NCF Sunday Worship

The first two commandments at first glance seem to us stronger than this 3rd commandment. It makes sense we should only worship the true God and not false gods. We also have no problem with the true God commanding how He should be worshipped. It is the 3rd commandment we seem to reduce to simply staying away from a few vain statements. We miss how extensive this commandment is regarding our speech when referring to God. To take His Name in vain means to treat as empty, worthless, to use for no good purpose. The Jews were so fearful of using the name Yahweh they replaced it with “Adonai”—Lord. (LORD in caps in our English Bibles always translates Yahweh. Lord with only the first letter capitalize translates Adonai.) We do not need to be superstitious about using the name Yahweh, but we must not misuse it by swearing empty or false oaths in His Name. Yahweh is the self-existent One. The One who is sovereign over all things and therefore how we use His Name matters.