9th and 10th Commandments

9th Commmandment:
You’ll not covet your neighbor’s house.


10th Commandment:
You’ll not covet your neighbor’s wife… or anything else that belongs to your neighbor.


Covet is not a word we use very often. However we do covet all the time. Just watch kids with their siblings and cousins at Christmas. You are likely to see coveting on full display. Kids love to get new toys but may struggle with others receiving a toy that they might perceive as better. All too often, after having unwrapped a huge pile of gifts, we hear our children ask what else they are going to get or complain that they did not receive a gift that someone else did.


The key to avoiding coveting is contentment. I believe that one way to teach our children contentment is to teach them how to give. By giving to others, we are able to take on an element of God’s character, who is ultimately the giver of all good things. As our children experience giving to others, they gain an appreciation of the effort and sacrifice behind the act of giving.


These final two commandments that explore various aspects of coveting are connected to our understanding of the Seventh Commandment’s concern over the property of others. Coveting is in many ways the fertile ground in which the desire to take from others grows. Instead of harboring a desire for the possessions of others, our children are better served when they are able to nurture an attitude of satisfaction in the blessings God has given them. Otherwise, these desires may develop into more unhealthy desires resulting in theft or damage of others’ property.


As the toys get bigger and more expensive, the temptation to covet grows as well. The toys of the teen years may include phones, cars, tablets, TV’s, and much more. Often friendships in these years are reshaped by who has what toys. This makes coveting all the harder to avoid. Who doesn’t want the latest iPhone or a great new car? The challenge is that satisfaction becomes harder to achieve when chasing after the possessions of others. Teens who take part in both local and global service have a better chance of understanding the true value of what God has blessed them with. With a larger perspective on our material blessings, teens are able to come closer to being satisfied and may find themselves desiring more for others and less for themselves.