Lessons in the Lutheran Confessions
Scripture Text: Genesis 2:18–24
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From the Confessions: The Small Catechism
The Sixth Commandment
You shall not commit adultery.
What does this mean?
We should fear and love God so that in matters of sex we are chaste and disciplined in our words and actions, and that husband and wife love and honor each other.
Pulling It Together
The Sixth Commandment is worded in the negative, but we readily perceive that “thou shalt not” (Exod 20:14 KJV) implies we must also do something. The commandment about adultery states what we must not do, yet indicates what we are to do. Instead of wandering outside of marriage for sexual satisfaction, one is to be joined to the partner whom God has created. This is the positive way of understanding the Sixth Commandment. It is hard to find a better word here than Wycliffe’s “clefe”—updated to “cleave” in the King James Version (Mark 10:7). Clefing or cleaving is not a dividing but a unity, an adherence to someone, a holding onto a partner, a tight-fitting loyalty, a faithful devotion and holding true to what has become “one flesh.”
Prayer: Thank you for the partnership in the gospel, Lord, which you give to all who are blessed with the vocation of marriage. Amen.
Click here for resources to learn the Ten Commandments.
The Spiritual Realms is a nine-session Bible Study series on Heaven and Hell and places beyond this world. Specifically, the study looks at the many “place names” that are found throughout Scripture, referring to spiritual realms of existence that underlie and comprise the universe God created. This Bible Study series is a challenging one, in that it explores realities of existence beyond what we know and experience everyday.
The study not only addresses matters of life, death, heaven and hell, it steadfastly affirms that Jesus Christ is at the center of all these things. Our ultimate faith and hope rest in Christ’s death and resurrection for our sake. We live in faith by the biblical promise that: “God raised the Lord, and will also raise us up by his power” (1 Cor 6:14).
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Author
Rev. Mark E. Ryman serves as Pastor for St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Salisbury, NC. Previously, Pastor Ryman has served other congregations in North Carolina and Ohio, as well as a call to specialized ministry with Sola Publishing.
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