Topical Studies
Tenth Commandment
(From Forerunner Commentary)
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Exodus 20:17 (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up)
Even when coveting falls short of directly breaking another commandment, it can damage both persons and principles. When a person covets what is another's, even though he may not actually lift a hand to take it, he robs virtue of its real meaning and makes obedience a hollow, mechanical activity. Any wife who has caught her husband gazing lustfully on another woman knows what this means. It kills trust in the relationship. At such a point, lust is already destroying.
John W. Ritenbaugh
The Tenth Commandment (1998)
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Exodus 20:17 (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up)
Covetousness is an insatiable desire for worldly gain and lies at the heart of where most sin originates. Of all the commandments, the tenth especially emphasizes man's relationship to man, which is readily seen in the repeated phrase "your neighbor's." It protects the interests of others in seven major areas listed individually within the commandment.
Martin G. Collins
The Tenth Commandment
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2 Samuel 13:1-15 (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up)
Here we have the story of the lust-driven affair of Amnon, one of David's sons, and Tamar, one of David's daughters, a half-sister of Amnon. Amnon was sick with love for Tamar, but the fruit of the relationship shows it was not love but lust. He greatly desired to take her to bed, so much so that he deceitfully conspired with his cousin Jonadab to arrange matters. He then compounded that sin by lying to his father to be alone with her and raping her when he finally was. The fruit of his shameful deed was further defiled when his feelings for her reversed to a hatred against her that was greater than his former "love." Two years later Amnon was dead at the hand of Absalom, Tamar's full brother. What piling of sin on sin coveting produced! It destroyed Tamar's virginity and possibly a future marriage. It destroyed the cohesiveness of David's family. It produced burning hatred, and everyone felt great sorrow. All of this blossomed from an uncontrolled desire in the mind of one person. Its effects impacted on David's family for many generations.
John W. Ritenbaugh
The Tenth Commandment (1998)
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Proverbs 30:15-16 (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up)
Each of these illustrates what greed does to the life of a person suffering from impossible-to-be-fulfilled desires. The ache and the yearning never cease, and the restless pursuit goes on, resulting in unhappiness.
John W. Ritenbaugh
The Tenth Commandment (1998)
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Matthew 5:27-28 (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up)
The person condemned by Jesus here deliberately uses his eyes to awaken and stimulate his lust. It is difficult enough to avoid lusting after natural things, but many things in this world are deliberately designed to awaken wrong desires. If certain books, pictures, magazines, movies, places, activities, or people tempt us to lust, we must avoid them, regardless of the cost. Not sinning is that important!
John W. Ritenbaugh
The Tenth Commandment (1998)
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Ephesians 5:5 (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up)
Covetousness is a strong desire for and a seeking after material things that become objects of our worship if we hold them as more important than God. Someone else's house or car can be an idol if we covet them. This attitude is identified with idolatry because it replaces God with self-interest and visible things.
Martin G. Collins
The Second Commandment
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Colossians 3:1-2 (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up)
A vital step to overcoming covetousness is to study, pray, fast, meditate, and obey. Consciously practice God's way of life. This takes sacrifice and discipline, but it fills the mind with God's thoughts. This will eventually make sin foreign to us because we simply will not think to do it!
John W. Ritenbaugh
The Tenth Commandment (1998)
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Colossians 3:5 (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up)
If we seek something contrary to God's will, we covet. If we lust after something, it can become an idol to us, and we will serve it (Romans 6:16). The Bible associates lust with pride and vanity (I John 2:16-17). When a man amasses possessions, he feels a false sense of security because they make him feel he is superior to others. He deceives himself into thinking that calamity will not touch him, yet covetousness is never satisfied and brings on many sorrows.
Martin G. Collins
The Tenth Commandment
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1 Timothy 6:6-10 (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up)
These verses show how we can know—if we are honest with ourselves—when we are coveting: by the fruit produced! Lust "drown[s] men in destruction and perdition" and "pierces one through with many sorrows." When we want something so badly we are not happy without it, we are coveting. Coveting's emotional effect is sorrow, pain, remorse, guilt, restlessness, and dissatisfaction.
John W. Ritenbaugh
The Tenth Commandment (1998)
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James 2:8-10 (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up)
James presents a tall order for God's people to live up to—and one impossible to do that unless one has the Holy Spirit. James speaks of the "royal law," meaning the Ten Commandments, since he cites the specific requirement, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." In this, he parallels Christ and Paul, finding in love of neighbor the sum of the law and its true fulfillment. James confirms that respect of persons is a breach of this "royal law" and leads to those indulging in it being convicted by the law of transgression. Then, he affirms the solidarity of the law: that a breach of a specific commandment is a breach of the whole, making the transgressor guilty of all. This is a far-reaching principle that Paul also suggests by quoting Deuteronomy 27:26 in Galatians 3:10: "Cursed is everyone who continues not in all things that are written in the book of the law, to do them." Paul also indicates it in Romans 7, where he explains that the conviction that he had broken the tenth commandment made him realize that he had broken the whole law.
Martin G. Collins
The Law's Purpose and Intent
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