The Ten Commandments Christians Do Not Number the Same Way: Scripture, Tradition, and Exodus 20

Many Christians grow up believing that “the Ten Commandments” are a fixed list: ten short statements, numbered from one to ten, known throughout Christianity in essentially the same form.

Then they open Exodus 20:1–17 and read the passage for themselves.

For some, the experience is surprisingly disorienting.

The biblical text does not appear as the familiar numbered list they learned as children. The prohibition concerning images may seem much more prominent than they remember. The Sabbath commandment speaks specifically of the seventh day rather than simply of “keeping holy the Lord’s Day” or “holy days.” And when Christians from different traditions compare their lists, they may discover that even the numbering of the commandments is not universal.

This can lead to an important question:

What exactly are the Ten Commandments: the words found in Scripture, or the traditional Christian formulation through which many of us learned them?

The answer requires an important distinction. The underlying commandments are found in Scripture. But the way Christians divide, number, summarize, teach, and interpret them has been shaped by different traditions.

Understanding that distinction can help Catholics, Orthodox Christians, Lutherans, Reformed Christians, Evangelicals, Pentecostals, and other believers understand one another more accurately—and return to the biblical text with fresh attention.

Begin with the text: Exodus 20

Exodus 20:1–17 begins:

“And God spake all these words, saying,”

— Exodus 20:1 (KJV)

What follows is not printed in Scripture as a numbered catechetical list.

The text proceeds through a series of divine commands: Israel must have no other gods; must not make and worship idols; must not misuse God’s name; must remember the Sabbath; must honor father and mother; and must not kill, commit adultery, steal, bear false witness, or covet.

Scripture itself later refers to these covenantal words as ten. Exodus 34:28 speaks of “the ten commandments,” while Deuteronomy 4:13 and Deuteronomy 10:4 likewise refer to the ten words written on the tablets.

But Exodus 20 does not insert the numbers 1 through 10 beside the individual clauses.

That seemingly small fact matters.

Jews and Christians have not always agreed about exactly where one commandment ends and the next begins.

The commandment about images

One of the most striking passages for a Christian reading Exodus 20 directly is Exodus 20:4–5:

“Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath… Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them.”

— Exodus 20:4–5 (KJV)

A Christian accustomed to a Catholic catechetical formulation may wonder:

Where is this commandment in the list I learned?

It has not disappeared from Catholic Scripture.

Rather, in the traditional Catholic and Lutheran numbering, the prohibition concerning images is treated within the commandment against other gods and idolatry.

In much of the Reformed tradition, by contrast, these are numbered separately: having no other gods is the First Commandment, while the prohibition concerning images becomes the Second.

This difference affects the numbering of everything that follows.

To retain a total of ten, the Catholic/Lutheran tradition distinguishes the final prohibitions concerning coveting in a way that the Reformed enumeration does not.

So Christians can read the same biblical passage and still speak of a different “Second Commandment.”

The disagreement is not primarily about whether Exodus 20 belongs in Scripture. It concerns how its clauses should be organized into the biblical ten.

Does Exodus 20 prohibit Christian images?

The question becomes more significant when we move from numbering to practice.

A Christian may reasonably read Exodus 20 and ask:

If God forbids carved images and bowing before them, how can churches contain crucifixes, statues of saints, or icons before which people kneel, pray, light candles, or make gestures of reverence?

Christians have answered this question differently for centuries.

Catholic and Orthodox theology does not understand Exodus 20 as an absolute prohibition against producing any image whatsoever.

One reason comes from Scripture itself.

Only a few chapters later, God commands Moses to make images of cherubim for the Ark of the Covenant:

“And thou shalt make two cherubims of gold…”

— Exodus 25:18 (KJV)

Likewise, in Numbers 21:8–9, Moses is instructed to make the bronze serpent.

If Exodus 20 meant that every representation of a created being is intrinsically sinful, these passages would create an immediate difficulty.

Catholic and Orthodox traditions therefore understand the central prohibition as one against idolatry: creating or treating an image as a god and giving a creature the worship belonging to God.

Catholic and Orthodox theology subsequently developed distinctions between the worship owed to God and forms of veneration or honor directed toward saints and sacred images.

Not all Christians have found those distinctions convincing.

Many Reformed Christians have historically interpreted the commandment more restrictively and have been deeply cautious about religious imagery. Some Protestant churches consequently contain very little sacred representational art.

The disagreement, therefore, is not simply:

“One side accepts Exodus 20 and the other rejects it.”

Both appeal to Scripture.

The disagreement concerns what Exodus 20 prohibits and how other biblical passages should govern its interpretation.

The bronze serpent provides an important biblical test case

The bronze serpent is particularly instructive.

In Numbers 21, its creation occurs at God’s command.

Centuries later, however, we read something remarkable about King Hezekiah:

“He brake in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it.”

— 2 Kings 18:4 (KJV)

The object itself had a legitimate origin. Moses had made it under divine instruction.

Yet when it became an object of improper religious devotion, Hezekiah destroyed it.

This episode complicates both overly simple positions.

The Bible does not teach that every religious image is necessarily an idol, since God himself commanded certain images to be made.

But neither does it allow the sacred origin of an object to guarantee that its later religious use is legitimate.

Something originally permissible can become involved in idolatry.

That is an important principle for Christians on every side of the debate.

Then there is the Sabbath

Another surprise awaits the Christian who compares a memorized catechetical list with Exodus 20.

The biblical text says:

“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.”

— Exodus 20:8 (KJV)

It continues:

“But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God.”

— Exodus 20:10 (KJV)

Yet most Christians worship principally on Sunday, the first day of the week.

Catholic catechetical language may summarize the commandment in terms of keeping the Lord’s Day and holy days, while Protestant formulations may preserve the explicit language of the Sabbath but interpret its Christian observance differently.

Here again, simply quoting the short traditional form of a commandment can conceal a much larger theological history.

Christian Sunday observance is connected with the resurrection of Jesus, New Testament references to Christian gatherings on the first day of the week, and the historical development of Christian worship.

Different Christian traditions disagree over precisely how the Old Testament Sabbath command applies under the New Covenant.

The important point is that the familiar Christian formulation is already an interpretation of how the biblical commandment applies to Christians.

Scripture and tradition: the deeper question

At this point, the issue becomes much larger than the numbering of the Ten Commandments.

It raises one of the fundamental questions dividing Christian traditions:

What authority determines Christian doctrine and practice?

For Roman Catholicism, Scripture cannot simply be separated from Sacred Tradition and the teaching authority of the Church. Scripture is the Word of God, but Catholic theology understands Scripture and Tradition as belonging together within the transmission of divine revelation, with the Magisterium serving an authoritative interpretive role.

Eastern Orthodoxy also reads Scripture within Holy Tradition, though its understanding of ecclesial authority is not identical to the Roman Catholic model.

The Protestant Reformation placed particular emphasis on the supreme normative authority of Scripture, commonly expressed through the principle of sola Scriptura.

This does not necessarily mean that Protestants reject every tradition.

Protestant churches themselves possess confessions, theological traditions, liturgies, interpretive histories, and inherited practices.

The crucial question is one of final authority.

In classical Protestant thought, traditions are subordinate to Scripture and must be corrected when they contradict it.

Catholic and Orthodox Christians, meanwhile, generally reject the idea that Scripture was intended to function independently of the apostolic and ecclesial tradition within which it was transmitted, recognized, interpreted, and proclaimed.

That difference profoundly affects how Christians approach passages such as Exodus 20.

Why an Evangelical or Pentecostal Christian may react differently

This distinction can become especially visible in conversations between Christians formed by catechetical traditions and Christians formed by Bible-centered Evangelical or Pentecostal traditions.

A Catholic may instinctively think of “the Ten Commandments” as the familiar ten-item formula learned through catechesis.

An Evangelical or Pentecostal Christian may instead respond:

“Read Exodus 20.”

That response can initially sound as though the two Christians are discussing different commandments.

Often they are not.

They are approaching the same material through different frameworks.

One begins with a traditional catechetical formulation and relates it back to Scripture.

The other may insist on beginning with the complete biblical passage before accepting any later summary of it.

Neither observation by itself establishes which theological framework is correct. But recognizing the methodological difference explains why two sincere Christians can use the expression “the Ten Commandments” and nevertheless understand the conversation differently.

A useful principle: always return to the full passage

Whatever Christian tradition we belong to, there is considerable value in reading the complete biblical text rather than knowing only its abbreviated catechetical form.

A summary is useful for memorization.

It is not a substitute for Scripture.

Reading Exodus 20:1–17 and the parallel Decalogue in Deuteronomy 5:6–21 allows us to see details that abbreviated lists inevitably omit.

It also permits an important distinction:

What does the biblical text actually say?

How has my Christian tradition interpreted that text?

Why does my tradition interpret it that way?

How do other Christian traditions interpret it, and what biblical arguments do they offer?

Those are different questions.

Confusing them makes Christian disagreement harder to understand.

Separating them makes serious theological discussion possible.

The question is not whether Christians have traditions

Every Christian community inherits ways of reading Scripture.

Even a church that strongly rejects “tradition” in favor of “the Bible alone” necessarily has teachers, assumptions, vocabulary, worship practices, preferred interpretations, and a history.

The more precise question is therefore not:

“Scripture or no Scripture?”

Nor even simply:

“Tradition or no tradition?”

It is:

What authority should tradition have when interpreting Scripture, and what happens when a believer believes that an inherited tradition does not correspond to the biblical text?

Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran, Reformed, Evangelical, Pentecostal, and other Christian traditions do not give exactly the same answer.

And the differences are consequential.

Read Exodus 20 again

Perhaps the most constructive response to discovering these differences is not immediate suspicion of another Christian tradition.

It is to reopen the Bible.

Read Exodus 20:1–17 without stopping at the familiar abbreviated commandments.

Then read Deuteronomy 5:6–21.

Notice what God commands.

Notice what the text emphasizes.

Notice the prohibition of idolatry and images used in worship.

Notice the Sabbath.

Notice the language surrounding coveting.

Then compare what you have read with the way your own church teaches the Decalogue.

The purpose need not be to prove immediately that one Christian tradition is right and another wrong.

It can begin with a simpler and more demanding objective:

to know which words come from the biblical text, which formulations come from later Christian teaching, and why Christians have interpreted the relationship between the two differently.

For a believer, that distinction matters.

Because tradition can help us understand Scripture—but Scripture should never become invisible behind the familiarity of tradition.

---

Scripture quotations are from the King James Version (public domain), consistent with the site's English Bible pages. Descriptions of Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran, Reformed, Evangelical and Pentecostal positions are concise summaries of broad traditions; individual churches and denominations may formulate these questions differently.