It is a word that I don't recall saying much. If ever. The last two Commandments deal with a tendency that I might quickly disregard. The other 80%, however, involve personal flaws I can relate to every day.
You shall not covet your neighbor's house.
You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's.
Covet is a verb that means wanting to own what someone else has. When it comes to donkeys and hired help that is easy to avoid. And yet God saw the need to not only mention it once, but twice.
There are other things rightfully belonging to my neighbors that I might be more likely to want to usurp. Their opinions. Decisions. Ideas. Views. Sure I get my personal stand but I want to control yours too. Because obviously you are not qualified.
Now don't get me wrong. There is a place for judges and surveyors whose verdicts matter. But there is a line between that and my inner drive to make someone else wrong.
There is a
debate going on about a rather simple equation.
8 / 2(2 +2) = ?
People are pretty feisty about it, as a matter of fact. It seems the notion that there could be two acceptable answers raises people's hackles. Yet who really wins when we let such things divide us, rather than multiply our experience of life?
