Herbert W Armstrong

Plain Truth Staff  

I have been taking my boys to school and escorting them home again to keep gongs of hoodlums from beating them up . My neighbors tell me this will make sissies of them, and that I should let the boys shift for themselves. What should I do?

   Give your children every possible opportunity to make decision for themselves; and teach them to think quickly so they can learn to avoid strife by outthinking other boys. Provide only the bare minimum of protection in dangerous streets.
   Teach the boys also that they should strive to become strong and healthy. Have them eat a well-balanced diet of wholesome, nourishing food for the development of strong bodies and minds. Make sure they get sufficient sleep and as much strenuous exercise as needed.
   Good body-building exercises are wrestling, tumbling, swimming, calisthenics, and track work. If they can excel in some form of clean sport, that accomplishment will diminish their troubles at school because everybody likes a champion.
   The path to championship will also develop in them characteristics which will help them to become staunch, persevering, dynamic Christians after they are mature.
   In Proverbs 22:6 we are commanded to train our children in the way they should live when they are mature.
   We are also commanded to "Do violence to no man" (Luke 3:14). God requires, then, that you teach your sons not to become involved in fights.
   They should do nothing more than to put up a guard to ward off a blow, or take other protective action that will harm no one.
   In Deuteronomy 6:4-9 we are commanded to diligently teach God's way to our children — day-in and day-out — to keep them and ourselves constantly aware of the benefits of God's right way of life. Teach your children to be alert, dynamic, to influence others by their example — to be respected by others, not to be sissies.
   Do not just stop at teaching your sons to be peacemakers. Teach them the reason for God's way — that we are to love all men, even those who hate us.
   Remind them that Christ, our perfect example, suffered abuse without fighting back (I Pet. 2:21-23), even though He was so strong and healthy that He certainly was physically able to put up a good fight. He showed his manhood by keeping self-control, not losing his temper, by the amount of abuse He was able to take, not by the amount of violence He could do.

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Does Exodus 34:28 mean that Moses, not God, wrote the Ten Commandments?

   This verse is often misunderstood.
   Notice what this verse says: "... And be wrote upon the rabies the words of the covenant, the ten commandments." Some have assumed the word "he" in this verse refers to Moses — that Moses wrote the Ten Commandments on the tables of stone.
   This assumption is absolutely untrue!
   Notice Exodus 24:12. God told Moses: "Come up to me into the mount... and I will give thee tables of stone... and commandments which I have written." God "gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God" (Ex. 31:18). In Exodus 32:16 we read: "the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of GOD, graven upon the tables." Moses broke these first tables of stone (Verse 19). Then God commanded Moses: "Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first: and I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables, which thou brakest" (Ex. 34:1).
   Here God plainly said He would write them again.
   Near the end of the 40 years in the wilderness, Moses rehearsed in the ears of the Israelites the things God had done for them. In speaking of the great works of God, Moses said: "These words the Lord spake unto all your assembly in the mount ... And he (God) wrote them in two tables of stone, and delivered them unto me" (Deut. 5:22) . Those were the first tables of stone, which Moses broke when he came down from the mount and saw the people reveling in idolatry. Moses then repeated to the Israelites in Deuteronomy 10:2, 4 the fact that God wrote the Ten Commandments again.
   GOD, not Moses, who wrote the Ten Commandments both times and gave them to all Israel. Those who claim that Moses wrote the Ten Commandments on the tables of stone are denying the Word of God!

Plain Truth Magazine

March 1962

Vol XXVII, No.3