The Ten Commandments were one of the first things I remember hearing about in Sunday School. To a kid, some of them are a lot easier to understand than others. The whole adultery thing isn’t exactly the kind of thing an old blue-haired church lady-type would want to have to explain to a bunch of six-year-olds, so they tend to gloss over some of them and focus on the “biggies” like “Thou shalt not steal” or “Thou shalt not kill.”

I knew I didn’t plan on stealing or killing, so I felt pretty good about those two.

The one I felt the best about was the third one, which tells us we are not to take the Lord’s name in vain.

For most people, that means one thing: using God’s name as a curse word. Specifically, that ultimate of all curse words, G.D.

It’s a word I’ve never used. I’ve never spoken it and I’ve never written it. As a general rule, if it’s language that can air on broadcast television, it’s generally acceptable here. Though G.D. has aired — intentionally — on a few occasions on broadcast television, it’s definitely on the forbidden list at my blog.

So for me, I grew up feeling like this commandment was a gimme. Piece of cake. I really only have to worry about the other nine, because this one’s a cinch.

But this past Sunday, while I was preparing for the men’s group I lead at my church, I was going over some notes about God that involved the first three commandments. And it occurred to me that I’ve really been missing the point of Rule #3.

It’s not that I think that using God’s name as a curse word is suddenly all right. I don’t. But then maybe that’s not what the real intent was when that rule was written.

When I checked a study bible that cross references Jesus Christ’s teachings of the application of the commandment, I was taken to three different passages.

The first was the one in which He was teaching His disciples how to pray. He used the phrase, “Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name.” The meaning here, of course, was that we are supposed to use God’s name in a praiseful manner.

The other two instances both talk about swearing, but not swearing in a profane way, but rather swearing in oaths.

In Matthew 5:33-37, Christ essentially says that we should live our lives in a manner that makes our word good enough as it is.  If we’re going to lie, yet attempt to use our faith to make the lie seem believable, that’s wrong.

I don’t think for a moment that this means we should refuse to take an oath on a Bible in a court case or anything like that; the court doesn’t know us, so they can’t know whether our word is worth a hill of beans.

But I do think that among friends, the point applies. I can think of a phrase I hear a lot that is really one of those innocent sayings. Two friends are having a discussion and one of them is talking about some unusual thing he read about. The other friend doubts him, and the first friend says, “I swear to God I saw it.”

If that person is always honest and never exaggerates, then why would he need to take that step? And as much as a phrase like that is used, does it really even carry any weight? That could be a case of using God’s name in vain.

The translation known as The Message, a contemporary language retelling of the Bible, makes the same passage even more clear:

“‘And don’t say anything you don’t mean.  This counsel is embedded deep in our traditions.  You only make things worse when you lay down a smoke screen of pious talk, saying ‘I’ll pray for you,’ and never doing it, or saying, ‘God be with you,’ and not meaning it.  You don’t make your words true by embellishing them with religious lace.  In making your speech sound more religious, it becomes less true.  Just say ‘yes’ and ‘no.’  When you manipulate words to get your own way, you go wrong.’”

Wow.  Saying you’ll pray for someone and then not getting around to it?  Yeah, I’ve done that. Not intentionally, I wouldn’t say that for someone if I didn’t intend to follow through.  But sometimes, I fail to follow through.

The other instance of Christ’s teaching on the subject talks about oaths made on the altar. You’re not taking an oath on the altar itself, He says, but on the God to whom the altar honors. If you swear on God’s thrown, you’re not swearing on a chair, but on the Supreme Being who sits there. I take this to mean that when we call upon things of God, we are really calling on God Himself; we should be careful and responsible when we do so.

But here’s the biggest point that occurred to me after some prayer about it.

Maybe the real meaning of taking God’s name in vain is even more simple than all of this: maybe it’s that all of us who call ourselves Christians are already taking God’s name by branding ourselves with it.

Everything we do, every day of our lives, every small little thing that damages our testimony to God and sets a bad example of what a Christian should be means that we’re not living a life worthy of the name Christian.

Maybe that’s what taking God’s name in vain really is all about.

And if that’s true, this particular commandment no longer feels like a gimme.