If you're like me, then you've spent your whole life in the church. And if you've spent your whole life in the church, then you've surely heard about the Ten Commandments before. We grew up with them displayed on the walls of our Sunday school classrooms, and perhaps in the stained-glass windows of our sanctuaries. We have heard sermons, lessons, and devotionals based on them. Perhaps we've even seen a movie or two about them. Why, then, would a preacher want to return to such well-worn material?

First, we need to return to them precisely because the Ten Commandments are so familiar. You see, once something is familiar, we run the risk of no longer paying careful attention to it.

When a place is familiar, we stop exploring it. We may no longer look carefully at the picture that is famili…