New Evangelizers Post: 10 Commandments in the Modern World Part 9 - Relationship Boundaries

I have a new article up at NewEvangelizers.com.  

Commandment 9: Thou shall not covet thy neighbors wife.

In the version of the 10 Commandments found in the book of Exodus place both objects of covetous desires, your neighbor’s wife and his goods, into the same commandment. The version from Deuteronomy that most Catholics use finds the anti-envy command separated into two different commandments.

We will deal with the nature of envy per se in the next article in this series. For now, I want to focus on why coveting a person is put into a separate category.

More often than not, sins in regards to your neighbor’s spouse are covered in the commandment against adultery. But the element of coveting is a necessary component because more often than not, infidelity is born out of this covet.

Simply put, coveting is to have jealous desire. The 6th Commandment ideally covers all sexual sins, including the internal sin of lust. But coveting a person is not quite the same thing as lust.

In lust, there is that visceral yearning for that intense bodily pleasure that seeks its satisfaction in the body of another but not in their person. Love is about entering into relationship whereas lust does not care about relationship but only about pleasure that the body of another can give. That is why lust is a sin, because it takes someone made in the image and likeness of God and turns them from a subject of relationship into an object pleasure. It is literally dehumanizing.

But the 9th Commandment does not necessarily begin or end in lust.

You can read the whole article here.