Image: 1768 parchment by Jekuthiel Sofer emulating the Ten Commandments at the Amsterdam Esnoga synagogue.
As we come to our conclusion on the Commandments, I would like to begin by thanking you for exploring these further with me. To borrow a phrase, it is “most certainly true” that the more we delve into God’s Word, the more we uncover. As Luther once put it, the Scriptures are “an infinite wisdom, which could not be exhausted were we to spend our whole lives in learning [them].”[1]
And sometimes the most profound wisdom is found in the simplest things. Everything God requires of us is contained in these Ten Commandments, which Jesus simplifies further into two: love God and love the neighbor. Luther elaborates,
“They are the true fountain from which all good works must spring, the true channel through which all good works must flow. Apart from these Ten Commandments no action or life can be good or pleasing to God, no matter how great or precious it may be in the eyes of the world…It seems to me that we shall have our hands full to keep these commandments, practicing gentleness, patience, love toward enemies, chastity, kindness, etc., and all that is involved in doing so. But such works are not important or impressive in the eyes of the world.[2]”
However, we are often captivated by other standards of success and greatness, particularly the standards of our 21st century capitalistic society, which sees faith in terms of market share and influence. In fact, it sees most everything in those terms. It asks questions like these: How many followers do we have on social media? How can we bring in more revenue? How can we get more people to come through the doors? How do we attract the right staff and volunteers? How can we make a big impact in our community? Is it time to buy a fog machine for the praise band? I will pause for a moment and offer a caveat: there’s nothing wrong with any of these questions, even the fog machine one. Knowing the answers to them can be helpful, but that’s only if our mission and purpose in the gospel are clear. The world often the answers to these questions as ends in themselves. Why strive for more people, more money, and more power? Well, to get more people, more money, and more power, of course!
But the standards of God are much different. They’re humbler. No one is going to put a name on a building for caring for a child or elderly parent (4th Commandments). No one is going to clap and cheer for telling the truth (8th Commandment)—in fact, in some circumstances, we may be severely punished for doing so. No one is going to offer a reward for sitting with someone dying of cancer (5th Commandment) or volunteering at the nursing home. No one is going to be too impressed by letting go of a grudge (also 5th Commandment). Being content with what we have (9th and 10th Commandments) is often seen as naïve. And these days, going to worship on Sunday morning (3rd Commandment) instead of spending it in other ways may bring disapproval and disappointment from some people. And yet, these are the works that are truly pleasing to God. Without the small ones done out of love for God and neighbor, the big ones don’t mean so much. The apostle Paul put it another way, “…if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains but do not have love, I am nothing” (1 Cor. 13:2).
The source of real greatness is the love of God for sinners like us. When God spoke the Word to his people at Mount Sinai, that was the love of God, as terrifying as it must have been for them. Even in the warning that God will visit the iniquity of the parents on the children to the third and fourth generation of those that hate him but will show steadfast love and mercy to the thousandth of those that love God and keep his commandments, the love of God is present. We hear that and think, “How horrible and unfair of God.” But we may do better to read this warning as a promise of mercy. God’s wrath is limited but God’s mercy is unlimited. God’s wrath is terrible but his mercy always wins. And here’s a little secret: you don’t get one without the other. Without God’s judgment on sin as revealed in the suffering Son, there can be no mercy. Without God’s judgment, God would just let the world continue on its merry path to destruction. Rather, the greatness and mercy of God is revealed in the weakness and suffering love of God the Son—Jesus Christ—for us and for the whole world.
Jesus is the source of greatness. And as we look at his life, death, resurrection, and ascension, we can see how unusual it all is. Jesus is not the one any of us would have cast in the role of Messiah and Savior. Hollywood would never choose a short, olive-skinned Galilean Jew; in fact, they rarely do so for the “Jesus” movie and film roles then or now. Their Jesus is usually tall and handsome, with smoldering eyes. No one would have picked the kind of men that Jesus did: a rogues’ gallery of fishermen, tax collectors, insurrectionists, and malcontents. Jesus’ works, rather than just healings and feedings, would have included far more resurrections and great acts of power, perhaps including driving out the hated Roman occupiers. Which brings me to my last point: no one would have chosen a humiliating, excruciating death as the central plot point. Yet, Jesus fulfilled all that his Father called him to do, for us, as humbly as he did it. To the outside world, he appeared to have failed. The “wheel of the world,” as the Lutheran scholar Albert Schweitzer once put it, “turned and crushed him”.[3] Yet his Father and their Spirit rose him up, not to appear to everyone, which would have been how we would have written it, but to some women, his disciples, to groups of the faithful, and lastly to Paul. This is truly a strange kind of greatness.
But it is the kind of greatness that saves us. It is the greatness of obedience to God. And it reminds us that we don’t need to chase after the standards that the world has. We don’t need to have the biggest church or the most money or the most influence. What we are called to do is for the sake of the gospel, carried in humble acts of love for the neighbor. Those are what please God most of all. Amen.
© 2026, David M. Fleener. Permission granted to copy and adapt original material herein for non-commercial purposes.
[1] “Lectures on the Psalms of Degrees”, WA (Weimar Edition of Luther’s Works), 40/III, 11.
[2] Robert Kolb, Timothy J. Wengert, and Charles P. Arand, The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2000), 428.
[3] Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus.
