41. How do the Ten Commandments apply to the Intenet and the Online World? How can we teach our children about Christian behaviour on the internet?

Do the Ten Commandments apply to all aspects of our lives, including the online world where the distinction between virtual and real actions often becomes blurred?

Let's hear Ed Van Buskirk, a big proponent of teaching the Ten Commandments in our schools and homes, explain how God's Commandments serve as a roadmap for happiness and meaningful relationships rather than restrictive rules.

• Truth is embodied in the person of Jesus Christ who declared "I am the way, the truth and the life"
• Pornography and online misconduct degrade God's masterful creation of the human person
• The culture's devaluation of human bodies affects real people with devastating consequences
• Parents should have ongoing conversations with children about the sanctity of their bodies
• The "11th commandment" refers to Jesus's Great Commission to share these teachings with others, to be disciples of Jesus and disciples of God's love
• Commandments function like rules of the road, providing freedom rather than restriction
• Simple ways to incorporate the commandments include displaying them in homes and using them for examination of conscience

Visit "If U Love Me" Ministry and Ed Van Buskirk's ministry online https://godsrecipe.org 

https://ifuloveme.org

for resources including free downloadable prayers and materials to help implement the commandments in daily life.

Chapters

• 0:00 Truth as a Person: Jesus Christ
• 4:47 Commandments in the Virtual World
• 10:48 Sin in the Online World: By dishonouring God's creation
• 16:04 The 11th Commandment Explained
• 21:38 Closing Prayer and Resources

Transcript

Ed Van Buskirk: 0:00

I started seeing truth as a person and that person being Jesus, and he tells us very clearly. He says I am the way, the truth and the life, and that really struck me as I was studying the Ten Commandments and thinking, wow, truth, God is truth, and truth exists in the creation of us as male and female, the creation of the sun and the stars and the planets, and so we have truth everywhere. You know, some people deny the existence of truth. There's never any absolute truth. Well, I strongly disagree with that.

Ed Van Buskirk: 0:49

The confusion that's going on in the world causes it makes it very difficult for us to see what is true. It makes it very difficult to see God in the confusion, and that's right where Satan wants us to be confused and not able to find what is true. You know, there's a lot of things that we hear where we think you know that sounds like yeah, that sounds pretty truthful, that sounds like a good theology, but sometimes there's a little sprinkle of a little bit of a lie in the midst of the truth bit of a lie in the lives of Catholic women, to help them in living out our vocation of raising the next generation of leaders and saints.

Co-Host: 1:52

Please join us every week on the Veil and Armor podcast, where stories come alive through a journalist's lens and mother's heart.

Sheila Nonato: 1:59

Welcome to the Veil and Armour podcast, friends, and sorry for this late edition. Last week it was the funeral for a very good friend of ours, the father of Keri-Lee, the woman, the prayerful friend who introduced me to my husband and vice versa, and please pray for the repose of the soul of her father, Mr. Dennis Mullan, and I sincerely appreciate your prayers. I am back again this week to talk to you about again the Ten Commandments and it's part two of our interview with Mr. Ed Van Buskirk of the "If you Love Me ministry, and my sincerest apologies for the technical difficulties that we were I was not able to fix and you know, sometimes there's also that sort of spiritual battle going on on the internet. I don't know, yeah, sometimes why things happen on the technical side and can't fix. The only other issue I had with sort of technical difficulties was with the interview with Father Rob Gallia, a priest from Australia who does great ministry, and I will put a link to that episode with him and also a link to his website.

Sheila Nonato: 3:24

But yes, back to this week's episode. We're talking about the Ten Commandments and I'm sort of wearing something in preparation for summer, looking forward to, I guess, the end of school the kids are and I guess the moms as well. They can have a little bit of rest in the summer. But does that mean, when we're looking forward to summer and summer activities, that the learning ends and some might say actually the learning is just beginning during the summer? Is that there's sort of hands-on learning? And do we always sort of end learning about faith and the Bible when school ends? And I'm sure you know the answer is no. And so when the kids are not in school, they might be online. They might be playing games, video games or on social media, seeing things you might not want them to see. But how does social media, how does the Internet? How does that impact our daily lives? How can we explain to our children that the Ten Commandments they still apply even on the online world, the virtual world that we might think doesn't exist? And so how does the Ten Commandments apply in the virtual world? And let's hear Mr. Ed Van Buskirk of "If you Love Me, ministry. And let's hear Mr Ed Van Buskirk of If you Love Me Ministry explain to us how the commandments can apply to that practical side of the Internet. Thank you and God bless, and please join me in a Hail Mary, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death, Amen. And if you hear the dishwasher running, somebody asked me how do you do this? homeschooling and podcast, sometimes writing, although it's been a little bit on the back burner nowadays, but I did write an article for The B. C. Catholic about Tammy Peterson. I'm not sure if it's going to get published, but I do hope so, and if it does, I'll let you know. But how do you do this? Well, sometimes you have to do. You can't do everything. Sometimes you have to do things when you can, and right now I can do the podcasting when the dishwasher is running. So please excuse the noise from the dishwasher, but please do stay for the conversation with Mr. Ed Van Buskirk. I apologize again for the technical difficulties, but I truly believe the power of his message overcomes those small technical difficulties and thank you again and have a blessed day.

Sheila Nonato: 6:02

Thank you, and I'm just going back to the online world again, the virtual world, because I read a book that children nowadays are being brought up by the phone, the sort of the omnipresence of the phone, and maybe there's a grey area for them that you know, or even some adults, that what if you know the commandment, you should not commit adultery? What if it happens online? They don't even see the person. Maybe they think, well, nobody knows, nobody sees, and maybe it's not really adultery because it's just happening online. You know, people get detached. I guess they're in the virtual world and the reality gets blurred.

Sheila Nonato: 6:44

Yeah, they're in the virtual world and the reality gets blurred. You know, is it OK? And if nobody knows what I'm doing, maybe it's OK. Can you speak to that? That you know what? How do we sort of embody the commandments not only in our real life but also in our online activities, like if let's say we say something not very nice to somebody we don't know online. You know, "ou said something dumb," I don't know something like this, but you don't know the person and nobody got harmed because you're really just typing. Can you speak to that? Is that still against the commandments?

Ed Van Buskirk: 7:21

Yeah, Regardless of The Commandments and pornography online, the virtual world, even if it's not an actual image of a person, but it's a created image. God has created the most miraculous being in our bodies, miraculous being in our bodies, the crown jewel of his creation is the human person. And as someone who you know, a person looks to God and goes, wow, I really want to adore you, I want to follow you, I want to follow you, I want to love you, but then goes and looks at what he created in a self-serving way that degrades the purpose and the image that God created that. How does that degrade? How does that tear down the creator? No, you've got these wonderful, beautiful instruments Stradivarius, I think, the violins, I think he the violins.

Ed Van Buskirk: 8:42

If, if somebody took one of these wonderful, beautiful Stradivarius and and went up to, to, to the, to the maker of them, the creator of them I can't remember his first name, Johann, I think, Stradivarius, I think if they went up to him and say, hey, watch this, I can make some pretty cool music with your beautiful violin, and they turn it over and they get drumsticks and they start beating on it with drumsticks and it's kind of fun, you can hear it, and so forth. How would Stradivarius, Johann Stradivarius, how would he feel as being the creator of that, when we take what God has created as being the most masterful creation and degrade it the way that our culture is doing it? What is that doing for our relationship with God, If I'm just the one who's viewing that it just degrades all of us as human beings and it creates us into those objects of just self-pleasure. Now, the first three commandments are about our relationship with God. The last seven are about our relationships with one another and as we pursue those we're going to have better relationships.

Ed Van Buskirk: 9:57

When we don't pursue those, our relationships are going to struggle. We're looking at those two sets of commandments of loving and they're summarized when Jesus tells the Pharisees what the two greatest or what the greatest commandment is. The first and the greatest commandment is this, You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul and all of your mind." That's our relationship with God. And then he calls us to love neighbors, when he says the second is like it you shall love your neighbor as yourself. These commandments, loving others as ourselves. And so if I'm going to degrade another person by looking at images that are on the internet, that's degrading to them. It's also degrading to me and it separates us as individuals and it makes us, you know, regardless of whether we're married or not, young or old. It causes us to look at other people and think, oh, they don't stack up, they're not as perfect as that image that I saw, and we start to degrade the people in our lives, thinking less of them. So that's one way it plays out. I heard a story of a gentleman who had his ways. He had been the manager of a strip club and he told the story how, in the springtime, when you are graduating from high school, he would go and hang out where they hung out and buy him a drink, and he'd figure out which ones didn't have any real direction in their lives. And he would say you know, if you don't really have anything lined up for you, know what you're going to do now that you've graduated, once you come down. I've got a nice place that you can work for me at just serving some drinks. Well, she shows up and it's a strip club and he goes, don't worry about them, all I want you to do is to serve drinks. After two weeks, he said in two weeks I've got that young girl doing more than serving drinks.

Ed Van Buskirk: 12:15

And a year goes by and the young woman has become accustomed to that lifestyle, become addicted to drugs to make her feel like she's, you know, to get over her shame. And the next year comes along and the guy goes out and recruits another group of girls and the girls that she he recruited last year's out the door and she's broken, she's used up. And so if somebody says, well, I'm just looking, I'm not doing anything where that's, that's using somebody up in such a horrible way. And for somebody to say it doesn't hurt anyone. And for somebody to say it doesn't hurt anyone. That story made it so poignantly clear to me that that is so false. That is such a lie that it doesn't hurt anyone. This young girl now either has to scrape herself up off the sidewalk and somehow figure out how to get back on a good course, which is very, very difficult, or she's stuck in that lifestyle. Now she's out on the streets and addicted and her life becomes just hell for her.

Sheila Nonato: 13:31

That's a tragic, tragic story. I'm just wondering what can men, husbands, fathers, I'm just wondering what can men, husbands, fathers, how can they help sort of in sort of the redemption of the image of Mary, of purity through the commandments? What can men do to instill that in their daughters when they're raising their daughters and being sort of that role model, just like St Joseph? How can also women sort of be redeemed in the beauty and the truth and the goodness that God has created them to be?

Ed Van Buskirk: 14:07

Yeah, for both the men and the women, is to look at Christ, look at the passion of Christ, look at the complete commitment in His body, to His bride, the Church, to understand how we need to lift up the wonder and the gift of our bodies to our spouses and you think of a young man or young woman? What fortitude and strength do they have to have to to navigate and withstand the pressures of our culture and to preserve themselves as the pure gift for their bride or for their husband? This is what Christ did, and we need to look at Christ and really see the correlation not the correlation, but the perfect example of marriage in Christ, in the passion in Christ and giving himself to us. And for a parent to talk to their children, especially their, we really need to start this conversation with the children when they're quite young and to lift up the miracle and wonder of their bodies, not by getting into what is adultery and what's not adultery, but to implant within them that God has a, a purpose and their body is made in the of god. And we need to make sure that we treat our body with reverence. We need to treat our body. Therefore, we put the clothes on and we keep our clothes on and we keep that. And God's got a plan for you. And so, as they grow up to continue this conversation. And when you see it being honored the body being honored, to point that out, when you see it being dishonored, to point that out that person must not realize how important their body is as God's given it to them. Then, when they get to be of the right age to start talking about how this gift is their gift to their future husband or their future bride, and to explain to them how we're proud of them for living their life in purity, so that they will have that to give and to not give it to anybody who doesn't deserve it.

Ed Van Buskirk: 16:44

St John Paul II. He said, "It's not that we make too much of sex in our culture. We make too little of it. We don't give it the glory and the purpose and the honor and the reverence that we should and that it deserves. And we need to do that as parents. We need to turn that table around and flip things right side up so that our children can see what purpose their bodies are for, and to start that at a younger age and to have those conversations throughout their lives.

Sheila Nonato: 17:22

And I guess when you're talking about sort of you know, there's again a detachment in sort of removing the sanctity of the body, the reverence for the body as God created it created each one of us to be and love. Removing love, it's just using people as objects, which is not what God intended and it's not within His Commandments. And I'm just thinking about also the passage you chose for your ministry, "If you love me, obey my commandments, keep my commandments. But Jesus told his disciples at the last supper.

Sheila Nonato: 18:01

And your book. The title of your book, "od's Recipe for a Wonderful Life. It's sort of rooted because people think, oh, the Ten Commandments are punitive, they're boring, I can't do it, it's too much. But it's really rooted in love. God loves us so much he wants us to spend eternity with him, because heaven is happiness. And when we sin, when we go outside the commandments, we are actually, we think that we're free from God, but we actually become slaves to sin, right To our addictions. And so can you please sort of tell us how does this all relate to? You mentioned that the 11th commandment. How does the theme of love relate to all of God's commandments and then this 11th commandment?

Ed Van Buskirk: 18:47

Yeah, the 11th commandment, that people always look at me funny when they look at the table of contents of my book or we have 11 sessions in our video study and they say, okay, ed, what's this 11th commandment?

Ed Van Buskirk: 19:01

And I say, well, you'll have to read the book and find out. But really, it truly is one of God's commandments. It wasn't given to us on Mount Sinai, written on the stone there, but it's the last words of Christ in the Gospel of Matthew. It's the last words of Christ in the gospel of Matthew when he is going to ascend back to his father. And so in Matthew, chapter 28, verses 19 and 20, it says Jesus says for and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching to observe all that I have commanded you and, behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age. This is not just for the disciples to go, and it's not just for the nations as we think of them, but it's all the peoples of the nations. And we have to start in our own families. We have to start in our own circle of influence, those who are near and dear to us.

Ed Van Buskirk: 20:16

We need to teach, we need to live the commandments we need to know them we need to apply them, we need to share the commandments, we need to know them, we need to apply them, we need to share them with others.

Ed Van Buskirk: 20:24

We need to teach them to others so that they can not just follow the commandments for the sake of following the commandments, but so that we can have those relationships that the commandments bring us to and call us to, starting with our relationship with God, starting with our relationship and then going to our relationships with one another. And so this commandment is commissioning all of us it's referred to as the Great Commission commissioning all of us to be disciples of Christ. And what a wonderful way to do this with the Ten Commandments. It can be a real simple thing. It doesn't have to be complex. It could be as simple as putting the 10 commandments up in your living room, just for starters, and saying to the family you know, god gave them this. Explain to the kids. This is why God gave these to us, and this is about us getting along with one another and into loving God. And let's make sure that we not just have this as a decoration on our wall, but it's something that we put into practice in our daily lives and children. Will you help me if you ever see me doing something that is not in alignment with one of these commandments, will you help me remember that I need to follow these commandments.

Ed Van Buskirk: 21:37

It can be very simple. You know college students go off to college. Very simple, you know college students go off to college. What a nice gift to send them in a care package, an image of the Ten Commandments to have on their dorm room floor of wall as a reminder for them. Married couple, as a wedding gift, just you know, get a nice, beautiful.

Ed Van Buskirk: 22:01

We've got them on our website. You can print them off, download them and print them off and put them into a nice frame as a gift. That can be an easy way to get started being a disciple but then to intentionally use the commandments as a daily examination of conscience to help us to realize okay, what did I do today that was supportive and showed, demonstrated the virtues of the commandments: "Don't steal, calls us to generosity, Don't lie, calls us to integrity and truth and so forth. So we can see in our examination of conscience not just when we didn't follow God's plan, but we can see in our examination of conscience not just when we didn't follow God's plan, but we can see in our examination of conscience how we did and be able to say God, thank you for giving me the grace to choose instead of choosing my way in there, and so putting these into play in our daily lives and sharing them with others is what we're called to do.

Sheila Nonato: 23:09

And was there anything else that I didn't ask you? That is very important for the listeners to know.

Ed Van Buskirk: 23:18

If your perspective of the Commandments is negative, take a second look. Look at them from why God gave us these Commandments. Not just what they say, but why did God give us these commandments? Were they given to us out of jealousy? Were they given to us out of anger, or were they given to us out of love? God only does anything out of love and therefore we should give them as a gift, a sincere gift, and really put them to play in our lives, and family relationships will be better, business relationships will be better, relationships within our nation, relationships within our world will be better, and they all lead us to union with Christ and union with everyone else with Christ.

Sheila Nonato: 24:23

And I guess, when we go back to scripture, look at Exodus, the golden calf happened because Moses was not there and he didn't have the Commandments yet, but it's because the people didn't know, they didn't have a roadmap, a guide, and this is what the commandments are, as you were saying in your book, that we need this roadmap, because if not, we will veer. We might veer off into the wrong direction, into the desert, wandering for 40 years, right, yeah.

Sheila Nonato: 24:53

Yeah, when God has the path that you know, hey, here's maybe not a shortcut, but here's the way. And along the way, you will have struggles, you will have crosses, but here's the way and along the way.

Ed Van Buskirk: 25:18

You will have struggles, you will have crosses, but I am giving you sort of, like you said, a recipe to be happy, because sin does not make us happy. It roadmap analogy is very good, and when we think of the road, most everybody who's going to watch this has driven an automobile, probably within the last 24 hours, but certainly within the last week or two. And without the rules on the road, what would it be like to go out and drive? Would people say? I'm not going out on the roads? People are kind of crazy on the road sometimes, but that's because they're not following the rules.

Ed Van Buskirk: 25:56

If people discard the rules of the road, the more dangerous they are, more, the less are to enjoy the roads for the purpose they are. Why is it that we don't begrudge the rules of the road, but we begrudge the rules that God gave us for success in life to to enjoy the life the way that he wants us to enjoy. And so we have laws all around us. What would it be like to watch a football game if half the players didn't follow the rules? How frustrating would that be if they weren't enforced? And we don't regudge those rules. We need to make sure that we see these rules as giving us and we don't regudge those rules with happiness, with relationship, and not just the life to come for us.

Sheila Nonato: 27:11

Yes, freedom in Christ, that's what the Commandments bring us and happiness. So yeah, Was there anything else you wanted to add? Did you want to close with a prayer?

Ed Van Buskirk: 27:21

I do have a closing prayer that I close a lot of my talks with and this really resonates with folks. I'm going to read this kind of slowly so that we can really absorb this prayer. And so let's begin In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen and the Holy Spirit, amen, creator of the universe and redeemer of my soul, give me your grace to grow in your commandments each day and in your mercy when I stumble. You are the Lord, my God. I will not have any gods before you.

Ed Van Buskirk: 27:59

I will not use your name in vain, but will glorify your name in all my words and actions. I will keep holy the Lord's day by preserving you only for worshiping you and for relationship with family and friends. I will honour my father and mother and teach my children to do the same. I will not kill, but will honor and protect life from conception to natural death. I will not commit adultery, but instead I will honor our bodies for the sacred purpose of new life within marriage. I will not steal, but instead I will cultivate a heart of generosity. I will not steal, but instead I will cultivate a heart of generosity. I will not lie, but rather honor truth in all my words and actions, and I will not covet my neighbor's spouse, nor covet the things of this world. Rather, I will set my heart on building treasures in heaven. Amen In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sheila Nonato: 29:06

Thank you very much and that is a beautiful prayer. It's, I think it's in the beginning of your book and, given its length, I feel you know, as you said, you can use it for the examination of conscience and we can still keep going with our prayers, and we could add that in. So I encourage everyone to check out your book and your website. Can you please tell us where can we find you and your ministry online?

Ed Van Buskirk: 29:27

Yeah, our website is https://godsrecipe. org and we've got a variety of things that you can download for free and print it off. You can print this prayer off there. We do have them on nice cards that are very helpful. I know a number of people who have just been so happy to have this prayer by their bedside and they start their day with it and they end their day with it. And this one gentleman, he said I've got several of them around in frames. I put them in little frames so I can see them frequently as reminders to remember to not just not do what it says to not do, but to do what call us, to call us into the greatness which really unites us. So we have them on our website. You can buy the cards but you can just print it off on our resource page.

Sheila Nonato: 30:27

Awesome, and I think this would be great near the confessional as well, because sometimes we forget, but yeah.

Ed Van Buskirk: 30:33

Yeah, it is. I had a. One of our parishes here in town has the 10 commandments on the doors of the confessional a nice big and somebody painted them.

Sheila Nonato: 30:43

Well, thank you so much again. I really appreciate your time and your presence.

Ed Van Buskirk: 30:47

Thank you.

Sheila Nonato: 30:48

I know it took a while to get this interview but unfortunately I was running behind as a busy mom. But I am grateful for your time.

Ed Van Buskirk: 30:56

It all works out in God's time.

Sheila Nonato: 30:57

Amen, thank you for your wisdom and for your ministry, and I'll be praying for you. I'll be asking the listeners to pray for you and please go check out the website, because it will bring you to many resources that will help us in our motherhood and in educating our children. So thank you again. Thank you so much, thank you so much. So thank you and God bless and happy feast day. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. So thank you and god bless and happy feast day.

Ed Van Buskirk: 31:20

Thank you very much. If you ever want to do a deep dive on any of the individual commandments or just have me back to talk from a different angle, uh, please reach out, I'd love to do that yes, absolutely, thank you pleasure meeting you, sheila mine the pleasure, pleasure is mine.

Sheila Nonato: 31:36

Thank you so much.

Ed Van Buskirk: 31:38

Take care. Bye-bye God bless, bye-bye.

Sheila Nonato: 31:54

Thank you for listening to the Veil and Armour podcast.

Co-Host: 31:57

I invite you to share this with another Catholic mom today. Please subscribe to our podcast and YouTube channel and please spread the word. Let's be brave, let's be bold and be blessed together.