Ten Commandments?
It might seem like an odd question, but it’s not. Jews and Christians give different answers. The reason is that what we know as “The Ten Commandments” is, in the original Hebrew, “The Ten Statements.” And since the Hebrew is the original, we begin with the first statement, which all religions agree, is: “I am the Lord your God who took you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.” This statement is so important that none of the other commandments make sense without it.
First, it asserts that God is giving these commandments. Not Moses and not any other human being. Second, God is the One who delivered you from slavery. Again, no human being did this, not even Moses. Therefore you have an obligation to me, God. And what is that obligation? That you live by the following nine commandments.
This is the beginning of what is known as ethical monotheism, the greatest world-changing innovation of the Hebrew Bible. It means two things. Ethical monotheism means that the one God — that’s monotheism — is the source of ethics, of morality. Morality, an objective code of right and wrong, does not emanate from human opinion; it emanates from God, and therefore transcends human opinion. The other meaning of ethical monotheism is that what God most wants from us is that we treat other human beings morally. None of the Ten Commandments concern what humans must do “for” God; pre-Ten Commandments religions all believed that people must do a lot “for” their gods — for example, feed them and even sacrifice people to them.
But now, thanks to the Ten Commandments, mankind learned that what God wants is that we be good to our fellow human beings. Even the commandments concerning not having false gods and not carrying God’s name in vain are ultimately about morality. The thing we can do “for” God is to treat all his other children decently. Every parent can relate to this. Parents — or at least healthy parents — have indescribable joy when they see their children act lovingly toward one another and indescribable pain when they see their children hurt one another. So, too, God, who is likened to our father in heaven, cares most about how we treat other human beings, all of whom are His children.
The third critical teaching of the First Statement — “I am the Lord your God who took you of Egypt, out of the House of bondage” — is the importance, and the meaning, of freedom.
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How about this killing, Dennis?
1 Samuel 15:2-3
King James Version
2 Thus saith the Lord of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt.
3 Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.
Thou shalt not kill. Unless there is a group of people that the Lord God wants to destroy completely. Apparently it is them acceptable to do so, even taking out weapons of war and hacking the "infants and the suckling" to death.
I'm not trying be provocative here. How do you justify the passage?
I have noticed that,as far as I know, in the Bible, God never imprisoned anyone. Jail and prison is something that humans created. This shows how God wants us to be free. It is like torture for a human being to be kept in a cage.
I would need to check what he said about the first " statement" in the Hebrew saying , "IAm the Lord your GOD who took you out of the land of Egypt" Also not all religons accept that, perhaps he meant all denominations of Christians and Jews.
I can't believe how clear this is and how much it makes everything clear. Thank you.
Prayer: "What god wants is that we be good to our fellow human beings"
Ghost of a random Midianite: "Well that would have been nice D:<"
What happens when people who calls themselves conservative Christians like Hillsongs Church or Jerry Falwell Jr. with Liberty University preach morality but not able to act on morality.
Who is the human being who has loved the Lord the most in the entire history of humanity? (selfless love)
I totally agree!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Exactly why I keep Sabbath
This statement only applies to the first 3
That was so thoughtfully and Explained thank you so much
I think you'll find that not all denominations within Christendom differ from the Jewish numbering of the 10 Commandments. I believe it is mainly the Roman Catholics that combine 1 & 2 and then split 10. I am not sure why but here is my thinking: In the summary of the "Ten Words" they don't want to have "Thou shalt not make any graven images…" That might confuse a lot of people who see a bunch of graven images in the church. What say you?
1. Boil thy water used for drinking and cooking, for the lord thy god has put tiny, invisible demons in it, that I created just to mess you up. Didn't have to, just thought it would make for fun times.
The 10 commandments were given to show us that we cannot keep them . Thats why we need Jesus .
Only under God's law can man be be free! The Torah is good like it's Creator. Jesus is the personification of ultimate freedom. The Holy Spirit is the best Teacher of the law.
Did god gonna judge us comparing to jesus
What if? "I AM" Is more of an, "inset name here" statement meant to imply, you the reader? It gives an entirely different perspective. These are slaves exiting bondage and venturing into unknown future, from a life of bondage. This is a code of ethics set forth for a people without previous ideas of self. Thou shall not steal is more aptly meant as, thou shall not take another into bondage. What could be more important to a newly liberated slave? Besides survival? I bet you, nipping bondage and slavery in the bud is ranked pretty high on the priorities list.
The First amendment says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise there of". The first commandment of the ten commandments specifically prohibits the free exercise of religion requiring all who read them to worship the Christian God of Moses. Not Jesus, but the god of Moses. The Hebrew God. The could not be more opposed to the Secular nation of the US.
I am the lord your God
Infinity symbols are synonymous with satanic worship.
God on the internet is the Devil make 7 wishes
The 10 commandments were taken from The Hammurabi Code. A code with over a 100 laws, created hundreds of years before the Jewish were such.
Also, Judaism is not the oldest monotheistic religion, but Zoroastrianism, which influenced Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
So, when you talk about god. Which one are talking about? There are 1000s of them!
Thanks for your useless information! Was very useless!
Well done. Too many never took the time to understand God cuz either they heard others say bad things about others experiences or never grew up learning to firm all your own opinions solely on your own reading, reaching out and living your path of wisdom before deciding things. God is love. The very concept of being commanded to love others instead of fight or sacrifice from a God came from the Bible. Impossible to oppose the idea unless your truly EVIL and wish malice on the world. Or IGNORANT and decided the concept must not mean good things cuz others who never luved it told them so fir so Long the never grew a need for self thinking. Be good. Love people. Jesus loved everyone barefooted or in sandals. Christianity is following jesus… not every chapter of every verse in a liberal since. If that message waS louder and wider early on. .more youth would come see more often. ( and more churches would gave more hacky sacks lol)
God gave us free will and then told us if we don't do what he says we're condemned to hell. What kind of free will is that?
Did God create man or did man create God? How old is God? If man has been around for about a million years why did he wait till the slavery in Egypt to reveal himself? Is the god of the Israelis or the Jews the true God? If he is is that fact or faith? When the commandment is Thou shalt not kill does that just apply to men or does that apply to God himself? If the Jewish god is the true God he certainly seems to be one of the meanest, self-centered, angry, vindictive, and hypocritical God of all. Thou shalt not kill yet he tells Abraham to kill his son? That shall not covet thy neighbor's wife. Yet what is the story of David and Bathsheba? Your God may be one of the best arguments yet for atheism.
God freed the slaves from Egypt and gave them 10 commandments on how to live… not one of the commandments being not to enslave people but instead how to treat slaves (Exodus 21).
This is a crock of shit btw
"god declares…"
What kind of person do you have to be, to "declare" some words, as the words of god? It seems a bit controling…
Just admit, that the bible condones stonings of innocent people, and praises murderers. Just like the "scripture" says.
We all can read, and we all have a brain for ourselves…
We can put 2 and 2 together.
Picking the "good" parts of your story, does not make the whole book GREAT. It's just a way for decent people, to point out the BAD parts of it…
The bible is anything BUT a moral book. IMHO just the oposite
You can talk about imaginary gods forever, but morality is developed gradually through evolution of human and societies, in order to live peacefully
Only reason prophets existed was to fight religion – religious people ignore this fact and create false doctrines. Religion is once again prominent and controlling – God needs to remind us again that we should not be religious.
“Freedom comes from moral self control.” – Yes it does. To bad that you don't need a God to be moral. You don't need a brain to be a follower of Prager U either.
I like a lot of Prager U vids. But this is terrible.
Why is there no archeological evidence to back up the very first statement. . . that the Hebrews were slaves or that over a million of them slogged across a small bit of land for 40 years without leaving a single artifact. And that if they had just followed the coastline they could have made the journey [around 250 miles] in a few months. It is unbelievable.
Religion is FAITH based, dictionary definition meaning: belief in religious dogma without evidence!!
There’s zero evidence of ANY god !!
There zero evidence of any mythical Bible fairytale stories!! Bible is 90% disproven by science & logic, historically inaccurate, exaggerated or just false
There’s no eyewitness or archaeological evidence of Jesus, as a historical and magical figure!! Nobody knows exactly when he was born or when he died, the earliest non secular being Tacitus or Josephus….which are highly debatable, many of Christians go to apologetics arguments never mention name Jesus or are just Christian forgeries
It’s sad that these dumb foolish people are easily ignorant to facts and easily manipulated & indoctrinated to believe in such utter nonsense
Well, first of all there is not a shred of archaeological evidence that any of the 7 plagues ever occurred in Egypt or that the Jewish people were ever held in slavery over there.
If God cares about human beings why did he not care about Egyptians? Were they not human beings then?
"One God is the source of morality"
This is absolute nonsense. Every society, even primitive ones, have moral codes. These are actually way much older than the Bible therefore older than Juadism and Christianity. And not only that, but writing a book that claims it's the "World of God" doesn't make it so.
How does "not having false Gods" (a rather partisan idea) and "not carrying God's name in vain" have to do with morality? To me it looks more like some God having problems with competition.
"He took the children of Israel out of slavery and into freedom. That is how much God hates slavery"
Does he really? Here, a biblical quote for your Prager.
"Slaves, be obedient to your human masters with fear and trembling. In sincerety of heart as to Christ"
– Ephesians 6:5-8 (a letter by Paul).
In the Old Testament as well as the New Testament examples of condoning slavery can be found and slave masters have actually used the Bible to justify their own actions.
"The founders of America based their entire view on this belief"
When the founding fathers wrote the Constitution they used the word prosterity, meaning just their "own kind" because at the time Black People and Native Americans were not included. They were not even American citizens and some of the founding fathers owned slaves themselves.
Why do you keep spreading all this misinformation Prager?
God to Christians/Entire Human Being:
You are no longer a slave now , so please remeber the 10 Commaands and DON'T do slavery !!
Powerful Christians : Alterized the 10 command and do slavery anyway.
God:My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined…………
YHVH so hated slavery that he relieved one specific group of slaves from one specific slave owner in an event that there's no clear evidence that it ever happened. Sounds to me like he really liked slavery as he kept it up, and even regulates it, in order to make it the specific slavery he liked best.
Remember, "God" is not a personal name; it's a job title. Say his name!
outstanding
I love God
This reminds me of Deuteronomy 24:18 (usually translated as "Remember you were slaves in Egypt"). Which in turn makes me think of how nutty political correctness has become where we are supposed to say "enslaved" as opposed to "slaves." I guess God was insulting His Chosen People in that passage, according to PC logic.
Thank you
Interesting that God delivered his people from slavery despite telling them to collect slaves from the nations around them who they could keep for life and who could be beaten so long as the beatings didn't kill the slave.
https://youtu.be/Mh9I56J3f4Q Howdy?