How to Talk About the 10 Commandments with your LDS Friends
Why God gave the law, and what it’s meant to do in us.
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Most people who believe in God, or in their own version of him, tend to think of him as someone approachable. Someone patient, understanding, and easy to come near.
But that isn’t the God we meet at Mount Sinai.
The mountain burned. The ground shook. Thunder filled the air. The people were told to stay back, to keep their distance, and anyone who even touched the mountain was to be put to death. So they stood at a distance, afraid to come near.
This is how God chose to reveal himself. And in that setting, he gave the commandments. “You shall” and “you shall not.” Not as gentle encouragement. Not as guidance for gradual improvement. But as the words of a holy God whose presence isn’t something sinners can casually approach. Those words press on you. And eventually, they force a question most of us would rather avoid: What does God actually require from me?
That question sits at the center of how we understand the commandments. And it shapes how we talk about them with others.
If you’re talking with an LDS friend, this matters more than you might think. You may both respect the Ten Commandments. You may even agree that they are good, important, and worth taking seriously. But underneath that agreement can be very different assumptions about what God is asking of us and why.
That’s why it’s worth slowing down and letting the commandments speak for themselves. Not as a checklist. Not as a path of gradual improvement. But as the Words of a holy God who reveals both his standard and our need.
From there, the conversation can begin.
How LDS Often View the Commandments
If you talk with an LDS friend about the commandments, you’ll notice something right away. They take them seriously. That’s something we can appreciate. The commandments aren’t brushed aside or treated as outdated. They are seen as an important part of a life that honors God.
In LDS teaching, commandments are often described as guidance from a loving Heavenly Father and a path that leads to peace, joy, and blessings. More than that, they are closely tied to a person’s eternal future. Obedience isn’t just encouraged. It is necessary. Keeping God’s commandments is part of how someone becomes like God and how one receives the blessings he promises. You may even hear it expressed that God doesn’t give commandments without providing a way to keep them, which reinforces the idea that obedience is ultimately possible with enough effort and help (Book of Mormon, 1 Nephi 3:7).
Because of this, the commandments don’t just function as guidance. They function like a ladder.
As your LDS friend reads Exodus 20, they are often thinking about where they are on that ladder, where they are doing well, and where they need to improve. The focus naturally turns inward. How am I doing? Where do I need to try harder? Am I progressing enough? The goal is to keep moving upward, becoming more obedient over time, step by step.
And when the commandments start to feel too demanding, there is a natural tendency to soften them just enough to make that progress feel possible. The focus shifts toward effort, growth, and sincerity, doing your best, continuing to improve, staying on the path.
That way of thinking doesn’t just happen in Latter-day Saint thought. It is something that shows up naturally in all of us. When we hear what God commands, something in us wants to believe we can rise to meet it.
But over time, something subtle happens. Instead of drawing a person into a deeper relationship with God, the commandments can begin to turn a person inward on themselves. The attention shifts away from who God is and what he requires, and toward personal performance.
That raises an important question: Is that what God intended the commandments to be: A ladder we climb? A list to gradually check off? Or are they something else entirely?
What the Bible Emphasizes
When we come to the Ten Commandments in Exodus, it’s easy to focus on the list itself. But the Bible doesn’t present the law in isolation. It places it in a setting and unfolds it in a way that helps us understand what it is actually doing.
God’s Holiness and the Standard of the Law
Before a single commandment is spoken, God reveals himself. At Mount Sinai, the people are not invited to come close. They are kept at a distance. The mountain trembles, and the air is filled with fire and smoke. The scene is not just dramatic. It is intentional.
God is showing his people who he is before he tells them what he requires.
He is not like them. He is not simply wiser or more advanced. He is holy. Completely set apart. Pure in a way that sinners can’t casually approach.
And then, in that setting, he gives the law.
That order matters.
The commandments are not given in a neutral environment. They are spoken in the presence of a holy God who has already made it clear that his standard isn’t something people can move toward comfortably or gradually.
They are not casual suggestions or helpful principles for a better life. They are the expectations of a holy God. And those expectations aren’t presented as flexible or progressive. There is no language of “do your best” or “try to improve.” The law speaks in terms of what must be, not what might be.
That means the standard is not progress.
It is perfection.
The Depth of the Law (Heart-Level Obedience)
At first, the commandments can seem manageable if we read them only at the surface level. Don’t murder. Don’t commit adultery. Don’t steal (Exodus 20:13–15). It’s possible to hear those and feel a quiet sense of reassurance. I’m doing okay.
But even within the Ten Commandments, there are hints that the law is already reaching deeper. “You shall not covet” (Exodus 20:17) is not about outward behavior at all. It addresses desire—what is happening inside you, often before anyone else can see it or measure it.
The Bible doesn’t let the commandments stay on a surface level. Jesus takes them deeper. In the Sermon on the Mount, he teaches that anger is not just a minor issue. It is the root of murder. He says lust is not just temptation. It is already adultery of the heart (Matthew 5:21–22, 27–28). The commandments aren’t just about avoiding certain actions. They are about the condition of the heart.
And that changes what the law is doing. It’s not simply measuring behavior we can manage. It’s diagnosing something deeper. It exposes what is going on inside us, thoughts, desires, impulses we cannot fully control or clean up. What once felt like a list we could work through now begins to reveal a condition we cannot fix.
And when you place that kind of law in front of a holy God, the kind of God revealed at Sinai, it raises a sobering question: what happens when I don’t measure up?
If his standard is perfection, and his law reaches all the way into the heart, then this is not a gap I can close with more effort.
It means the problem isn’t just what I do. It is who I am. And that means I don’t just need forgiveness. I need a righteousness that is NOT my own.
The Purpose of the Law (Mirror → Savior)
If that is what the commandments reveal, it raises an uncomfortable question: why would God give a law that exposes a problem we cannot fix? The law was never meant to be the cure. The Bible says, “through the law we become conscious of sin” (Romans 3:20).
The law diagnoses us. It brings into the light what is already there. It shows us the depth of our need, but it does not provide the solution. A diagnosis tells you what is wrong. It doesn’t make you well.
In that sense, the commandments function like a mirror. They don’t clean us. They show us what needs to be cleaned. They don’t bring us closer. They make it unmistakably clear why we can’t come close on our own.
And that is exactly what the law is meant to do. It removes the illusion that we can fix ourselves. It strips away the idea that we can climb our way back into God’s presence. It brings us to the end of ourselves.
But that’s not the end of the story. Once the law has done its work, once it has exposed the problem and left us without answers in ourselves, it points us beyond ourselves. The commandments were never meant to be a way for us to slowly and progressively come to God. They were meant to show us our need for the one who comes to us.
How Jesus Fulfills the Law for Us
Jesus is the one who meets the standard the law demands.
We often talk about Jesus dying for our sins, and rightly so. On the cross, he takes the punishment we deserve. “Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God” (1 Peter 3:18). Our guilt is placed on him, and he pays for it fully.
But Jesus didn’t come only to die. He came to live.
The Bible says he was “born under the law” (Galatians 4:4). Every commandment we have been considering, every demand, every requirement, applied to him. And where we failed, he obeyed, not just outwardly, but from the heart: Every thought, every desire, every moment aligned perfectly with the will of the Father.
And that obedience wasn’t just for himself. It was for us.
“For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous” (Romans 5:19).
That means Jesus does more than remove our sin. He gives us his righteousness!
The problem isn’t just what we do. It’s who we are. And that means we don’t just need forgiveness. We need a righteousness that is not our own.
“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Our sin is placed on him, and his perfect obedience is credited to us.
So when God looks at someone who trusts in Jesus, he doesn’t see someone trying, striving, improving, or climbing their way toward him. He sees someone clothed in the righteousness of his Son, one who never sinned and always obeyed.
Because of that, the holy God we met at Mount Sinai is no longer someone we must keep our distance from in fear. His holiness has not changed, and his standard has not lowered. But in Christ, our standing before him has. Clothed in the righteousness of his Son, we are no longer exposed or unfit for his presence. We are welcomed.
What once drove people to step back in fear now becomes a place we can approach with confidence, not because we have become worthy on our own, but because we stand in the perfect obedience of Jesus.
Conversation Starters
Before jumping into questions, it helps to think about posture.
It can be tempting to use the commandments to back your LDS friend into a corner, to walk through them one by one until the conclusion feels obvious: See? Look how much you fall short. But that kind of approach can quickly feel more like a trap than a conversation. It often comes across as trying to prove a point rather than understand a person.
Instead, start with yourself.
Be willing to speak honestly about your own sin, especially sins of the heart. Not just what others can see, but what the commandments expose beneath the surface: Your thoughts, your desires, your failures to love God fully. And as you do, connect that honestly to what it means to stand before a holy God. Let your friend hear that you aren’t afraid to admit your sin because your confidence isn’t in yourself.
That kind of openness changes the tone. It shows that this isn’t about winning an argument or measuring who is doing better. It’s about something deeper, our shared need, and where we find hope.
From there, you can ask simple questions that invite reflection:
- When you picture the scene at Mount Sinai (Exodus 19), what stands out to you about how God reveals himself?
- How does that setting shape the way you hear the commandments that follow?
- Do you think we tend to picture God that way today, or differently? Why?
- When you read the commandments, do you tend to think more about actions or about what’s happening in the heart?
- What do you make of “You shall not covet” (Exodus 20:17)? Why do you think God includes a command about desire?
- How do you understand Jesus’ teaching that anger is like murder and lust is like adultery (Matthew 5:21–22, 27–28)?
- If God’s standard reaches all the way into our thoughts and desires, what do you think that means for us?
- What do you think it means that Jesus lived a perfect life under the law?
- Why do you think the Bible emphasizes not just his death, but also his obedience?
The goal isn’t to force a conclusion or create pressure. It’s to slow down together and let the commandments do what they were given to do.
And as those questions deepen, the conversation often begins to move naturally, from what God requires, to what we lack, to what Jesus has done.
The Goal of the Conversation
The goal of a conversation about the commandments is not to prove a point or win an argument. It’s not to walk someone through the law until they admit failure. It’s to slow down together and see what the commandments are actually doing.
They reveal a holy God who doesn’t lower his standard and a human heart that can’t meet it. Not just because of what we do, but because of who we are. When the commandments are allowed to speak fully, they don’t leave us confident. They leave us in need.
And that’s exactly where they are meant to lead: Not to more effort, but to Jesus.
So listen well. Ask thoughtful questions. Be honest about your own struggles. You don’t have to force the conclusion. The law is already doing its work.
And when the question arises, If this is what God requires and I cannot meet it, what hope do I have?, that’s the moment to point to Jesus, the one who kept the law, bore our sin, and gives us his righteousness.
If your conversation leads to Jesus, the law has done what it was meant to do.
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