The Ten Commandments and Algebra

I’m not one to make New Year’s Resolutions. I feel, among other things, that each day starts the beginning of a new year, and if there are things in my life that I need to change, why, one day is just as good as the next. On no particular day a while back, I decided I needed to spend more time studying my Bible. I’ve been working very hard since then to keep regular Bible study as a lifestyle. Last week, I actually dreamed about studying the Bible. When I woke up the next morning and remembered the dream, I was exhilarated. I mean, to intend to study the Bible on a more regular basis is one thing, but to actually have it on my mind so much that I dreamed about it…well, I was a little proud.

This very idea was the rationale behind Deuteronomy 6:4-9. Moses received the Ten Commandments from the Lord on Mount Sinai. The next instruction for the Israelites was to keep those commandments on the forefronts of their minds. Having laws like the Ten Commandments was new to the Israelites, as they never before had anything carved in stone (my apologies on the bad pun). They had to become intimately familiar with these commandments. They had to repeat these laws to themselves to memorize them. It was how they were supposed to teach their children the law as well: think so much about it that it consumes you.

If we’re studying something so much that it consumes our thoughts, we have a better chance of remembering what we’ve studied and actually putting it into practice. I remember a particular College Introductory Algebra final. My grade wasn’t the best because I had really bombed one test. The professor said she would drop our lowest test score and substitute in our score on the final exam…if she could tell we had really prepared for the final. I calculated my average, subtracting out that horrid grade and adding in an A for the substitution. It worked out; as long as I made an A on the final, I could have an A in the class. That final exam was practically all I thought about for two solid weeks. Test time came, and there wasn’t a single problem on that test that I didn’t know how to work. I told the professor after class that I had kept my end of the bargain. I was rewarded with an A for my final grade. But how much more important are our souls than Algebra?

I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who has ever said, “I don’t need to study the Bible more. I know plenty of it already.” Further, I don’t know that I’ve ever met anyone who has the whole Bible memorized. We’d all probably admit we need a greater understanding of the Scriptures. I know I do. And you know what? At the risk of sounding horribly cliché, we can do it if we put our minds to it.

“And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (Deuteronomy 6:6-9, NKJV)