The Ten Commandments

While the Israelites stayed near Mt Sinai, Moses ascended and descended Mt Sinai several times. It was after one such descent he brought back the 10 commandments from God. This occurred after Moses had already divided them up in groups and put rulers over the groups.

The ten commandments are pretty simple. The first four listed have to do with loving God and the second group with loving each other. Later on, Jesus Christ narrowed the ten down into the same two basic categories. 

As Moses was sharing them with all the people, they saw thunder and lightening, heard the noise of the trumpet and saw the mountain smoking. Scary! They were panicked:

Exodus 20:19And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die.

Moses's answer was comforting:

20 And Moses said unto the people, Fear not: for God is come to prove you, and that his fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not.

God wanted them to remember how he had brought them out of bondage.  He wanted them to know Him. He didn't want them to be afraid but He also wanted their respect (also written as 'fear') so that they would benefit from His love as he provided the best way to live. Remember all the complaining these guys had done. They almost went back to the grind again. Sin is missing the target that brings the best results.

God created this world.  I should think He knows how to run it best. If it were up to natural man, he would redesign all of creation (and continues to try to do this). These commandments are not grievous. Just love the God who has blessed us so much already and don't do your neighbor in.

In the gospels, there is a record of a rich young ruler (Matthew 19:16ff, Mark10:17ff, Luke 18:18ff) who asked about eternal life. Some of the commandments are mentioned in this dialogue between Jesus and the young guy, the ones dealing with loving one another. The young ruler says he had done all those commandments from his youth. Jesus establishes in that record at the very start that there is none good but God. He told the ruler that if he wanted to be mature, he should sell everything he had and give to the poor. This young man was proud of himself to the point of it being a stumbling block. I don't know what happened to this guy later on after the resurrection, but pride was a challenge to him as his life seemed to be all about him. Eternal life is based on "What I trust" rather than "What must I do".