You Shall Not Covet

Exodus chapter 20 tells the story of the giving of the ten commandments.  Immediately after God tells the people not to murder, not to commit adultery, not to steal, not to lie, he tells them not to covet. He tells them not to covet anything belonging to another.

As Christians we know that we should not kill.  We recognize the sin of adultery as another thing that Christians should never do. We would not steal. We even know we should not lie. Rarely do we think about the sin of covetousness.  I think that might be because we define it too narrowly.

We look around at our neighbors and see the things they have. We might like the looks of their new car or the pool in their backyard. We begin to think about how nice a new BMW would be but we would NEVER want to take our neighbor's BMW. Instead, we figure out how to go get one of our own. Never mind if we really need a new BMW, but we want one, so we do what it takes to get it.

Or maybe we get catalogs in the mail from some of our favorite stores. We find ourselves leafing through the catalogs repeatedly and thinking of the things we want. Not that we really need any of those things, we just want them. And, hey, they don't belong to our neighbors.

I have heard of people saying that it isn't wrong to covet items in a store or catalog, "After all," they say, "They don't belong to anyone." 

Covetousness is a dangerous sin.  Consider these scriptures:  

¹⁵  And he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” (Luke 13:15 ESV)

²⁸  And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. ²⁹  They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, ³⁰  slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, ³¹  foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. (Romans 1:28-31 ESV)

 

³  But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. (Ephesians 5:3 ESV)

⁵  Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. (Colossians 3:5 ESV)

Notice that covetousness is put right there with murder, deceit and other evils. Ephesians says that covetousness should not even be named among us as God's people. But that scripture in Colossians really hits hard.  It says that covetousness is idolatry!  When we are covetous, we are putting some thing ahead of God and that is idolatry. No idolater will enter heaven.

We live in a world that is designed to make us covet.  Advertising is everywhere. Even when we go to the grocery store we see large displays touting some product we must have to make our lives better. Billboards along the road, commercial breaks on television, ads in magazines. Where can you look and not see advertisements?  The whole purpose of those ads is to make us dissatisfied with what we have and to cause us to covet this thing, whatever it is, that is sure to make us happy.

The scripture from Luke above, tells us that our lives don't consist in the abundance of our possessions. We need to remember that covetousness can lead to the loss of our souls for eternity.  We need to examine ourselves. It is so easy to become covetous when the temptations are all around us. Often we don't even recognize that we are coveting. Think about it.

Oh, and by the way, even those items in the catalog and store belong to someone.