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Coveting And Adultery
In the "Sermon On The Mount" in Mathew 5: 27-28, Jesus said, "You have heard that it was said to those of old, "You shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
In these two verses Jesus makes a connection between two of the Ten Commandments in the Old Testament.
The Seventh commandment found in Exodus 20: 14 says; “You shall not commit adultery.” And the Tenth commandment found in Exodus 20:17 says; “"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."
The Hebrew word for “covet” in Exodus 20:17 is the transliterated Word “Chamad” which can mean, “to desire, covet, take pleasure in, delight in.” Bible scholars have translated the Hebrew word “Chamad” as the English word “covet” which means “to wish for enviously; to desire (what belongs to another) inordinately or culpably; to feel inordinate desire for what belongs to another.”
When Jesus points out in the Sermon On The Mount that “whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart”, He uses the Greek transliterated Word word, “epithumeo” which means, “to turn upon a thing; to have a longing desire for; covet things forbidden.”
Bible scholars have translated the Greek word “epithumeo” to the English word “lust” which means, “intense or unbridled sexual desire; an intense longing.”
A better translation for the word “epithumeo” would be “covet” instead of “lust”, because Jesus was not referring to having “sexual desire” from looking at a woman, but rather he as referring to the Tenth Commandement, “Thou shall not covet thy neighbors wife.”
“Sexual desire” is an emotion, not an act of the will. Click here to see how some things cause adults to have an increase in sexual desire.
The word Jesus uses, “epithumeo”, does not mean “sexual desire” but rather means having a desire or longing for something that is not yours – “coveting”.
Was Jesus saying it is sin to have an uncontrolled increase in the emotion of “sexual desire”, or was He saying it is sin to covet and wish you could have sex with a woman you are looking at?
I believe God does not condemn humans for having emotions. Emotions are “not right or wrong – they just are.” People today love to experience varied emotions. That is why they love the roller coasters that give them a thrill of fear. And they love movies that cause them to experience fear and love and sexual desires. Click her to read more about how movies and stories can cause us to experience emotions.
Since God does not condemn people for having emotions, and an increase in “sexual desire” is an increase in an emotion, it does not make sense that Jesus would be condemning married men for looking at women. Instead it makes sense that Jesus was condemning men who are coveting women.
I believe Jesus was speaking to married men, pointing out that if they are wishing they could have sex with women who are not their wife, they are guilty of adultery.
Jesus makes a connection between the seventh and tenth commandments that the Rabbis should have already figured out. Jesus combines these two commands to reveal, “Coveting your neighbor's wife” is “adultery”.
Apparently “adultery” was considered much worse than “covetousness” or “lust”. Now Jesus comes along and points out that “coveting” and “adultery” are equal sins.
If we go back to the Ten Commandments, we see that it is not only sin to covet your neighbor's wife but it is also wrong to covet your neighbor's donkey, his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to his neighbor.
Jesus was drawing from the Old Testament and Jesus intent was to point out to his audience that coveting a woman is a form of adultery.
Was Jesus trying to say that men should not look at women? Is it sin if a man looks at a woman and experiences an emotional increase in sexual desire?
We recognize that if an adult man looks at a naked woman he usually will experience an increase in “sexual desire”. Click here to read more about this.
I remember being taught that it was ok to notice a skimpily clad sexy looking woman, but if I took a second look, I was sinning.
The emphasize Jesus was making was not on admiring a beautiful woman, but rather on having a cheating heart. Notice Jesus did not address single men. He addressed married men because they are the ones who need to be happy with their wife. He was trying to get married men to not have cheating attitudes and hearts.
It is not sin for a man to find a woman beautiful or attractive. I own a nice car but it is ten years old. When I see my friends brand new car, I can find it attractive and I can even think about buying one. But if I stop there I'm not coveting. If I decide, “I have to have a one of those”; then I begin to covet.
The reason coveting is sin, is that God gives us everything to be used as a tool to serve Him. All our money and time and possessions are to be used to glorify God and to further His kingdom here on earth.
And so God wants us to be happy with what we have. If use most of our money and time on things that do not further God's kingdom, then we are cheating God.
God does want us to be happy. But he doesn't want us to be so spiritually weak that we would go out and buy a car just because our friend bought one. And he doesn't want us to go and divorce our wife or cheat on her or be unhappy with her and be having strong sexual desires for other women when we see a more beautiful woman.
I remember early in my marriage I worked with a beautiful young woman who was over ten years younger than myself and my wife. This young woman made it clear to me that she was mine sexually if I desired her.
This young woman was very beautiful. Her soft voice inflections and her beautiful perfectly shaped blue eyes and face and her long natural eyelashes and her nice young figure were all very attractive.
I had to work with her for long hours in a close setting. I couldn't help but notice her beauty. But noticing her beauty was not sin. Just like admiring my friend's new car was not sin.
I had a choice to be loyal to my wife or to lust after this young woman in my heart, or to actually have an affair with her. I choose to be loyal. I did find her beautiful but I chose to not have strong sexual desires for her. I did not dream about her or dwell on thinking about her. When a person cannot get some other person out of their mind, then this is “coveting”.
I remember she invited me to lunch one day. I went. On the way back from lunch she bluntly told me that I could have my way with her. I didn't. Nor did I wish I could have sex with her.
Jesus was reminding men that coveting is a form of adultery. I believe Jesus was not introducing some new standard that admiring the beauty of the female is sin. The original Greek makes this clear. It's sad that the word is interpreted in the English as “lust”. Because the word “lust” has two meaning in English.
The first English use of “lust” is not the meaning Jesus was talking about. This “lust” means having an increase in “sexual desire”. Sexual desire is an emotion. It is not a conscious act of the will. Having “sexual desire” is not sin. Click her to see why seeing naked pictures or reading or listening to sexual activity causes adults to have an increase in “sexual desire”.
The second meaning of “lust” is “to lust after, covet things forbidden.” This is the kind of lust Jesus was talking about and it is better translated as “covet”.
Jesus was most likely referring to the Seventh and Tenth Commandments when he said “whoever looks at a woman to “epithumeo” (covet) for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
If Jesus had been preaching against looking at women, wouldn't He have addressed single men too, and not just married men? Wouldn't he have forbidden looking at the nude women in the society he lived in? Jesus could have preached directly against looking at females and against public nudity. Click here to see that nudity was not uncommon in Jesus day.
Let us back up and look at the culture Jesus was teaching in when he said it was adultery to look at a woman to covet her. In Bible times a man could marry as many wives as he wanted. Please remember that in Bible times, a wife was not allowed to tell her husband that he could not marry an additional woman. And to marry an additional wife a man would have to be thinking romantically about the new woman he planned to marry.
A man with multiple wives would have had to look at each of them romantically and to marry an additional wife the man would be looking at additional women.
Let us also remember that to be an elder in the New Testament church, a man could only have one wife. Here we can see that having multiple wives was still permitted in the New Testament but not God's best.
This concept of multiple wives in the Bible, teaches me that God values marriage so much, that He is willing to give a husband much latitude, freedom and broad discernment in the marriage, in order to allow the husband and wife to be happy.
Jesus is not intending to condemn men for looking at women. Instead Jesus wants husbands and wives to be committed to each other and not have a cheating heart.
In the Sermon On The Mount, Jesus also said that anger is murder, He said to not make pledges, He said to lend to those who ask, He said to give to those who ask, He said to not defend yourself, and He said to never divorce and that if you remarry you commit adultery with your new spouse.
All these other things that Jesus said in the Sermon On The Mount, are taken as words of wisdom, instead of harsh commands that are to be applied legalistically in every situation.
We do make pledges, we don't accuse each other of murder when we get mad at each other, we don't lend to everyone who asks, we don't give to everyone who asks, we do defend ourselves, we do divorce and get remarried in the church, and we don't say that those who get remarried are committing adultery.
Let's apply the verse on "lust" as wisdom, consistently with how we apply the other directives Jesus gave in the passage. This way we will not condemn married couples that choose to use moral erotic material to strengthen their marriages.
Many marriages end in divorce due to intimacy problems. And many husbands and wives end up doing secret sexual sins because of a lack of passion in the bedroom.
Since God did not condemn multiple wives, do you really think God would condemn a married couple for reading or listening to a moral erotic story in their bedroom?
We believe that a married couple should commit to each other to stop doing sexual related activities alone, such as looking at porn, reading romance novels, going to topless bars, watching soap operas, flirting, going out alone at night, etc.
Instead, we recommend the couple plan exciting activities in the bedroom together. Reading or listening to our marriage love stories can be fun.
Click here to see how our web site can be of help to married couples with a spouse who struggles with porn.
Click here for an explanation of why some things you read, see or hear can cause you to have an increase in sexual desire.
And click here to see when erotic material causes sin according to the Bible.
The Bible teaches that the devil is the accuser of the brethren (Rev. 12:10). Is the devil using our interpretation of what Jesus said about “coveting a woman” to cause Christian men to feel needlessly guilty and thus causing them to be spiritually lame?
In Romans it talks about how something that is forbidden becomes something we desire.
And in Corinthians it teaches that “whatsoever is not of faith is sin”. And so if we are taught that looking at a woman and noticing that she is attractive is sin, this will cause us to feel guilty if we do look at a woman.
To not have needless guilt we need to “rightly divide the Word of God”.
The truth is that a man can look at a woman and admire her beauty without coveting her.
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