The third commandment says "You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name." Exodus 20:7
I have found several different explanations of what "misuse" means here.
One is using the name of God along with swear words. Another is using the name of God while living a life of sin. One claim is that removing the actual name of God(Yahweh) from the bible is also taking his name in vain.
The argument for the last one is that God chose to put his name in scripture more than 7000 times. It is incredibly presumptuous at the very least for us to remove it. If God considered his name important enough to make a commandment regarding it then it is important indeed.
The Bethel Church of God has a good article posted on this subject. They make the point that using Gods name while not obeying God is misusing his name. They also point out that if you take an oath using Gods name and then tell a lie...that is a misuse. And that anyone who claims to represent God but do not "practice what they preach" are dishonoring God.
All of these are good points. The only thing I am certain of is that I need to be more careful. Much more careful. And ask for forgiveness more often.
HalleluYAH,
ReplyDeleteThe word that we need to understand correctly is the word vain. This is the Hebrew word sheva. This word literally means empty and vain actions are empty of substance. This word can also be understood as "falsely," in the sense of being empty of its true substance. This idea can be seen in Shemoth/Exodus 23:1: "You shall not utter a false report." The word false is the very same Hebrew word sheva.
Now that we have a more complete understanding of the words in the passage we are able to make a more Hebraic interpretation.
"You shall not represent the character of [Yahweh] Almighty falsely."
So, what does this mean? In another study we saw that when it says "almighty Yahweh created man in His own image" it is in fact saying that Yahweh had placed within us a representation of himself. This representation is His shem or character and we are to show this character to others. If however, we represent that character falsely, in other words live our lives contrary to the character of Yahweh, then we are violating this command.
Sister be happy always,keep smiling.
Excellent post, Elle! There are many ways in which we can misrepresent God...I agree, we need to tread very carefully!
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