2 or 10 Commandments?

Greeting, brothers and sisters in Christ.

Most of us learned the 10 commandments in Sunday School, as they are given in the Old Testament (Exodus 20:2–17, Deuteronomy 5:6–21)

1. You shall have no other gods before me.
2. You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; You shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
3. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.
4. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work; 1but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your manservant, or your maidservant, or your cattle, or the sojourner who is within your gates; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it.
5. Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which the Lord your God gives you.
6. You shall not kill.
7. You shall not commit adultery.
8. You shall not steal.
9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
10. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant, or his maidservant, or his ox, or his ass, or anything that is your neighbor’s.

But in Matthew 22, Jesus is quoted as saying we only need the two commandments that he specified.

37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.”

Does that mean Jesus was negating the original 10? Not at all! He just condensed them down into the sum of their parts. Check this out:

Keep the two commandments, and you’ll be keeping all ten!

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