15 Be Content
In the tenth commandment, “you shall not covet,” God’s searchlight moves from actions to attitudes, from motions to motives, from forbidden deeds to forbidden desire. The word for “covet” conveys the thought of seeking dishonest and dis-honorable gain. Coveting appears here as first cousin to envy: you see what someone else has, and you want to grab it for yourself, as Ahab wanted to grab Naboth’s vineyard in 1 Kings 21. In Colossians 3:5 Paul calls coveting “idolatry” because the things coveted become your god, controlling your life.
Coveting is a root of all social evil; desires that burst the bounds beget actions to match. David took Bathsheba (thus, by theft, breaking the eighth commandment) and got her pregnant (thus breaking the seventh) and then to avoid scandal arranged for her husband Uriah to be killed (thus breaking the sixth), and it all began with David coveting his neighbor’s wife, in breach of the tenth (see 2 Samuel 11).
Similarly, Ahab’s coveting of Naboth’s vineyard next-door led to the framing of Naboth by false witness (breaking the ninth commandment), his judicial murder (breaking the sixth), and his vineyard being forfeited to the crown—in other words, legally stolen (breaking the eighth).
Then there was Achan (Joshua 7; note verse 21), and also Judas, whose coveting led him to break first the eighth commandment (John 12:6) and then the sixth and ninth together as he betrayed Jesus to death by a simulated act of homage (Matthew 26:48–50), all for money (Matthew 26:14–16; cf. 27:3–5). Perhaps Paul had Achan and Judas in mind, as well as folk known to him directly, when he wrote that “the love of money is the root of all evils; it is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced their hearts with many pangs” (1 Timothy 6:10).
CALLED TO CONTENTMENT
Put positively, “you shall not covet . . . anything that is your neighbor’s” is a call to contentment with one’s lot. The contentment that the tenth commandment prescribes is the supreme safeguard against temptations to break commandments five to nine. The discontented man, whose inner itch makes him self-absorbed, sees other people as tools to use in order to feed his greed, but the contented man is as free as others are not to concentrate on treating his neighbor rightly. “There is great gain in godliness with contentment,” wrote Paul (1 Timothy 6:6).
Scripture presents contentment as a spiritual secret. It is one dimension of happiness, which is itself the fruit of a relationship. Toplady focuses on this superbly in a poem beginning “Happiness, thou lovely name, Where’s thy seat, O tell me, where?” He writes:
Object of my first desire,
Jesus, crucified for me!
All to happiness aspire,
Only to be found in thee.
Thee to please and thee to know
Constitute our bliss below,
Thee to see and thee to love
Constitute our bliss above.
Whilst I feel thy love to me,
Every object teems with joy;
Here, O may I walk with thee,
Then into thy presence die!
Let me but thyself possess,
Total sum of happiness!
Real bliss I then shall prove,
Heaven below, and heaven above.
Knowing the love of Christ is the one and only source from which true contentment ever flows.
Jesus diagnosed, however, one mortal enemy to contentment: worry (see Matthew 6:25–34). But, he said, for a child of God (and every Christian is that) worry, which is in any case useless, since it can improve nothing (verse 27), is quite unnecessary. Why? Because “your heavenly Father knows” your needs (verse 32) and can be relied on to supply them as you “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness” (verse 33). Not to see this, and to lose one’s contentment in consequence, shows “little faith” (verse 30). The God whose fatherhood is perfect can be trusted absolutely to care for us on a day-to-day basis. So to realize that while planning is a duty and worry is a sin, because God is in charge, and to face all circumstances with an attitude of “praise God anyway” is a second secret of the contented life.
To realise the promised presence of one's loving Lord,
who both orders one's circumstances and gives strength
to cope with them, is the final secret of contentment.
Nor is this all. Look at Paul, a contented man if ever there was one. From prison he wrote, “Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. . . . I have learned the secret of facing . . . abundance and need. I can do all things [i.e., all that I am called to do] through him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:11–13). The open secret to which Paul alludes here is fully spelled out in Hebrews 13:5ff.: “Put greed out of your lives and be con-tent with whatever you have; God himself has said: I will not fail you or desert you, and so we can say with confidence: With the Lord to help me, I fear nothing: what can man do to me?” (JB). To realize the promised presence of one’s loving Lord, who both orders one’s circumstances and gives strength to cope with them, is the final secret of contentment.
DIRECTING DESIRE
We are all, of course, creatures of desire. God made us so, and philosophies like Stoicism and religions like Buddhism that aim at the extinction of desire are really inhuman in their thrust. But desire that is sinfully disordered needs redirecting, so that we stop coveting others’ goods and long instead for their good, and God’s glory with and through it. When Thomas Chalmers spoke of “the expulsive power of a new affection,” he was thinking of the way in which knowledge of my Savior’s love diverts me from the barren ways of covetous self-service, to put God first, others second, and self-gratification last in my concerns. How much do we know in experience of this divine transforming power? It is here that the final antidote to covetousness is found.
FURTHER BIBLE STUDY
From discontent to contentment:
• Psalm 73 Contentment in prison:
• Philippians 4:4-20
QUESTIONS FOR THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION
• How is the contentment prescribed in the tenth commandment a safeguard against temptations to break the first nine?
• Do you agree that philosophies that aim at the extinction of desire are misguided? Why or why not?
• What did Thomas Chalmers mean by his phrase "the expulsive power of a new affection"?