Are the Ten Commandments antiquated rules which no longer relate to modern society, or do they still have value today? In this excerpt from his new book, God's Blueprint for Living David Seamands offers contemporary applications for an old law.
In some respects the tenth and last commandment is the greatest of the horizontal commandments, those that concern our relationships with other persons. In a sense this final commandment includes whatever may have been omitted in the others. Nothing like this commandment exists in any other set of ancient laws. It goes beyond regulating outward acts to prescribing inner attitudes. It is certainly the most comprehensive of all the commandments. Perhaps it appears last because the sin it prohibits, covetousness, is the most treacherous of all.
We need victory at this point more than any other. Covetousness makes people greedy and causes them to steal. Covetousness drives people to sacrifice the lives of others, even to kill, for their own ends. Covetousness gives rise to that unbridled lust which plunges individuals into adultery. Covetousness endangers mutual trust and causes people to lie or to bear false witness about themselves and others in order to gain money, power, prestige or praise. So the tenth commandment is comprehensive.
It is also difficult to explain. What does it really mean to covet? Does it mean to desire something? Certainly not. Our desire for food makes us hungry and we eat. Our desire for sex is an essential part of love and marriage; it leads to die expression of love and to the creation of life itself. We desire approval and respect; that's what makes us wash our faces and comb our hair. Other legitimate desires are to conform to the rules of social etiquette and to get along well with others. Without desires we wouldn't have life as we know it.
Then does coveting mean desiring something that we don't have? Not exactly. For example, many people attend college because they desire an education, but this is not coveting. Almost everything we call progress, improvement or civilization has come from a desire for something we don't have. Desire is even important in spiritual matters. Paul says in I Corinthians 12:31 " . . . eagerly desire the greater [spiritual] gifts.' Jesus also says in Matthew 5:6, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness." No, coveting is not merely a desire for something—even something we don't have.
Buddha, however, taught that desire itself is the source of all the evil in the world. He said if we could eliminate all desire we would eliminate evil. Ridding ourselves of desire is supposed to lead us right into nirvana. That belief has led even some Christ to a false asceticism and a quest for a sort of glorified nothingness. But Jesus did not come to give us nothing; rather He offers us abundant life.
Because of this confusion we have difficulty defining the word covet, although we all know what it means. It's like the words love and personality-they are almost impossible to define but easy to identify.
Desire Run Amuck
To covet is to desire inordinately or to desire the unlawful. It's not
wrong for a man to desire a house, wife, servant, animal or car. But it
is wrong for him to desire his neighbor's house, wife, servant, animal or
car. This kind of desire is different because a desire for someone else's
belongings plants the seeds of a willingness to hurt, kill, lie or steal
in order to fulfill the desire, Covetousness is desire that runs rampant
over the rights of others and even over one's own reason. It is desire run
amuck which will injure or destroy to get what it wants. When we feel this
type of desire we may even destroy or injure ourselves to get what we want.
Covetousness is normal desire gone wrong.
Covetousness is one result of the fall of man. It's a perversion of God-given desires. It's the unbalanced aspect of the human spirit that we call original sin.
Coveting is at the heart of the carnal mind. It is the inner principle of sin. Covetousness is the defect in our internal power-steering mechanism that pulls us toward the wrong. It's the spirit that says, "I want this and I will get it whatever it costs me.'
A practical substitute for the word covet might be greed, provided we understand this can mean more than simply greed for money. We can be greedy for power, sex, approval, authority, praise, status and so forth.
Universal Problem
Another good reason for this commandment being last is because it's such
a universal sin. Covetousness is the last enemy of both the sinner and the
saint.
Almost every language and culture have proverbs about covetousness. In English we say, "The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence." One of Aesop's fables tells how a man lolled a goose that laid golden eggs concluding with this moral: "Much wants more and loses all." A Scottish proverb says, "The covetous man will never have enough until his mouth is filled with mold." A Hindu proverb says, "If you mention money even the corpse opens its mouth."
Covetousness affects every level of human life. We find it in the church, ourselves and our communities. Christ taught sacrifice and selflessness, yet we see little of that in our lives. Even godly ministers have fallen prey to covetousness by desiring prestige and authority in the church.
The spirit of covetousness has broken every system of government devised by mankind. Although it threatens our Democratic system our nation has survived many crises because our founding fathers invented a system of government that recognizes the universality of covetousness. Universal human covetousness wrecks every theory of utopia and every dream for peace and prosperity. Man will covet. It's a universal sin.
David and a Little Lamb
Nathan the prophet realized this (see 2 Samuel 12:1-13). The Lord sent
Nathan to King David after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba and
murdered Uriah, her husband. However, Nathan didn't talk to David about
murder or adultery. Instead he told the told a story about a rich man who
had a big ranch with lots of sheep and cattle. One day an important friend
came to visit and the rancher wanted to throw a party. But he didn't go
out to his ranch and kill one of his own sheep for the feast. Instead he
turned to a poor man in the community who had only one little ewe lamb,
a family pet. The rich man could have chosen from a vast herd, but he took
the only lamb the poor man owned. Covetousness, Nathan pointed out, was
David's sin.
Anyone who has reared children knows how early in a child's life covetousness emerges. When we lived in India I remember giving my son Steve an expensive knife. It was something he wanted and needed, and he was as happy as a lark with the gift. One day he came into the house crying. "What's wrong, Steve?" I asked. Tearfully he told me his playmate had been given a knife with two blades on it.
Covetousness is a mirage that produces wretchedness. It fixes our gaze on something we do not have, so that we don't praise God for what we do have.
Greed is idolatry, Paul writes in Colossians 3:5. God created our hearts to be satisfied only by fellowship with Him. Anything less will not truly satisfy us. Covetousness is idolatry because it places a substitute for God in our hearts. Therefore the tenth commandment brings us back to the first commandment because covetousness puts a false god in the place of the true God in our lives. Greed seeks first the kingdom of things, not the Kingdom of God.
Even our religion can become a form of covetousness. We try to use God to get what we want. If you don't believe that, listen to the self-centeredness of some of our prayers.
Balancing the Heart
Because of the universality and the treachery of covetousness, this commandment
is different from every other commandment. The others deal with specific
actions: "Don't do this," or "Do that." Only this tenth
commandment forbids a state of mind and heart This tenth commandment was
the little spark of light that one day Jesus would make perfect in the New
Testament That light was the realization that wrong ideas and wrong desires
precede wrong actions. No matter how pious our outer life may be, if we
yield inwardly to covetousness, we are guilty of breaking die commandment.
This Old Testament commandment, although stated as law, is really the forerunner of grace because it deals with the attitude, not just an act. It goes to the heart.
In the Old Testament this commandment is only stated negatively. It forbids us to covet anything, but it doesn't tell us how to stop coveting. It doesn't tell us how to stop being slaves and how to become masters of our desires.
However, Jesus made this commandment positive. He taught that the cure for covetousness, the way to change this great imbalance in the human hem is to let the Holy Spirit restore our hearts to their intended balance. That happens only when we completely surrender ourselves to the lordship of Jesus Christ. Only when we seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness will other things be given to us (see Luke 12:3 1). To accomplish this change we need a new birth, a conversion, a change of outlook and a change of values. Since covetousness is a sin of the inner life, our supreme need is to be set right within our hearts.
Paul, for example, surrendered himself to Christ-his ambition; his education; his great ability as a speaker, a writer and a leader; and his philosophical mind. What did he say after this surrender? "I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances," he writes in Philippians 4:11. Was Paul content with his spiritual progress? Oh, no. He also writes in Philippians 3:14, "I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." Was Paul content with the world around him? Oh, no. He longed for people to know Jesus Christ as Savior so deeply that he likened the desire to the pains of childbirth (Galatians 4:19).
Paul had a divine discontent. What was he content with? He was content with the direction of his life and with the will of God as he found it in Jesus Christ. He was satisfied with Jesus. Today that's still the only cure for covetousness.
A New Master
Are you a slave to your desires? Or are you the master of your desires?
The only way to master them is to be mastered by Jesus Christ. We must find
a master who brings contentment so that we too can say, "For to me,
to live is Christ and to die is gain" (Philippians 1:21). The only
answer to covetousness, this basic characteristic of the mind of the flesh,
is a total surrender to God and a total infilling and cleansing of his Holy
Spirit.
"Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!" writes Paul (Philippians 4:4). Phillips renders this verse, "Find your delight in God." That's the answer to covetousness. Find your delight in God; surrender your will, power, success, money and recognition to Christ. Be His love slave as Paul often called himself. This cure for covetousness is described in 1 Timothy 6:6 as: "godliness with contentment." The New Testament positively affirms "You shall not covet" by teaching us to be content in Jesus Christ.
A Gift the Mayor Couldn't Give
Dr. W. E. Sangster tells a story about the saintly John Fletcher. He and
the other early Methodists were anything but far-out pietists. Their holiness
included helping everybody in the community, sacrificially giving to the
poor, visiting people in prison and even riding on carts with men from the
Newgate prison who were going to the gallows to be hanged for petty crimes.
John Fletcher did so much to help his community that he was brought to the mayor's attention. Some officials decided that since Fletcher wasn't well-off financially the government ought to give him a gift. Someone from the government called on Fletcher and gave him a few pounds in an envelope. But when John Fletcher saw what it was he gave it back to the visitor. The gentleman took the money back to the mayor, who said, "Well, I guess we didn't give him enough."
They increased the gift by a few pounds, but again Fletcher refused it. The mayor said, "Well, maybe he wants more," so for the third time the gentlemen took a gift to Fletcher. But John Fletcher returned it again, saying, "You don't understand. I don't want it."
"Well," said the exasperated mayor's representative, "you must want something. We want to show our appreciation. What can we give you?"
Fletcher said, "No. Honestly, there's nothing... well, there is one thing I want."
The man got out his notebook, ready to write the request. Fletcher said, "I only want more grace."
David A. Seamands is professor of pastoral ministries at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky. He is a best-selling author, and his book, God's Blueprint for Living, from which this article was excerpted, was recently released by Bristol Books.
This article was published in Good News (July/August 1988).