Of all the commands Paul could have chosen to illustrate the impossibility of being justified by law, he chose the tenth commandment, “You shall not covet…” (cf. Romans 7:7-8). The reason he chose that particular command is both logical and instructive.

Coveting is the hardest command to control and “capture,” so to speak, so it is the perfect example of the problem of trying to be justified by a system of works. Paul says that we wouldn’t know what coveting is except that the law defines it for us and because it does define it, then we know that we’ve committed the sin of “coveting.”

What is coveting? It’s basic definition is simply intense desire. The  Mosaical Law warned against coveting (intensely desiring) something or someone that a man has no right to have because it belongs to another: your neighbor’s house, wife, servants, animals or anything that belongs to your neighbor (Ex. 20:17; Dt. 5:21). Dt. 7:25 warned against coveting the silver and gold from the carved images of the gods that they were commanded to burn. Covetousness is the thing that motivates the evildoer to seize lands and houses and to oppress others (Micah 2:2).

In the New Testament, the Greek verb, epithumeo, which is used by Paul in Romans 7, is most often used for “lust” or “desire.” The noun, epithumia, is generally used to describe the sin of lust, but there are notable exceptions (see Lk. 22:15 and Phil. 1:23, where the noun is used to describe an intense desire for something good). The noun pleonexia is often translated “covetousness.”

All of these words describe an intense craving or desire for something or someone, most often for something that the one doing the craving has no right to have. Hence, the English word, “covet,” has taken on a decidedly negative connotation, especially in biblical use, although the definition of the word simply means to “yearn to possess or have something.”

Paul struggled with this command more than the others because, as Alan Richardson says in the Theological Wordbook of the Bible, p. 64, “these words belong to a cycle of ideas which is primarily psychological…and they express an intense emotional assertion of the self.” It was this command that caused sin to “come alive” for Paul (or for the man Paul portrays in Romans 7) and it produced in him “all kinds of covetousness.” He was made aware, through the law, that he was asserting himself instead of letting Christ take over.

Coveting is different that the other nine commands. Idolatry is closest to it, because one can “take idols into his heart” (Ezek. 14:3) — idols can be mental as well as metal. And Paul calls coveting “idolatry” in Col. 3:5. But coveting is always a matter of the mind — there is no image or bowing down necessary to “covet.” You don’t even have to worship the thing or person — just wanting it is enough to constitute “covetousness.” Furthermore, it is a sin even if no overt act ever comes from it. One may never act on his intense desire, but the intense desire itself is enough to condemn him.

“Coveting” seems to cover every desire that is not Christ-like. In fact, James says it’s the beginning place of all sin (1:14-15). But an act of coveting may not be so specific that it’s easy to track. One may examine the other nine commandments and check them off one-by-one: “I haven’t given homage to an idol, check; I haven’t used the name of the Lord in vain, check; I haven’t failed to keep the Sabbath, check”; check, check, check, through number nine. Doing that, one may feel rather pleased with himself, like the rich young ruler who came to Jesus. “All these things I have kept,” he said (Mt. 19:20).

 But coveting doesn’t lend itself to such analysis. It’s not one of those “neat and tidy” sins that we can see, hear or touch. It’s more sinister in its work in us; more surreptitious. The most “righteous” among us may be most prone to violating this law, and blind to his violation. It’s not wrong to want something. It’s not wrong to desire something and since the basic meaning of coveting is “desire,” we need God (the “law”) to tell us which desires are right and wrong.

That’s what makes it somewhat complicated (as Paul implies in Rom. 7). Desire itself is not wrong; in fact, we could use more of it sometimes. I feel C. S. Lewis’s comments on “desire” are thought-provoking:

Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. (The Weight of Glory, 1949)

When lawful desire becomes illicit desire (coveting) it turns ugly and ruins us from the inside out. Coveting  grows out of a lack of contentment with what we have and moves to a perverse desire to have more and more. It is desire, but excessive desire, or misdirected desire. The intensity of it can grow until we are willing to do just about anything to get what we desire. It is this desire for more that chokes out the word (Mk. 4:19).

Worse still, it leads to “ruthless, aggressive self-assertion” (Richardson, p. 64) which often leads to  running roughshod over others. Reckless desire for possessions can consume one’s life (cf. Lk. 12:15). It is idolatry because its intensity harnesses all of our focus and strength; we “give ourselves” to the desire, the idol.

Coveting is not limited to possessions or people, either. It can be an intense craving for power or attention or fame. I once read that some young Olympic hopefuls were asked, “If you could win a gold metal but knew that, if you won it, you would die a year afterward, would you still want the gold metal?” Over half of them said “Yes.” That’s why coveting is idolatry (Col. 3:5). What we covet becomes the primary object of our affection.

Do you see the problem and why we have to be on guard at all times? It is so easy to sanctify our desires in our own mind, instead of identifying them as coveting. It is easy to feel that our desires are exempt from God’s scrutiny, even while we convict others. Coveting may be one of the easiest sins to justify in our hearts because end we seek, or tell ourselves we are seeking, may be a good thing.

A man might say, “If I had more money, I could do greater things for the Lord.” That gets him off the hook, in his own mind, then he can work all those extra hours to make all that extra money, some of which finds its way into the collection plate on Sunday while most of it is spent on items that cater to his pleasure. It’s like the Jews that Jesus convicted of violating the command to honor father and mother in Matthew 15. They would say, “what you would have gotten from me I have given to God” (v. 5). They blessed themselves in their hearts, though their hearts were stubborn and evil (see Dt. 29:19).

Coveting can manifest itself in many ways. The only way to safeguard our hearts is to do what Paul commands in II Cor. 13:5a — “Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves!” Don’t assume that your desires — no matter how you word them in your mind — are righteous. Put every desire to the test.



David Posey