Covetousness: The Scandal of Christianity

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Exod. 20:17 Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor’s.

Most Christians can quote this scripture off by heart, well aware that it is one of the Ten Commandments. Yet it is, perhaps, one of the commandments most frequently broken.

“There is a sin which a Catholic priest once declared that no one had ever confessed to him,” writes Samuel Logan Brengle, “a sin so deadly that the wrath of God comes upon men because of it; a sin so common that probably everybody has at some time been guilty of it; a sin so gross in the sight of God as to be classed with whoremongery, idolatry, murder, and such like; a sin so subtle that men most guilty of it seem to be most unconscious of it; a sin that has led to the ruin of homes, to the doom of cities, the downfall of kings, the overthrow of empires, the collapse of civilizations, the damnation of an apostle, of ministers of the Gospel and of millions of less conspicuous men. Men in the highest and most sacred positions of trust, and enjoying the most unlimited confidence of their fellow-men, have under the spell of this sin wrecked their good names, and have brought shame to their families, and misfortune, want, and woe to their fellows.”

This is quotation is taken from the book Covetousness, written and compiled by Lillian Harvey. It is published by Harvey Christian Publishers and is available in their Online Christian Bookstore.

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