While watching a video on how to memorize the 10 commandments, a friend said “those are the Protestant Ten Commandments.” My first thought was, what? She made it sound like it was some sort of alternate list, but I had just heard them read out loud and they sounded correct to me, so I was a bit confused. Turns out she was right and I just wasn’t paying enough attention and the differences are subtle but very important so I wrote this out for confused catechists like myself.
How are they the same?
The two sets of commandments are the same in that they both come from the same source in Scripture, and they both have the same moral teachings and can be found in Exodus 20:1-17 and Deuteronomy 5:6-21. Both talk about the love of God and love of neighbor just like Jesus teaches us about the Greatest Commandment in Matthew 22:36–40.
So if you hear them out loud and don’t know their numbering, they will sound pretty much the same to you.
How are they different?
The main difference is that they use different numbering of the commandments. Even though this may not sound like much, that difference reflects a difference in theological interpretations and traditions of the Church.
Before I go into why the numbering is important, here is the list of commandments with both the similarities and differences. If you are a catechist and want a copy for your classroom, click here for a downloadable PDF.
As Catholics, we have traditionally divided the 10 Commandments into two sections. The first three commandments focus on our relationship to God and the last seven commandments focus on our relationship to our fellow man. In the protestant breakdown it becomes four commandments related to God and six related to neighbor.
First Difference
The first major difference is that Protestants divide the first Catholic commandment into two. The difference stems from a common Protestant belief that Catholics “worship” images and they are going so far as to create a commandment to cover that distinction. As Catholics we do not worship images but we do use images to remind us of the people that those images represent.
It is just like having a picture of your baby on your phone. Do you love the picture of your baby on your phone? Or do you love your baby and the picture on your phone just reminds you of the baby that you love? Catholics would all say it is the latter.
Second Difference
The second major difference is that Protestants combine what Catholics list as the 9th and 10th commandments into one. As Catholics, we keep these commandments separate because these are two distinctly different sins. Coveting your neighbor’s wife is the sin of lust and coveting your neighbor’s good is greed, two very different sins that require distinct reflection.
Again, I know that these things don’t seem that important, but they are. Whether you are a catechist or just curious about your faith, in order to be able to share your Catholic faith with others correctly, it is good to know what these distinctions are and why they exist. God bless!
