Monday, 21 June 2010
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Covet Not, Suffer Not: Consummerism & Self-Inflicted Pain
The Ten Commandments are a series of basic rules which God gave to the Israelites via their deliverer Moses. I memorized all Ten Commandments sequentially in CCD and grade school. I haven't bothered with them too much since. Of course, our society propagates a lifestyle that is slightly conducive to some of the commandments; but, there is one commandment that is absolutely off most people's radar. "Thou shall not covet."Perhaps this commandment is forgotten because it is the tenth and final commandment. It may be overshadowed by "Thou shall not murder", "Thou shall not steal" or "Thou shall not lie". There are plenty of reasons why we can conveniently overlook this final commandment. Why do most people forget to live this commandment? How is this potentially the most important commandment? Would our day to day existence change if we rededicated our lives to this directive?
In my experience, a lot of adult Christians focus on the New Testament versus the Old Testament. The NT is a Gospel of love and forgiveness. The OT is full of words like judgment, wrath of God and punishment. Literally, if one were to choose the lesser of two evils, it would be to purely focus on the OT. But David says in the Psalm 119:160 that "The very essence of your words is truth; all your just regulations will stand forever." God established all of His ordinances to last forever--even after the NT was published. Hence, the Tenth Commandment was still meant to be applied to our lives.
Words like commandments, ordinances, decrees and laws stir up negative emotions for me. Whenever someone tells me to do something, I naturally want to reject it. God's laws are given to us that we might be prosperous everywhere we go. When God instructs us not to covet or desire something that belongs to our neighbor, He is protecting us from self inflicted suffering. When we covet or desire something that doesn't belong to us, things like envy, jealousy, and rage set it. If we think that someone has something that we deserve, we'll want to even up the odds and secure that object, person or luxury that is rightfully ours.
In our culture, coveting is used as a mechanism to further consumerism. The United States of America is a nation full of insatiable consumers. We always want more. We're never satisfied. Moreover, we're taught to compete with our neighbor to have the best of everything. We want the best reputation for the sexiest, smartest and wealthiest person in our social circles. We might not admit it out loud; but it's true. It's hard to work more than 40 hours a week to survive while your neighbor works far less and always seems to have something better than you.
As rings true with most lineups, the best commandment was saved for last. Coveting is a common denominator in all the other commandments before it. When you want something that isn't yours, you aren't trusting that God has provided the best for you. You've violated the first commandment. Coveting will make you lie, cheat and steal to get what you want. Some may even resort to murdering someone's reputation, relationships or careers out of a desire for what they have. If the worship service finds you more concerned with the woman in the nicest suit, you have not kept the Sabbath holy.
I believe that our daily lives would be revolutionized if we stopped coveting what someone else has. Job satisfaction would increase and quality of life would improve. We wouldn't be tormented by feelings of never having enough. We would finally find the very thing we spend so much time, effort and energy trying to find. We would find contentment. Instead of drowning in tears of "poor me" and "why don't I have ___" mentalities, we should free ourselves of this undue anguish.
James 3:16 says: "For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice." Ain't that the truth too? Coveting, envying and selfish ambition give birth to the very worst of people. Be covetless.
Can you honestly say that you don't covet? How does coveting or not coveting effect your life? Do you think society at large has a hand in this self-inflicted suffering?
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- From: EBailey
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Comments (7)
I believe that Christians are more deceived by coveting with respect to social justice issues than with consumerism.
Far too many Christains believe that government is a legitimate avenue for social justice. Coveting the resources of the wealthy is cloked by using the goverment to confiscate their wealth and redistribute it the disadvantaged.
This is nothing less than stealing.
All social programs from Social Security, Welfare, public education and Medicare are based on the government stealing from one group of people and giving the stolen goods to another.
Both stealing and coveting are prohibitted in Christianity. Yet far too many Christians believe that coveting and stealing in the name of social justice are moral.
@TheNewSeminarian -
"Far too many Christains believe that government is a legitimate avenue for social justice. Coveting the resources of the wealthy is cloked by using the goverment to confiscate their wealth and redistribute it the disadvantaged.This is nothing less than stealing."
Stealing? Like Bernie Madoff? Like the executives of Lehman Brothers who borrowed billions every quarter from Citibank in a sweet temporary loan deal so they could declare those billions as assets in their quarterly and annual reports thereby creating a false sense of confidence in their investors that the company was not only solvent but highly successful, then returned the billions back to Citibank after each time the report was published? Like the CEO of Lehman Brothers who sold his sprawling Florida estate to his wife so the bankruptcy court could not legally confiscate it and use the proceeds to pay back investors who were robbed? Like so many of the wealthiest in banking who, once they had nobody to regulate them used nefarious practices like credit default swaps and ghost hedge funds to bilk the public for their own financial gains? And where would all those wealthy bankers be if they couldn't convince the public to covet shares in the stock market?
Maybe we should get rid of a government voted for by the people and become like Somalia or better yet, the "civilization" like that depicted in "Road Warrior". Social programs like public education and Medicare are based on a mutual agreement of the majority of people who agree that we are only as strong as our most disadvantaged of citizens.
i think it depends on the person. for me, seeing something i really really REALLY want encourages me to achieve that. i think the only unhealthy form of coveting is when we want something we cannot ever have. it takes intelligence to make that distinction.
you seem to be arguing that people should accept their places in life and not desire better for themselves. it seems pessimistic and limiting. the truth is: you can change your life pretty much any way you want to. it's just that some people aren't willing to make the necessary sacrifices, or put in the extra work. and it's those people who are eventually destroyed by jealousy.
@TheSutraDude@xanga - Bernie Madoff will be tried and convicted of his crimes. Congress is above the law.
@TheNewSeminarian - Bernie Madoff is already tried, convicted, and in prison for the rest of his life. The CEOs and executives of the investment banks largely responsible for the economic collapse in full knowledge of what they were doing will probably never be brought to trial. At least we can vote people out of Congress once people pay attention. The economic collapse and now the BP arrogance has hopefully awoken the American public.
@TheSutraDude@xanga - The CEOs and executives of the investment banks largely responsible for the economic collapse in full knowledge of what they were doing will probably never be brought to trial
It is common knowledge that Barney Frank and Chris Dodd engineered the entire banking collapse through legislation that forced banks to make bad loans to people who could not afford them.
If the law were applied equally to Congress as it was to Madoff, a great many of them would go to jail. All social welfare programs are the same type ponzi scheme that Madoff used.
@TheNewSeminarian - The Govt is doing a Bernie Madoff on us. But Since it is the Govt it is Legal.
Social Security takes money from our Paid Checks and puts it into a big fund and our money then go's to Old Retired People. ( Instead of being put into Personal individual accounts)
Once their is more Old People, then people paying in then Social Security is bankrupt.
Bernie Madoff took money from the People paying in and gave it to the people that made withdraws of their investments. ( Then more people withdrawed then paided in and Bernie Madoff ran out of money to give to the people that were withdrawing their investment.
Bush wanted to make a Bill where we paided Social Security in to the Govt and then our money paid in would go to a Individual account. ( which we would have control of that account )