The Coveting Soldier

Welcome! Today we continue our series entitled Facing Your Enemy. As I mentioned at the beginning of the series, there is a very real sense in which, as Christians, we are “soldiers” for Christ. The Bible repeatedly uses military analogies to describe our role and purpose in this world. God desires that, by His help, dependent on His power and His direction, we advance His kingdom, taking back ground for Him that has been taken by the enemy, the one called the Great Deceiver, Satan.

Our title today is The Coveting Soldier. I love Isaac’s picture of coveting; our hapless Christian soldier is coveting the other soldier’s gun. In what this symbolizes there is a great irony here. As Christians we know we are not supposed to covet, but how frequently do we not only covet but even covet other people’s faith, their spiritual gifts, in short, their Christianity? How wrong is that?

Now the word covet is not a word we use very much today, is it? Google has a neat feature in that when you look up a word, it can show you a graph of the frequency that the word is used as a function of time. Sure enough, the use of the word has been in decline for the last 200 years, although there is a bit of a recent uptick. Even Bible translations reflect this change; the word “covet” and words like “coveted”, “covetous”, etc., appear 11 times in the NIV but 39 times in the much older KJV.

Recall that the command not to covet is one of the 10 Commandments, so it is obviously a pretty big deal. But I think it is especially significant that it is the last of the 10 Commandments. Why? Well, with the exception of the first commandment, the other commandments deal primarily with outward actions. Think of commandments like don’t make idols, don’t take the Lord’s name in vain, keep the Sabbath, honor your parents, don’t murder, don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, and don’t bear false witness. These are outward actions. It’s obvious to the world if you have made an idol, because they can see it. It’s obvious if you take the Lord’s name in vain, because they hear you say it. Murder is likewise an action, as are adultery and stealing. But coveting is internal; you don’t take anything or say anything or do anything. You just think it. I can just imagine the Israelites listening to these commands for the first time. “Don’t make idols.” “Got it. Check.” “Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain.” “Got it.” And so on. “Don’t murder.” “Of course. No problem.” “Don’t commit adultery.” “OK, I won’t.” “Don’t steal.” “I would never even consider it.” “Don’t bear false witness.” “OK, I won’t. Ah, that was the ninth; only one more. I can do this!” And then, “Don’t covet.” “OK… wait. Don’t covet?! That’s a lot harder! That’s about what I think!”

Now in the Sermon on the Mount in Matt. 5-7, Jesus made it clear that many of the other commandments were really about the heart as well. Adultery wasn’t just the physical act; it was also even the thought of it, said Jesus. Murder wasn’t just the physical act; it was also even storing up anger against someone. So if those Israelites thought they had no problem with the first 9 Commandments, they were very wrong about that.

But the Israelites were right in that it is hard to not covet! When you visit someone’s home that is bigger and more beautiful than your own, your mind just naturally drifts along, imagining what the person’s salary is, how easy it must be for them, how you wish just a little of that good fortune would fall on you. That’s coveting; you have just broken one of the 10 Commandments! 

God of course knew it is hard to abstain from coveting. And I think He knew that we would want to tend to sort of ignore this commandment, and that is why I think He made it so much longer than the others before it. I mean the sudden level of detail in the coveting commandment is almost humorous, if you stop to think about it. Here are the last five of the Ten Commandments:

You shall not murder. – Ex. 20:13

You shall not commit adultery. – Ex. 20:14

You shall not steal. – Ex. 20:15

You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor. – Ex. 20:16

You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor. – Ex. 20:17

God could have just said that last part and it would have meant the same thing! Don’t covet anything that belongs to your neighbor. But no, God started with examples, I think, so that people would really take stock of their own failures with regards to coveting.

I gave that example of a home just a minute ago. Homes are the first things mentioned in this verse! That’s kind of depressing. This is not like one of those verses that people argue meant something specific but have been expanded symbolically to mean much more, like “Don’t boil a kid in the milk of its mother.” That command, which, interestingly is repeated 3 times in Scripture (in Ex. 23:19, Ex. 34:26, and Deut. 14:21), has been interpreted by the Jews in later centuries to mean that milk and meat should not be eaten together in the same meal. But “don’t covet your neighbor’s house” doesn’t have to be expanded symbolically at all to mean “don’t covet your neighbor’s house.” 

The next thing this passage says is not to covet your neighbor’s wife. At first glance you might take this to mean that you shouldn’t admire how good looking your neighbor’s wife is, and wish your wife looked more like that. That is certainly part of the meaning, and admittedly that is a pretty horrible thing to entertain in your heart; it’s so wrong on so many levels! I have no doubt though that many men throughout the world do exactly that. But even if you would never do that, you may not be off the hook. What about someone who’s spouse has significant medical issues that require major time, energy and money to address? Such a husband may notice that his friends aren’t going through this; their wives are healthy and as a result their family can do all kinds of things that he and his wife can’t. Or what about a man who married before becoming a Christian and whose wife is not a Christian? He notices his friends have married wonderful Christian women and he wishes he could have a relationship like that. Or what about a single man who notices that his friends are getting married to wonderful Christian women and here he is, still single? In each instance it is not easy to avoid “coveting your neighbor’s wife” in some way.

Next we come to servants and at last you might think you can breathe a sigh of relief; you don’t have any servants, so you cannot sin in this manner. Maybe not, as long as you don’t have any employees, which really are the same thing as servants in many ways, and as long as you don’t have any children either, who are supposed to do what you say. But if you have ever wished your children were well-behaved like the so-and-so’s, or that you could afford someone to cut your grass like your neighbor does, or that you could go on a cruise like your neighbor did and get pampered like she says she was, well, to at least some degree you are coveting your neighbor’s servants.

“Hah!” you say. I don’t have any donkeys or oxen, and neither does my neighbor! What about your friend’s decked out Bronco (Ford Bronco) or your other friend’s vintage Mustang (Ford Mustang) or when you see someone downtown in a Spider (Porche Spider) or a Jaguar? And your neighbor might not have any of these, nor any donkeys or oxen, but what about when he cuts the grass on a riding mower called a Deere (John Deere)? I confess I am guilty of coveting a Deere on more than one occasion.

And then the passage adds anything else of your neighbor’s, if you covet that, it’s forbidden too. For a child: Your friend’s comic books, or his Lego collection. Or her My Little Pony toys, or her Squinkies. For a student: Your friend’s ability to get good grades despite not studying, or the fact that your friend is popular and you are not. For a woman: your friend’s ability to lose weight without even trying, or her good looks, or her spiritual gifts. For a guy: your friend’s well-paying job, or how much free time he has. Anything means anything.

Now I want to point out a literary structure buried into the Ten Commandments. The structure is called a chiasm or chiastic structure, and such a structure is described by the letters ABA or ABBA or ABCBA or ABCCBA or ABCDCBA or ABCDDCBA where the different letters correspond to themes. The idea of a chiasm is that there are a pair of bookends, so to speak, at the beginning and end which are related or parallel in some way, and if you remove these, depending on the depth of the chiasm, you find another pair of bookends, and another, and so on, until you find a single theme (or pair of themes) in the center.  Chiasms are all over Scripture! It is not necessary to find them and analyze them in order to understand the main messages of the Bible, but often, uncovering these chiasms provides additional insight.

My claim is that the Ten Commandments are a chiasm of the form ABCBA. Here’s how:

            A: 1-2. I am God; have no other gods; make no idols.
            B: 3. Do not use the Lord’s name in vain.
            C: 4-8. Keep the Sabbath; honor your parents; don’t murder, commit adultery, or steal.
            B: 9. Don’t lie.
            A: 10. Don’t covet.

How are these related? By the following:

            A: HEART
            B: SPEECH
            C: ACTION
            D: SPEECH
            E: HEART

I personally think there might even be a deeper chiastic structure within the C, by the way. Here is what I see:

            Ca: 4. Keep the Sabbath. (Don’t steal your time from God.) - PROPERTY
            Cb: 5. Honor your parents. - DIGNITY
            Cc: 6. Don’t murder. - LIFE
            Cb: 7. Don’t commit adultery. (Honor your spouse.) - DIGNITY
            Ca: 8. Don’t steal. - PROPERTY

It is interesting to me that murder, in this way, is in the center of the center of the chiasm. And how appropriate; nothing is more sacred or important than life, yet (and because of this) all of Christianity rests on the murder of the one and only Man (and more than a man) who was ever completely totally innocent of all wrongdoing. (Incidentally, I think if you think about the arrests, trials, and crucifixion of Jesus you can find that every commandment was broken.)

But I want to focus on the main structure. In particular, note that the first commandments and the last are about the heart. By thinking about this we can see what is so terribly bad about coveting: it means we are not satisfied in God. People build idols for exactly the same reason, don’t they? In fact there are a lot of similarities between coveting and idolatry. In our selfishness and our desire to be apart from God, to make our own decisions, to live our own lives, we want things that aren’t ours to have. I hope you can see how serious this is. In fact it really is the original sin, isn’t it? Eve and then Adam coveted that forbidden fruit. That fruit was God’s, not ours, but we wanted it (and all that Satan said that it stood for) anyway, and so we took it.

My son Isaac has been writing a lot of college essays recently, and one topic that has generated more discussion at our house than any others could be summarized as “Zombies vs. Star Trek.” In essence, the question points out that what is popular in movies and TV often reflects the values of our culture, and the question asks what these two extremely different views of the future (a collapsed world vs. one where most of our problems are solved, dystopia vs. utopia) says about us as a people. I’ve thought about this, and I would say that at present Zombies has the upper hand, and not just Zombies, but end-of-the-world-themed stories in general. Often these end-of-the-world stories show people in desperate situations acting very badly. And I’m afraid to say it, but I fear what a collapsed world would be like, one in which the rule of law no longer has any power. People generally do not give in to their coveting because of the rule of law; they don’t want to go to jail. But if you remove that motivation, then people may act on their coveting. And what does coveting lead to? It leads to lying if it helps you get what you want. It leads to stealing, taking what you want. It leads to adultery, taking those people you want. And it leads to murder, killing those who stand in your way. The commandments 6-9 flow out of commandment 10. That is how serious coveting really is.

In the same way, I see that the other commandments in the first half flow out of the first ones. If you really love God, you won’t worship other lower-case g gods, and you won’t make idols. And you certainly won’t use God’s name in vain, cursing Him, if you really love Him. And, respecting God’s authority and seeking to please Him, you will also respect and honor your parents.

Remember what Jesus said were the greatest commandments in all the Law?

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” – Matt. 22:37-40

If you really love your neighbor as yourself, you won’t struggle with coveting anything of your neighbor’s, will you? And if you really love the Lord your God with all you’ve got, you won’t struggle with idolatry or the other things mentioned in the first five commandments.

The issue with coveting is our hearts. The Bible says repeatedly how important our hearts are. Here are just a few examples:

Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. – Prov. 4:23

Wow! Everything you do flows from your heart. We are commanded, above all else, to guard our hearts. How do we do that?

Well, although as Bob Schmitt can tell you, sports aren’t really my thing, I cannot think of a better analogy than that of guarding a player from the other team. Guarding someone means you are constantly watching for what they will do, constantly trying to keep them from their objectives. I am by no means a good guard in sports, but I know what it feels like when I am guarded well; I can’t seem to accomplish anything! To guard our hearts is to watch over our hearts, to pay attention to what we are thinking. This may sound a little strange, but from time to time I have set phones, email systems, etc., to send me a two-word message. I set these far in advance, usually a month or more. And when it happens, the message is “Heart check.” Whatever I am doing, wherever I am, my “rule” when I get one of these messages is to simply ask, “What was I just thinking about?” And then, as far as I can go back, I try to reconstruct my thought life for that day. At first, these checks were consistently depressing, because I would find that God had not been a part of my life at all pretty much from after breakfast that day. But I think these checks have helped me to learn how to guard my heart better. Now, I have in my mind certain “taboo” subjects so that I can tell when I am thinking about them (usually) and then choose something else, something true, noble, right, pure, lovely, etc. I am referring to Philippians 4:8:

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. – Phil. 4:8

So I don’t let my mind dwell on these bad things; I guard my heart against them. As in Philippians, I find it helpful to change my thoughts to those of thankfulness to God for His many blessings. I certainly don’t do this perfectly, nor all the time, but I do believe that anyone can grow in their ability to monitor and then guard their thoughts, their hearts.

Two additional Proverbs passages strike me:

For as he thinks within himself, so he is. – Prov. 23:7a

Another way of saying that is you are what you think! And the other passage is this:

As water reflects the face, so one’s life reflects the heart. – Prov. 27:19

Now I mentioned Jesus and the Sermon on the Mount. I want to look at this further. Let’s start at Matt. 6:19.

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." – Matt. 6:19-21

This is showing that what you do, where you set your priorities, how you spend your days, all of this affects your heart. If you set as a goal the fact that you want to be rich by such-and-such an age, if you are disciplined and serious about it, you will start to do, as much as you can, the things needed to make this goal become a reality. But not only this, the daily grind itself will also be changing your heart. Often coveting is at the root of goals like this. Through advertising or seeing other people, a person sets demanding worldly goals. Now I suppose it could be worse; the person could then plot how to steal or kill to satisfy these goals; our hypothetical person is staying within the law, simply working hard. But where is their heart? What is happening to it? And what about being a soldier?

I’m not saying you can’t have goals, and I’m not saying you can’t work hard. What I am talking about is that you need to keep asking what is most important to you, being brutally honest with yourself. If you have no time for the Word but you read the latest trade publications, if you don’t pray but you plan out each workday, if you scheme about how to get more business but never think about how to help people in your life come to Christ, there is a problem with your heart. And unless the problem is addressed, and addressed radically, the problem will only grow worse.

Jesus goes on:

“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!" – Matt. 6:22-23

In the Jewish culture at the time of Jesus, a person with good eyes, healthy eyes, was one who would pay attention to the needs of their neighbors, and when a need was revealed, would do something about it. In contrast, a person with bad eyes, unhealthy eyes, was one who didn’t pay attention, and even if he knew about a need, would still choose to do nothing. Even today we have a similar phrase, to “turn a blind eye” to something means that we don’t do anything about it.

I believe these verses are not a separate thought from the verses preceding them, but instead continue the same line of thought. I believe they pertain to where you are storing up treasures. A person with healthy eyes is storing them up in heaven; one with unhealthy eyes is focused on gaining wealth in the world. And as your heart darkens, how dark you become!

Continuing in the passage:

“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money." – Matt. 6:24

You see, we are not “back” to money; we never left it. Really all of this pertains to coveting. Wanting more than you have in this life kills your love and drive for the things of our eternal life in Christ. I would warn you not to assume that, because just because you are Christian, you could not possibly be serving money instead of God. It’s just not true! You can be a Christian, and yet, at a stage in life, still not be one that serves God.

Again, I believe the next passages in Matt. 6 are not a separate train of thought, but a continuation of the themes of covetousness vs. desiring God that we have already seen. Here is how Jesus continues:

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?" – Matt. 6:25-27

Wait, isn’t this about being fearful, not covetousness? I used to think so, but not any longer. I don’t know how I missed it for so long. Look at the second sentence. “Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?” This doesn’t really make sense if you are talking about a person fearful of dying out on the streets without food or adequate clothing, because without these things you won’t live for very long. Speaking literally, life is not more than these things, if you are about to die! But now consider the previous passages and think about a person not worrying about starvation, but worrying about keeping up, having all that the experts say you should have, maintaining a standard of living you see others have, and so on. This is the very definition of covetousness! And for these people, saying, “Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes” makes perfect sense! You don’t need to eat like a gourmet or have a designer wardrobe to keep alive! Coveting makes us anxious. It makes us worry. The reality is that we don’t really fear starving to death; we fear losing our standard of living. Now the standard of living was so much lower for many people in Bible times that we might call it starving, but the same would be true of how most of the world today lives. Yes, their nutrition is inadequate, and yes, in times of famine or war there are true tragedies when people do starve, but in most of the world, most of the time, people are hungry a lot more than we are but they live and live pretty long lives. As of 2011, the life expectancy in the United States was 79. In China, it was 76. Not much different! In Indonesia it was 70, and in India, 65. Yes, these are lower, but they aren’t like 30 or 40. In all these countries most people live to see their grandkids and many see their grandkids grow up. Yet the average caloric intake in India is only about 60% of that in America. And you don’t want to know what percentage of the delicacies in the world America and the West eat.  

“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." – Matt. 6:28-34

I was unable to find statistics comparing America to other countries, but it is enough for me to learn that the average American – man, woman, child, and baby – purchases 64 pieces (packages) of clothing per year. For a family of four that’s 256 pieces. That’s a lot of clothing! If the average home keeps clothing 4 years before getting rid of it, that means the average home has about 1000 pieces of clothing in it! For one point of contrast, in Nepal, to which our short-term mission team is about halfway there, most people either sew their own clothes or purchase clothes sewn for them. I am pretty certain that the average Nepali household has dramatically fewer than 1000 pieces of clothing in it.

Yes, these passages are about worrying, but so much of our worrying is self-manufactured. It’s happening because we succumb to our culture’s extreme covetousness. And this covetousness destroys our ability to serve God, to be soldiers in Christ, to be Kingdom-minded, showing love to one another and to a lost world that is worrying about trivial things but ignoring the infinitely more important question of where they will spend eternity. And so, brothers and sisters, I implore you to set aside covetousness, to guard your hearts against covetousness, to stop wasting energy worrying as the world worries, and to be others- and mission-minded, serving God with all you’ve got.