Week of Sunday, October 4, 2026
The Ten Commandments — Exodus 20:1-2
God doesn't want us to get hurt
The Big Idea
Memory Verse
"Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding."
The verse the publisher runs for four weeks straight. It arrives here first.
Conversation Starters
For the dinner table or the car line this week.
- Which of the ten do you think is hardest for a grown-up?
- What is a rule in our house that is really about keeping somebody safe?
- What is something that hurt you that nobody could see?
Family Activity · 10 min
The Rule Behind the Rule
Pick three house rules — bedtime, screens, shoes off, whatever yours are. For each one, everybody guesses what it is actually for. Not "because I said so": the real reason, which is almost always that somebody once got hurt or nearly did. Parents answer honestly, including the rules you have stopped being able to justify. You are allowed to retire one.
Pray Together
God, thank you that your rules are for us and not against us.
What We Did Sunday
We learned that God does not want us to get hurt. The Ten Commandments got taught as ten ways not to get hurt rather than ten ways to be good — and the room spent as long on the hurts nobody can see as on the ones you can.
What they learned Sunday
Ten rules, and not one of them is about being good
The lesson did not treat the Ten Commandments as a list of ways to be good. It treated them as a list of ways not to get hurt — and it spent as long on the hurts nobody can see as on the ones you can. Using somebody's name like a swear word hurts a relationship. Lying bends something you cannot bend back. Wanting what other people have costs you everything you already have. At the end the room named ways the rules get broken while a string of paper people was cut apart at the folds — and when it was unfolded, everybody fell separately.
- Were the rules about being good, or about not getting hurt?
- Which one do you think is hardest for a grown-up?
- What is a rule in our house that is really about keeping somebody safe?
Chaplain America
A mountain on fire, and a short list.
Sunday night
Exodus 20:1-2
And God spoke all these words, saying, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
Around the table
This Sunday: ten rules, and the reason for them. Not ten ways to be good — ten ways not to get hurt.
What is a rule in this house that exists because somebody got hurt once?
Sunday opens with somebody showing a scar and telling the story. That is genuinely how the lesson starts.
What is the story behind one of your scars?
Nothing to prepare tonight. Tomorrow is a long list. Do not front-load it.
Today the Ten Commandments got taught as ten ways not to get hurt. Four of them are about God before one word is said about behavior.
How many of the ten are about God rather than about people?
Some hurts do not leave a mark. Sunday made the turn from scraped knees to the other kind — the true thing said cruelly, the wanting that eats you.
What is something that hurt you that nobody could see?
The last one happens entirely on the inside. It is the only one nobody can catch you at, and it explains most of the other nine.
What is something somebody else has that you catch yourself wishing was yours?
Wednesday asked whether God is a party pooper, and took the question seriously before answering it. The answer was not that rules are secretly fun.
What is a rule you thought was pointless and later understood?
This week's mission
Find the reason
Pick one rule this week — at home, at school, anywhere — that you think is pointless, and find out what it is for. Ask the person whose rule it is. You are allowed to still disagree afterwards. You are not allowed to skip the asking.