The Top 10 List

If you have access to email on the Internet you probably receive a number of items every week sent by friends and family of a humors nature like jokes and funny pictures. Sometime they are slide shows of breathtaking pictures or messages with a religious or inspirational theme. Many involve a list of "Top 10" items of one category or another. I have my own list that I forward things like this when I get them and deem them worth the bandwidth to pass them on. This blog entry did not come from one of those emails although I wish it had.

As many of you know every so often a story pops up in the media about a fight over the Ten Commandments. Nonbelievers in the one true God along with groups who either just don't care or feel the need to "pick a bone" with anyone who speaks of religion have tried to propagate the myth that the founding fathers of our country wanted separation of church and state. The problem is they have tried to mutate statements about "separation OF church and state" into "separation of church FROM state". This my friends is just not historically accurate.

In the past I have had very little use to some of the people who habitat the airwaves espousing their version of the Gospel to the masses. Many I feel distort God's word some for financial gain and others for their own personal uses. They are not all bad and I actually enjoy listening to some of them preach. One of my favorites is Dr. David Jeremiah and his "Turning Point Ministry".
I get a daily email from his web site and today's message was about the Ten Commandments.


The message included a verse from The McGuffey Reader. If you know what the McGuffey Reader is you are dating yourself take my word for it. And the next time someone tells you that you can't post or display the Ten Commandments tell them that you are displaying a piece of English literature and give them the following.

Above all else love God alone;
Bow down to neither wood nor stone.
God's name refuse to take in vain;
The Sabbath rest with care maintain.
Respect your parents all your days;
Hold sacred human life always.
Be loyal to your chosen mate;
Steal nothing, neither small nor great.
Report, with truth, your neighbor's deed;
And rid your mind of selfish greed.
—McGuffey Reader


Good words to live by I would say.