The Ten Commandments

We watched The Ten Commandments over Easter. Apparently its the Easter movie, according to tv... and since culture takes their direction from tv... that's the law! Anyway.

If this is what Easter is about, then we miss the message. Easter is not about the law, about freedom from slavery, about Moses. It blows past that and goes so much deeper.

The movie itself is a loose adaptation of the Biblical account. It takes some necessary licence with the story, filling in dialogue and plot points for instance. But it also takes unnecessary turns as well. Its one thing to assume things and skip over things for the sake of time, another to say that something happens that didn't.

Now you can say, its a movie, who really cares what they did. Go ahead, I'll give you a second to actually say that... time's up. But. If movies are modern literature, then we must be very careful that we don't let our movies that tell Bible stories become our Bible. (See VeggieTales!) We must turn to the Word itself, see what it says, see how the movie varies from the written account and not the other way around.

And, since we're talking interpretation here. This movie presents as its central theme that the story of Moses is about people bowing to God's laws and not man's. That no one has the right to take away our freedom. Is this a modern reading? An American reading? A satanic influence? We have to be careful that we don't take minor life lessons that can be learned and make them the story. We have to read the Moses account and see what God is doing, not a humanity thing. God rescued his people from slavery. He presents the law to them so that they can have freedom from death. He offers freedom and life to all who trust and obey. Blood sacrifice was the only way to avoid death in Egypt, and a blood sacrifice is the only hope for me today. Praise God for Easter and the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord.