Chapter 14 - The Ten Commandments Number 10 – 2008 7 28

Down to the last Commandment, the Tenth. This one states, "You shall not covet your neighbour's house, you shall not covet your neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox nor his ass, nor anything that is your neighbour's."

Covet means to be jealous of, to want something that you don't have. We have already talked in the last 'chapter' about what neighbour means – really everyone else but you.

We know that coveting your neighbour's wife could yield to disaster if you followed the thought into action. It could end up with marriage breakup. That has serious harmful effects on both families. Most of us don't have servants but we have many tools and appliances that do the work of servants for us. Do we see things our neighbour has that we don't and wish we did? We don't use oxen or asses (donkeys) much in our society. Instead, we use cars and trucks. Have you been jealous of your neighbour's car?

Desire, wanting things, and the trouble that gets us into, was one of the main things that got the founder of Buddhism into thinking there was more to life than material things and working to earn them. Christianity teaches likewise, the same. Jesus, the Christ, said, as recorded in Luke 12: 15, "Be careful, beware of covetousness, for a person's life does not consist of the abundance of things which he possess." How true this is. The more we have, the more worried we get about its security. We are pre-occupied; our minds get too full, with thoughts of losing it or its being stolen. We put up big walls around our homes. We put up big gates. Everything gets locked up. We get it all insured. We purchase and install alarm systems. In the end, by so doing, we fall prey to the trap of materialism.

What a lot of work, just to guard things that we all have to leave behind when we die anyway! What is most important is getting things in order in this earthly life so we can continue this life as it was meant to be before sin entered the world, where it should be, with our God, but now only to be fully ours after we pass from this earth.