Category: Digging Deeper

Let’s come back to something we talked about on day one: the first and last commandments.

I only recently noticed that the first and last commandments (you could call them the bread of the Ten Commandment sandwich) feel closely connected. All the other commandments have outward evidence that reveals whether or not you are obeying them. They also have tangible impacts on the people around you. If you create an idol, people can see it and might even be tempted to join you in worship. If you lie, murder, steal, or commit adultery, other people will eventually find out.

But putting God first and refusing to covet are different. You can claim to be obeying these commandments whether you actually are or not. Ultimately, observing these two commandments is between you and God.

We are called to put God first. When we covet, however, we place the things we desire ahead of Him. At its core, coveting reflects a lack of trust. Perhaps we believe God is holding out on us or giving others something better. I am not saying that having possessions—or even wanting them—is necessarily wrong. The problem comes when we want something more than we want God.

So, the first commandment can be summarized as, “Don’t put anyone above God,” and the last commandment as, “Don’t put anything before God.” God wants us to find our deepest and eternal satisfaction in Him instead of trying to fill our hearts with the things of this world.

I love this quote by John Piper from Living in the Light: “When the truth is suppressed, and the light is rejected, and the glory of God is disregarded, something always takes their place. The human heart hates a vacuum. We may never merely leave God because we value him little; we always exchange God for what we value more.”

Take a moment and consider your heart. Is there anyone or anything you are placing above God?

I grew up in church and always thought I knew the Ten Commandments. I mean, they’re right there on the page and seem pretty straightforward. So, I was surprised to learn from a Roman Catholic friend that my numbering wasn’t the same as his.

You see, this list, often referred to as the “Decalogue,” is important enough to God that it appears twice in Scripture.

Catholics use Augustine’s numbering, which is based on the Deuteronomy 5 account of the commandments rather than the Exodus 20 account that we’ve been studying on Sundays. In Augustine’s numbering, what we call the first and second commandments (“You shall have no other gods before Me” and “You shall not make for yourself a carved image”) are combined into a single commandment. Then, at the end of the list, coveting your neighbor’s wife is counted as the ninth commandment, while coveting your neighbor’s possessions is counted as the tenth—taking what Protestants count as one commandment and dividing it into two.

One more interesting fact: Judaism numbers the Ten Commandments differently from both Catholics and Protestants. The first commandment is Exodus 20:2: “I am the LORD your God, who rescued you from the land of Egypt, the place of your slavery.” Then what Protestants number as the first and second commandments (Exodus 20:3–6) are combined into a single commandment.

So, is coveting one commandment or two? I would argue that it doesn’t matter whether you are coveting a person or a possession. They don’t need to be separated. In fact, we could say that coveting a person is a form of objectification. That person simply becomes something we want, while their humanity, personality, and desires are pushed aside.

Treating people like things is something God repeatedly speaks against through His prophets, and it certainly violates the second greatest commandment: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Take a moment to evaluate your own heart. Are there people in your life whom you may not be coveting, but whom you are failing to treat with the dignity due to someone created in God’s image? Ask God to forgive you, and perhaps you also need to ask that person for forgiveness.

I, like probably many of you, grew up on Saturday morning cartoons. At a time when there was no streaming—not even VHS tapes or DVDs—you had to get up early and stay planted in front of the TV until around noon to enjoy all the colorful goodness! Even getting up to grab a bowl of cereal or use the bathroom was a race to beat the end of the commercial break.

Even the commercials were pretty cool sometimes. In between episodes of Scooby-Doo or Super Friends, there were ads for Hot Wheels, Micronauts, and Stretch Armstrong. But we all knew they were just commercials, so it was okay if we missed a few while enjoying the main shows.

TV networks were also required to include educational programming during commercial breaks, and that’s where the classic Schoolhouse Rock! segments came in. Everyone of a certain age just started hearing “Conjunction Junction” playing on repeat in their heads…you’re welcome.

Then the FCC relaxed its rules about marketing to children, and in the 1980s, the lines between commercials and cartoons began to blur. Was He-Man a cartoon, or was it really a long-form advertisement? It seemed like every toy line had its own TV show designed to boost sales.

The goal of the advertising was to make kids see those toys as not merely things they wanted, but things they needed. Coveting was the objective. You would watch the show and then see a commercial featuring kids just like you playing with those toys in a bedroom or backyard that looked just like yours. You’d think, “That could be me,” or, even more intensely, “That should be me.”

So you begged your parents, wrote requests to Santa, or “accidentally” left birthday wish lists where your parents were sure to find them. But inevitably, when we finally got those toys, they never lived up to the promise of the commercials. Those things never satisfied the longing that the marketing had ignited.

Some of us may still have trouble shaking off the programming that was instilled by G.I. Joe and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The world wants us to covet. Advertisers want us to look outward for satisfaction in things, but God wants us to look to Him. The “things” we believe we need will never truly satisfy us.

Take a moment to reread Paul’s words to the church at Philippi that are quoted at the beginning of this post. Where do you need to learn contentment? Where in your life are you more tuned in to the commercials playing around you than to the blessings you already have?

Jeremiah 17:9 is a verse that I quoted many times during my years in student ministry. Adolescent brains develop from the back to the front; the parts of the brain that control feelings and desires mature before the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for reasoning and decision-making. In a sense, our “heart” is really in the middle of our brain. For a teenager, that “heart” is often the loudest voice in their head.

We have all lived through this stage of life, and we know that many of the decisions we made as teenagers were not especially well-reasoned or insightful. In fact, many of them were downright foolish. This is one reason I am so thankful my teenage years predated social media, so there isn’t a permanent record of all my bad decisions. The problem for many of us is that, like teenagers, we continue to trust our emotional hearts and rationalize their desires.

In our culture today, we often place extra emphasis on those desires. We use phrases like, “My heart is set on it,” or, “The heart wants what it wants.” We justify our desires with sayings such as, “Follow your heart,” or, “Trust your heart.”

But Jeremiah encourages us to do the exact opposite! He warns us not to trust our hearts, reminding us that they can deceive us. What our hearts want is often not what God wants for us. At its core, coveting is choosing to trust our hearts more than we trust our God.

Trusting God is the opposite of trusting our hearts. I love what Jeremiah 17:10 tells us—that God examines our hearts and rewards us according to our ways and the fruit of our actions. It is important to note that God is not merely concerned with our outward behavior but also with our motives. Our relationship with God is not rooted simply in what we do but in what is in our hearts.

Just like yesterday, take a moment to examine your heart. Are you trusting your heart more than you are trusting God?

Years ago, I remember there being a big kerfuffle about whether the Ten Commandments should be displayed in courthouses. The pro-display crowd argued that the Ten Commandments were a legal document and therefore had a place in modern courthouses.

I always thought this argument was a little off. The Ten Commandments definitely give us a template for how to live in harmony with one another and with God, but as a legal document, they are severely lacking. They identify offenses but provide no indication of the punishments for violating them. Then they conclude with the unusual commandment, “Do not covet.”

Unlike stealing, murder, or adultery, coveting does not directly affect those around me. It is not an action but a thought. And last I checked, we do not make laws about thoughts.

At first glance, the commandment about coveting seems a bit out of place among the other nine. It stands out because it can be hidden away. It is a commandment that only you and God know whether you are keeping.

But there is one other commandment like it: the first commandment, to have no other gods before Jehovah. I believe these two commandments are the key to understanding what God is telling His people through the Ten Commandments.

I believe Jesus was helping His listeners understand what these commandments were truly teaching when He addressed two of the biggest ones on the list: adultery and murder. Instead of focusing only on the actions themselves, Jesus pointed out that these sinful actions begin in our thoughts—with the desires and impulses that come before the action.

Jesus addressed two commandments that are clearly tied to outward actions and explained that the actions themselves are not the root problem. Rather, they are symptoms of an issue within the heart.

Take a moment for some honest self-reflection. Is your heart aligned with God today? What have you allowed to come before Him in your life?

Surrender those things to Him. Get your heart right, and obedience to the other commands will follow.