Having discussed prayer, the interior life of all Christians, in Lesson Twenty-Eighth, the Baltimore Catechism No. 2 now turns to the exterior rule of life: the Ten Commandments.
While they were given by God to Moses in the Old Testament, the Ten Commandments are not superseded by the New Covenant but fulfilled. They are summed up in the two great commandments of Christ: to love God with our whole heart, mind, soul, and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves.
The questions are numbered consecutively with Lesson Twenty-Eighth. For more information and links to other resources, click on each question below.
310. Q. Is it enough to belong to God's Church in order to be saved?
A. It is not enough to belong to the Church in order to be saved, but we must also keep the Commandments of God and of the Church.311. Q. Which are the Commandments that contain the whole law of God?
A. The Commandments which contain the whole law of God are these two: 1st, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, with thy whole soul, with thy whole strength, and with thy whole mind; 2d, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.312. Q. Why do these two Commandments of love contain the whole law of God?
These two Commandments of the love of God and of our neighbor contain the whole law of God because all the other Commandments are given either to help us to keep these two, or to direct us how to shun what is opposed to them.313. Q. Which are the Commandments of God?
The Commandments of God are these.- I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt not have strange gods before Me. Thou shalt not make to thyself a graven thing, nor the likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, nor of those things that are in the waters under the earth. Thou shalt not adore them, nor serve them.
- Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
- Remember thou keep holy the Sabbath day.
- Honor thy father and thy mother.
- Thou shalt not kill.
- Thou shalt not commit adultery.
- Thou shalt not steal.
- Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
- Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife.
- Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods.
