As the Information Age unfolds and new norms emerge, it’s worth asking whether our oldest ethical blueprints have something to say about them.

Here are ten reasons the Ten Commandments are still relevant in the modern digital age:

Technology is changing the way we think about parent-child relationships, from digital devices that increase daily contact with kids to life-support machines that change the calculus ofend-of-life decisions for elderly parents. The commandment to honor father and mother can be a useful touchstone for navigating choices at all stages of life.

When it comes to marriage, the Internet makes it easier to cheaton a partner. Yet the morality of the seventh commandment’s prohibition of adultery is still uncontroversial: the vast majority of Americans disapprove of adultery — only six percent say it is acceptable, fewer than for any other sexual behavior. This is likely because so many have witnessed firsthand the collateral damage it causes in the lives of families and individuals

The church in our day is known for many things; some great, some laughable, and some embarrassing. But what will our individual local churches be known for?

Slick services? Music cranked to eleven? Disney-fried children’s ministries? It’s easy for a church to become known for a product, but we are more often known for the people—the actual church. What will the living and breathing church, not the commodities we produce, but the people that fill the pews, what will we be know for?

We will be known for being mean, angry, and “get off my lawn” kind of people? Are we perceived as gossipy, grudge-holding, hypercritical holier-than-thous? Our doctrine matters, and so does our doctrine in animation—in life and in the culture of our churches.

We ought to be known for being holy people.

The Lord is calling us to be holy people. Holy, not in the sense of some religious shaman, but holy in the sense of being God’s obedient children in all of our conduct—not just on Sundays or small groups, but out to the edge, the circumference of life. We are called to be obedient children of God under the reign of grace. Holiness is concerned with living for the glory of God, in all of life (1 Cor. 10:31). We no longer conform to our old desires and the patterns of worldliness we’ve known all too well. Because we have been transferred from one kingdom to another, we have a new ethic, a new way of living as children of the Most High. Christian holiness is realized from our new identity in Christ. It is vital to know our positional holiness (justification) and it is demanded that we live a practical holiness (sanctification). We are to be holy. Which, according to Peter, isn’t just knowing you are children of God. It’s being obedient children, living it, and not conforming to sin.

Years ago, my friend’s teenage son lied, stole, and behaved so aggressively that it affected their whole family. I remember thinking, “If anyone could fix this kid, it’s Donna.” She’d served on the mission field, ministered full-time to the homeless, and counseled single mothers. An adoptive mom, she had the patience and compassion to address her disrespectful adolescent.

And that’s how most of us would have thought of her son back then: a problem to be fixed. Adoptive parents like Donna were expected to bring enough discipline and love to save orphans from their traumatic upbringings and reshape them into well-behaving kids. The cultural narrative around adoption was a lot more straightforward then.

These days, we have come to see the complexity of adoption for all involved. Americans—and particularly those of us working in orphan care—increasingly recognize what parents like Donna knew all along: the trauma of abuse and neglect do not go away when an orphaned child finds a loving home… no matter how kind, patient, or godly that family is.

For the nearly 400,000 kids in the US foster care system, such instability and pain are inevitable. Many children behave like Donna’s son did, operating out of fear and control. They needed that mental “survival mode” to withstand the trauma of their earlier childhood, and once in a healthy family environment, they cannot simply turn it off.