/Many years ago I was traveling on business, and at the end of the day, called home to my wife to tell her how my day went. I’d visited a company that made generators, called Onan.

There was a long pause. She finally asked, “Don’t they know what that means? The sin of Onanism?” This brought a smile to my face, as I had not considered this interpretation. I hope the Sin of Onanism is not really a sin, since it is so frequently done by men and women all over the world. 😉

This leads one to wonder, what actions could really be consider sinful? And why do people commit things usually thought of as sinful? Let’s start with the Ten Commandments, after all, and compare them with what Jesus said.

Jesus does not seem to care much about commandments 1 through 4, and 10. The logical computer-programmer person in me has always thought the first commandment in not monotheistic. It’ says you can’t have any gods ahead of the Lord, but doesn’t say you can’t have any secondary gods. One suspects this is more carelessness on the part of the scribes – it can’t be too easy carving stuff into stone. 

But all in all it suggests that we can have all the paintings and statues of Jesus and God that we want. And we can keep Vince Lombardi as long as we remember he’s toward the back of the line.

When asked about the greatest commandment (Matthew 22:37–40), Jesus gives a powerful summary: 

• Love God with all your heart, soul, and mind 

• Love your neighbor as yourself

He says all the other commandments, which he listed in Matthew 19, hang on these two. In other words, every rule points away from cruelty and back to love and kindness.

Jesus goes on to criticize excessive legalisms: Jesus says in Mark 7:15, “Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.” He then elaborates on the sorts of things that can come from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile a person.”

Jesus does not list cruel words explicitly, but I suspect his reference to deceit and slander would apply to the cruel things we sometimes say.

Obedience isn’t about legalism—it’s about relationship with others. He teaches that the spirit of the law matters more than rigid rule-keeping. A simple way to understand it is that Jesus takes the commandments from: 

• Arbitrary rules to follow to a life shaped by love 

• External behavior to inner transformation 

• Onerous obligation to a relationship with the world

Jesus doesn’t hand you a checklist—He gives you a mirror. The commandments are not just about what you do with your hands, but what lives in your heart. If you love God deeply, and love others genuinely, you won’t break the commandments—you’ll fulfill them. And in my experience, you will have a happier life each and every day – you will walk in the light, not the darkness.

But you should still wash your hands before eating, if possible.