Word for the Week: Whole Life, Whole Bible (11/50) – Covenant Commitment

‘Word for the Week: Whole Life, Whole Bible’, from London Institute for Contemporary Christianity, is a series of fifty emails designed to look at the main milestones of the biblical story, seeking to show how whole-life discipleship is woven through Scripture as a whole, from beginning to end. Here is the eleventh of the fifty emails, written this week by Margaret Killingray.

Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the Israelites: You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed, the whole earth is mine, but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation.
Exodus 19:3-6

Three months out of Egypt, this rag bag collection of ex-slaves in the desert of Sinai faced the awesome point in their history when the Lord began the process of forming a nation, fulfilling the promise he had made to Abraham and making a covenant with his people that resounds through the Bible. ‘You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people’, Peter told the scattered churches of East Asia (1 Peter 2:9).

This moment of life-changing commitment, like marriage or adult baptism, involved preparation, formal promises before kin and community, and the knowledge that breaking the promises would have far-reaching consequences. So the people of Israel washed, refrained from sex, and the Lord came to them with thunder, lightning and thick cloud.

Then he said, ‘I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me’ – the beginning of the Ten Commandments. Commandments that restore to them all that slavery in Egypt had damaged and destroyed – freedom from pagan gods, freedom to work with dignity and take time off, freedom to maintain proper family relationships, freedom to construct a framework of law and order, freedom to own houses and livestock and honour others’ ownership. Commandments addressed in the singular to individuals in community – each one having the responsibility to maintain the conditions for all to flourish. Commandments that are the walk of the redeemed, not the means of redemption.

But the calling to be a priestly kingdom, a holy nation, was a calling to be actively righteous, demonstrating the character of God to the world. The whole world is his and his people were to be a light to the nations, serving only him. Yet none of the people standing before the mountain in Sinai would enter the land promised to them; they would fail and the rest of the Bible shows how much failure there would be, until God sent his son to be the Saviour of the world, beginning a new covenant.

The calling to be a priestly kingdom, a holy nation, was a calling to be actively righteous, demonstrating God’s character to the world.

Margaret Killingray

For further reflection and action:

1. Read Hebrews 12:18-29 for a further reflection on the crucial significance of Sinai and for the glory the new covenant.

2. Reflect on your covenant commitments to spouse, children, family, fellow Christians and, perhaps, repair some of the cracks.

3. The Ten Commandments have a pretty bad reputation in today’s society, although few can remember more than one or two. All about ‘don’ts’, they say. Reflect on their positive encouragement to create societies of mutual support and flourishing.