WANTING IN ORDER TO GIVE
You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor. Ex. 20:17, N.I.V.
Why do people covet? What is coveting, anyway? Is it wrong to see your neighbor's house and say to yourself, "Someday, I'm going to build a house just like that!"? Are we not supposed to be challenged by desire for self-improvement? Perhaps it would be worth our while to examine some of the basic qualities of self-motivation in light of the high calling we have as sons and daughters of God.
First of all, we would all agree it is obviously wrong to want something that belongs specifically to another person. The reasons are simple: it means that you desire to gain at their expense, that your interests are purely selfish and, consequently, hurtful. And that is at the crux of the tenth commandment. It answers a lot of questions about God, too. He does not simply "want" from us--service, time, our income--just to satisfy an ego-centered divinity.
There is a place, however, for being stimulated toward the kind of self-improvement that involves the motivation to seek material things. The things sought are seen not as an end in themselves, but as a means of achieving the greater goal of service. A man might dream of having a house someday just like his neighbor's, not because it would bring him social prestige but because his neighbor's house fits into the man's mental picture of the kind of home that would maximize his ministry to others: a large living room with a fireplace--a good gathering place for groups of people to feel the warmth of fellowship, as well as the warmth of a blazing fire; enough tucked-away places where furniture could be arranged to encourage small-group intimacy within the framework of the larger whole--so as to provide settings where discussions and individual growth could take place.
Once again God's promise of fulfillment for us given in the Decalogue is that He will so resolve our feelings of inadequacy and lack of self-worth that we will no longer be driven to endless grasping after things that cannot bring us peace. "You will not covet--because your hearts will be content in all that I am and all that our friendship brings."
We will still want, but we will want in order to give.
You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor. Ex. 20:17, N.I.V.
Why do people covet? What is coveting, anyway? Is it wrong to see your neighbor's house and say to yourself, "Someday, I'm going to build a house just like that!"? Are we not supposed to be challenged by desire for self-improvement? Perhaps it would be worth our while to examine some of the basic qualities of self-motivation in light of the high calling we have as sons and daughters of God.
First of all, we would all agree it is obviously wrong to want something that belongs specifically to another person. The reasons are simple: it means that you desire to gain at their expense, that your interests are purely selfish and, consequently, hurtful. And that is at the crux of the tenth commandment. It answers a lot of questions about God, too. He does not simply "want" from us--service, time, our income--just to satisfy an ego-centered divinity.
There is a place, however, for being stimulated toward the kind of self-improvement that involves the motivation to seek material things. The things sought are seen not as an end in themselves, but as a means of achieving the greater goal of service. A man might dream of having a house someday just like his neighbor's, not because it would bring him social prestige but because his neighbor's house fits into the man's mental picture of the kind of home that would maximize his ministry to others: a large living room with a fireplace--a good gathering place for groups of people to feel the warmth of fellowship, as well as the warmth of a blazing fire; enough tucked-away places where furniture could be arranged to encourage small-group intimacy within the framework of the larger whole--so as to provide settings where discussions and individual growth could take place.
Once again God's promise of fulfillment for us given in the Decalogue is that He will so resolve our feelings of inadequacy and lack of self-worth that we will no longer be driven to endless grasping after things that cannot bring us peace. "You will not covet--because your hearts will be content in all that I am and all that our friendship brings."
We will still want, but we will want in order to give.
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