Q and A on the 10 Commandments (Pt 2)

Q. What’s the other problem with my original question? Do you have an issue with my quoting of St Paul? He did say, after all, “you are not under law, but under grace” (Romans 6). That is sacred scripture, after all! To me, it clearly says that the 10 Commandments aren’t necessarily obligatory for Catholics.

A. You’re taking Saint Paul’s statement out of context. I can make the Bible say anything I want it to, by plucking an individual verse out of its’ surrounding context – and context in many ways determines meaning. There’s an old saying among preachers – “A verse taken out of context becomes a pretext for a proof-text”. That’s just not good hermeneutics (biblical interpretation). If you actually go back and read the whole of Romans 6, you’ll find that Paul is emphatically NOT saying that because we live in New Covenant times that we don’t need to care if we sin or not. He writes, “Are we to continue in sin so that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him in baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:1-4). We died to sin through our baptism, which was like our “wedding’ to the divine bridegroom, Christ. To continue intentionally in a lifestyle of sin after baptism would be tantamount to committing adultery on one’s honeymoon.