FALAITE FEPUELI 28, 2025

KEEP THE SABBATH, PART ONE

TAUHI ‘A E SAPATE, KONGA 1

EXODUS 20:8

"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy." 

‘EKISOTO 20:8

Manatu ‘a e ‘aho Sāpate ke tauhi ia ke tapu.

Throughout history, there have been well-meaning, earnest Christians who have, perhaps without knowing it, functionally believed that the Ten Commandments are really only the Nine Commandments. Somewhere along the way, some have decided that the fourth commandment is not like the rest of the commandments but rather is a relic that belongs in the past. In truth, though, the command to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy has abiding significance for us all, even today.

Why has this simple command fallen on such hard times? Some have claimed that its regulations and penalties were tied to the old covenant, so it must no longer be relevant. Yet we don't treat the other commandments this way. Others have said that the way Jesus spoke of being "lord of the Sabbath" (Matthew 12:8) diminished the commandment's significance and force. But what Jesus sought to overturn was not the Sabbath itself but the external rules of the Pharisees.

I suspect that what keeps most Christians from thinking of the fourth commandment as we ought to is simply that we don't like its implications. We don't like the way it intrudes into our lives, our leisure, and whatever else takes precedence in our hearts. And so we act as though this command is in a different category from the other nine. If we want to grasp the significance of the Sabbath and respond to it in a God-honoring way, we must embrace, as a conviction, the truth that God has set aside the Sabbath day as distinct from the rest. This was the case in the week of creation, with God resting on the seventh day and declaring it sanctified. The church, in the age of the new covenant, then changed the day from the seventh of the week to the first to mark the resurrection of Christ. In both cases, we see that the distinction of the day is woven into God's work of creation and redemption.

With that conviction in place, we can see that the day is not simply a day set apart from other days, but it is a day set apart to the Lord. If we don't see it this way, we will be tempted to view our spiritual exercises on the Lord's Day as something to "get over with" in order to "get on with" our week. If this is our mentality, we stand condemned by the fourth commandment.

The Sabbath ought to be treasured for what it is: a gift of a day on which we enjoy, uninterrupted by leisure commitments or (if at all possible) by employment, the privilege of God's presence, the study of God's word, and the fellowship of God's people. Seen like that, this command becomes an invitation: not only something we should do but something we will love to do. If this is not how you have been viewing God's Sabbath, then ask yourself: What's preventing you from honoring the Lord's Day? Take stock of your habits and receive the gift of the Sabbath. From next Sunday, be sure that your priority is not to make the Lord's Day convenient but to keep it holy.

HEBREWS 4:1-11

Bible Through The Year: Exodus 29-30; James 1

 TU‘APULELULU FEPUELI 27, 2025

DO NOT TAKE HIS NAME IN VAIN

‘OUA ‘E TAKUANOA HONO HUAFA

EXODUS 20:7

"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."

‘EKISOTO 20:7

‘Oua te ke takuanoa ‘a e huafa ‘o Sihova ko ho ‘Otua: he ‘e ‘ikai lau ‘e Sihova ‘oku ta‘ehalaia ia ‘a ia ‘oku ne takuanoa hono huafa.

If we were to take a poll asking people which of the Ten Commandments they regard as the least significant, I wonder if the “winner” would be the third. When compared to false gods and graven images, the third command doesn't seem like such a serious offense. But if the one who wrongly uses the name of God incurs guilt, then it must be important and we need to understand why.

Scripture is clear that God's name is precious and powerful. One place where we see this is in the encounters between God and Moses. In Exodus 33, Moses asks God to reveal His glory. His request invites a death sentence because it is not possible to see God's glory and live. But God graciously grants the request in a way that prevents Moses' demise, for He demonstrates His glory not by a physical manifestation but by revealing His name: "The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious" (Exodus 34:6; emphasis added). His name reveals His character, which in turn reveals His glory.

Earlier, in Exodus 3, God had revealed Himself to Moses in the burning bush. Moses had been tasked with a weighty mission and wanted to know what to say when people asked who had sent him. God told Moses to say, "I AM has sent me to you" (Exodus 3:14). By using a form of the verb to be to name Himself, God declared that He is self-existent, self-sufficient, and sovereign, depending on no one and nothing. Who else can claim such a name?

In declaring and disclosing Himself, God does not merely identify Himself, He reveals the wonder of who He is. So to misuse God's name is to misunderstand His greatness and glory. Only when we grasp this can we understand why the third commandment is so significant.

In what ways, then, might we break this commandment? For one, we break it every time we use God's name to strengthen our vows and promises, bringing down the name of divinity in order to make ourselves sound more believable (James 5:12). We also blaspheme God when we use His name in anger, in arrogance, or in defiance of who He is. We misuse His name when we utter falsehoods and use it to back them up. Perhaps closer to home, in every worship service we attend where we worship God with our lips only and not from our heart, we break the third commandment.

Only when we see the glory of God's name and when we use it in praise, love, prayer, obedience, and gratitude do we understand why our Lord Jesus taught us to pray, "Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name" (Matthew 6:9, KJV, emphasis added). His name is to be hallowed because it proclaims who He is, reveals His character, and is a strong refuge for all who call on it (Proverbs 18:10). And it is to be hallowed in the lives of His people--including in your life, as you bear the name of Christ and take it on your lips with reverence and love.

EXODUS 3:1-22

Bible Through The Year: Exodus 27-28; Philemon

 PULELULU FEPUELI 26, 2025

NO IMAGE ENGRAVED OR IN MIND

TAPU KE NGAOHI HA ‘IMISI KE TAKI HALA‘I ‘ETE HU

EXODUS 20:4

"You shall not make for yourself a carved 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." 

‘EKISOTO 20:4

‘Oua te ke ngaohi ma‘au ha tamapua, pe ha momo‘i fakatātā ‘o ha me‘a ‘o e langi ‘i ‘olunga na, pe ‘o māmani ‘i lalo ni, pe ‘o e tahi ‘i lolofonua.

If the first commandment -"You shall have no other gods before me" (Exodus 20:3) - deals with the object of our worship, the second commandment deals with the manner of our worship. What the second commandment tells us is that it is not enough that we worship the correct God; we must also worship Him correctly.

The clear and immediate meaning of the command is that God is to be worshiped without any visual symbols of Him. Why the prohibition? Because God is spirit: infinite and unfathomably great. No physical representation could ever do justice to His glory and grandeur. The problem with statues, shrines, and pictures is not that they don't look good but that no matter how good they look, they will inevitably blur the truth about God's nature and character. Such images tend to distract men and women from worshiping the true and living God, instead leading them to worship whatever representation is before them.

Yet the second commandment takes us beyond mere images and idol - making and into our own thought life. Our hands may be innocent of making graven images, but our imaginations seldom are. Any conception of God in our minds and hearts that is not derived from Scripture runs foul of this command.

When God gave instructions for the building of the temple, He ordered that the ark of the covenant, on which His presence would dwell, should reside in the Most Holy Place (Exodus 26:34). What was inside the ark? Perhaps most significant is what was not in it: it contained no visible representation of God. Instead, there were the two tablets of the Ten Commandments. It was as if God was saying to His people, as He says to us, Don't look for Me in shrines, paintings, or statues. I'm not there. Look for Me in My word.

And so we take our cues from God. If we want to worship Him - if we want to meet with Him and know what He is like - we must conform our minds to His word. Our own attempts to conceive of God apart from divine revelation will invariably fail. He has published His truth in His word, and so we are to tether ourselves to what is revealed there.

What's at stake in this is the integrity not only of our worship but also of our lives - because when people go wrong in their worship, they end up wrong in their living. Anything and anyone that encourages us to worship the correct God incorrectly will prove to be a detriment to our spiritual growth. What a tragedy it would be to embrace an image and miss the person of Christ, to sit at a shrine and miss the Savior, to worship a misconception and fail to know Jesus. Instead, resist the urge to modify God in your mind or conform Him to your own image, and be sure to know Him as He has revealed Himself.

ISAIAH 40:12-25

Bible Through The Year: Exodus 25-26; 2 Thessalonians 3

 TUSITE FEPUELI 25, 2025

NO OTHER GODS BEFORE ME

‘OUA NA‘A AI HAO ‘OTUA KEHE ‘I HOKU ‘AO

EXODUS 20:2-3

"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."

‘EKISOTO 20:2-3

2 Ko Au ko Sihova ko ho ‘Otua, ‘a ia na‘a ku ‘omi koe mei ‘Isipite mei he fale pōpula. 3 ‘Oua na‘a ai hao ‘Otua kehe, ‘o ua ‘aki Au.

‘Oua na‘a ke ma‘u mo au ha ‘otua kehe ‘i hoku ‘ao.(UESI)

Perhaps the most basic truth about the God of Scripture is that He is the only one. There is no other. This truth ought to simplify things for us because it teaches us that there is only one who is the worthy object of our love, loyalty, and devotion. But the hearts of men and women are not so easily instructed. And so it is necessary for God to give us the first commandment: "You shall have no other gods before me." The danger is not that there are actual other gods for us to worship but that we have a proclivity for making them.

On first glance, this first command is straightforward. To live for a god other than the true God would be like taking a second spouse while your first spouse is still alive and still happy to be your spouse. Worse, it would be like taking a second spouse who is in truth a figment of your imagination. It would be a breach of an exclusive relationship.

We must not kid ourselves that we are immune from the possibility of breaking this commandment. Many of us read it and picture people bowing down before statues or going through elaborate rituals, and those mental images assure us that we're not in danger of violating it. Yet the commandments are not restricted to outward actions but also relate to the disposition of our minds and hearts. From this perspective, we may not be as far from those mental images as we assume. We may not have statues to which we bow down, but maybe we have segments of our lives that we keep away from God, preserving them under the authority of some other little "deity" ourselves, perhaps.

Ask yourself: "Do I joyfully acknowledge God's comprehensive claim on my life? Is God in charge of my family, my work, my relationships, my money, my dating, my use of time?" Take a close and honest look to see if there are portions of life you try to keep from Him.

In addition to keeping things away from God, another form of danger is functionally replacing Him. When we put our family, our job, our hobbies, or anything else in the place that is God's alone, we violate the first commandment. To the degree that we allow anyone or anything besides obedience to God to direct our course day to day, we defy His law.

So we are not so safe from the possibility of breaking this commandment as we may think! While we must acknowledge the truth that there is one God, we must also beware our own ability to put things in His place. If we do not daily submit ourselves to Him and entrust the entirety of our lives to Him, something will take His place. We are made to worship. The question is, are you going to worship the living God or are you going to pretend there is another?

1 JOHN 1:8 2:3

Bible Through The Year: Exodus 23-24; 2 Thessalonians 2

 MONITE FEPUELI 24, 2025

THE GIVER OF LAW AND LIBERTY

KO IA ‘OKU NE FOAKI ‘A E LAO MO E TAU‘ATAINA

EXODUS 20:1-2

"God spoke all these words, saying. I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery." 

‘EKISOTO 20:1-2

1 Pea na‘e folofola‘aki mai ‘e he ‘Otua ‘a e ngaahi fo‘i lea ko eni, ‘o pehē: 2 Ko Au ko Sihova ko ho ‘Otua, ‘a ia na‘a ku ‘omi koe mei ‘Isipite mei he fale pōpula.

To faithfully read and respond to the Ten Commandments, we must first understand what they are and are not. We find clarity in the truth that lies at their head: "I am the LORD your God." This reminder of who God is precedes the instructions that follow. In other words, the I am of God's person grounds the you shall of His commands. He can command us because of who He is. The psalmist further expresses this: "Know that the LORD, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his" (Psalm 100:3). God created us, and His being our Creator grants Him rights and authority over His creation. Regardless of the efforts of our world to reject the creational handiwork of God and thus His authority over our lives, His role as our Ruler remains unthreatened. He has made us; we are His.

When we remember who spoke the law, we are in a position to grasp the purpose of the Ten Commandments as well as to understand what they are not.

First, the commandments are not a formal list of dos and don'ts given to restrict our personal freedoms. God is not some cosmic killjoy. In fact, if you wanted to provide a heading for the Ten Commandments, you could call them "Guidelines to Freedom." They do not restrict our freedom but rather give us a blueprint for joy, showing us how life works best. Second, the commandments are not intended as a ladder up which we climb to attain acceptance with God. No such ladder has ever existed! God brought His people out of slavery-from Egypt in the exodus, and from sin and death at the cross - before He called us to obey Him. So we obey because we've been "brought out," not in order to persuade Him to do so. Rather than being rules that save us, the Ten Commandments serve as a mirror in which we see ourselves, -revealing the depth of our sin and our need for a Savior - and they show how we can live to please our Savior. Third, the Ten Commandments have not been rendered obsolete by the coming of Christ.

When Jesus said that the two greatest commandments were to love God and love our neighbor, He was summarizing the Ten Commandments (Mark 12:28-31). What does it mean to love God with our heart, soul, mind, and strength? The first four commandments tell us. What does it look like to love our neighbor as ourselves? The final six commandments flesh that out. Jesus, master teacher that He was, summed up the ten with the two.

When you see all this, you are ready to read the Ten Commandments and let them transform your life. You must see the sin that the commandments reveal and respond in repentance and faith in the one who fulfilled the law and offers Himself as your Savior. He, the Lord Jesus Christ, will ensure that this law is not merely etched into your conscience but also inscribed on your heart. Give yourself to the Lord and His ways, and you'll find everlasting joy and liberty.

EXODUS 20:1-17

Bible Through The Year: Exodus 21-22; 2 Thessalonians 1

 SAPATE FEPUELI 23, 2025 

RELIGIOUS FORMALISM

TAUHI LOTU FAKATU‘ASINO PE 

JOHN 9:13

"They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind."

SIONE 9:13

Pea nau taki ia ki he kau Fālesi, ‘a e tangata na‘e kui mu‘a.

The great tragedy of John 9 is not that a man had been blind for years until he met Jesus, but that a group of men were left spiritually blind despite having seen the work of Jesus.

The healing and transformation of the life of the man born blind caused a great stir in his community. Presumably he had been so much a part of people's surroundings that it was easy to disregard him. Yet suddenly their normal daily experience was disrupted. The man who was once blind could now see perfectly well, and he was no longer asking for money (John 9:8-10).

Unable to solve this mystery, they presented the formerly blind man to the religious leaders, the Pharisees, to see if they could shed some light on what had occurred. What followed was not a conversation between the man and the Pharisees so much as an interrogation. Instead of rejoicing in his story, they challenged his testimony.

The reason for the Pharisees' harsh reaction, at least on the surface, was that the man had been healed on the Sabbath (John 9:14-16). The religious leaders were unable to rejoice in the restoration of his sight because they were blinded by their religious formalism. The forms and structures of religion that they boasted in were the very  things that proved to be a barrier to their faith in Jesus. They kept their lists of what was acceptable, and so they were unable to recognize the work of the God they claimed to worship, even when the evidence was quite literally (and miraculously) looking them in the face.

Religious formalism cannot face the dramatic impact that Jesus makes when He takes a person and turns him or her upside down - which is actually to turn them the right way up! Unwilling to acknowledge their own need for transformation and the truth that only a radical internal transformation gives significance to the religious life - religious formalists hide behind maintaining appearances. Nothing challenges the religious formalist more than coming face-to-face with someone who has had their eyes opened to the salvation that is found in Jesus.

The Pharisees' reaction to the blind man's healing teaches us, then, to beware of the dangers of religious formalism. A blind commitment to religion has the potential to keep us from Jesus, just as it did with them.

Have your eyes been opened to the salvation found only in Jesus? Or has your focus on religious performance prevented you from rejoicing in the wonder of God's amazing grace? Are you weighed down by religion's burden or rejoicing in the awesome, often surprising work of the Lord Jesus? Look to Him alone for salvation and accept that He will not be constrained by your assumptions, for then you'll find a joy, a transformation, and an excitement in the gospel that no amount of rule-keeping could ever provide.

PHILIPPIANS 3:1-11

Bible Through The Year: Exodus 19-20; 1 Thessalonians 5

 TOKONAKI FEPUELI 22, 2025

HEARING, BELIEVING, AND ACTING

FANONGO, TUI, PEA NGAUE 

HEBREWS 11:30

"By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they had been encircled for seven days." 

HEPELU 11:30

Ko tui na‘e holo ai ‘a e ngaahi ‘ā ‘o Sielikō, ‘i he hili hono ‘alu takai‘i ‘o ‘aho fitu.

If we desire to see fortresses fall, to see the gates of hell unhinged and laid in the dirt, to see pagan philosophies dismantled and the rampages of evil in our world torn down, we need to hear God's word, believe it, and act in obedience to it. In other words, we need to learn from Joshua and the Israelites at the walls of Jericho.

When God's people crossed into the promised land and reached the strategically vital city of Jericho, it was "shut up inside and outside because of the people of Israel. None went out, and none came in" (Joshua 6:1). Jericho was an impenetrable city. But the Lord came to Joshua and said, "See, I have given Jericho into your hand, with its king and mighty men of valor" (v 2). The means by which He would deliver the city to His people were detailed, and peculiar: they were to march round the city for six days and then seven times more on the seventh day, this time with the priests blowing their trumpets. In response to God's promise, Joshua called the priests and armed men of  Israel before him and conveyed the Lord's word to the people, who then "went forward, blowing the trumpets, with the ark of the covenant of the LORD following them" as they marched around the city (v 8).

Why would anybody in their right mind do such a thing? The only plausible explanation is that the people had heard the word of the Lord spoken, believed that it was true, and acted in obedience. If this plan had been absent the word of God, it would have been nonsensical. If it had been heard by people who lacked real belief, they would never have carried it out. Because, and only because, Joshua and his men heard God's message and put their faith in Him, they responded in obedience.

God's way so often is to make a promise and then issue a command that makes no sense without that promise. He promised Noah that a flood was coming and commanded him to build the ark. He promised Abram that He would give him a family and land and commanded him to leave almost everything he had ever known. He promised Moses that He would rescue the people from Egypt and commanded him to make demands of the most powerful monarch in the world. Faith hears the promise, hears the command, believes both, and acts in obedience.

If we want to exercise faith on a daily basis in order that, like a muscle, it may grow to maturity, we have to abide in God's word. We have to read it and ask, "What am I being promised? What am I being commanded? What will obedience look like in my life today?" This kind of daily communion with the Lord through His word strengthens our faith and produces steadfast obedience so that as we live our Christian lives, as we persevere through trials, as we obey God simply and only because we believe His promises to us, God says, I'll bring the walls down.

JOSHUA 6:1-20

Bible Through The Year: Exodus 16-18; 1 Thessalonians 4