Coveting Hall of Fame – Part 5 – Tenth Commandment

Esau

The coveting Hall of Shame, Series 1

The tenth commandment

Exodus 20.17; Deuteronomy 5.21

“You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, his house, his field, his male or female servant, his ox or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.”

Genesis 25.32

Esau said, “I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?”

Full belly or full future?

Covetousness can make you short-sighted. Esau so coveted a bowl of lentils that he traded his future status as the heir of God’s promises (no surprise to God, of course, Who planned it all). Paul wrote about men whose god was their belly (Phil. 3.19), men who would do whatever was necessary in the short-term to satisfy their fleshly desires. Like Esau, they were flushing away their futures for a mess of pottage. Solomon cautioned against coveting the immediate by referring his readers to the ants, which patiently store up for the future when there will be no food to gather. The desire to satisfy every fleshly desire right here, right now, can blind us to what we may be throwing away in the future. Not every immediate opportunity will be a temptation to covet; however, it’s a good idea to take the longer view before we seize the moment.

Have you ever given in to something immediately available, only to realize later you should have waited? How can we guard against making this mistake?

—

“In the Gates” is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T.M. Moore

T. M. Moore is editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).

Scripture quotations in this article are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, (c) copyright 2001,2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Editor’s note: The use of a translation other than the Authorised Version in an article does not constitute an endorsement in whole or in part by The Christian Observer.