One Big, Happy Family Series

Life is not the only precious thing – so is marriage. A friend of mine who pastors in SD recently called to see how I was doing. I asked him how things were going in his parish, and he said he wasn’t quite prepared for what he encountered in the church when he got there. I asked him what that was and because he was in public, he cryptically answered, “Exodus 20:14.”

Adultery. It’s practically a buzzword among political scandals. It seems that those who are trying to preserve the sanctity of marriage through law have forgotten what it means in their personal lives. Technically, the Old Testament view of adultery is any relations between a married or engaged woman and someone not her husband. This is not the affair of a married man with someone not his wife. It is seen as an injustice because it robs a man of his wife’s affection and possibly produces offspring that is not his that he would have to provide for.

Anyone who has been affected by infidelity can tell you that more than just the marriage bed becomes defiled by adultery. The entire marital relationship and the family situation also suffers destruction. The seventh commandment creates boundaries for the husband and wife and the rest of the world. Boundaries are not something we always feel comfortable with, that is, until they are not there.

But boundaries in a relationship are necessary and vital for survival of integrity and identity. Imagine the chaos if employers had no boundaries on their behavior toward subordinates. Picture a day at school if students had no reason to show respect for their teachers or other students, but could do whatever they wished.

In the English novel Canterbury Tales, it is noted that the commandment about adultery comes between thou shalt not kill and thou shalt not steal, because adultery is the murder of the marital union and the theft of a spouse. The slippery slope that often leads to adultery is the struggle in the person’s mind between what they want versus what they should have, or more accurately, what they feel they deserve.

In Romans, Paul said, “Owe no one anything, except to love one another, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.” Given that statement, we cannot mistake lust for love because they do not work the same. Society may say they are interchangeable, but love is on a completely different level than lust. Love is holy.

Beg, borrow, or steal. These words mean different things to different people. Some vow never to do any of these three. Some would never beg, but they might borrow. Others may beg, but they refuse to borrow. Still others may bypass begging or borrowing and go right on to stealing. Only the truly desperate person might do all three. Stealing may be subtle or blatant, it may be active or passive, but no matter what, God forbids it. Still, that does not stop people from stealing.

When we are the ones who are victimized, we want justice, but how many times are we guilty of some lesser offense? We downplay or minimize the little crimes we commit by using a variety of words like sneak, snitch, lift, make off with, appropriate, or even borrow. Have you ever “borrowed” anything from a neighbor and failed to return the item? Then you are a thief. Have you ever “snuck” some food from the plate of a dinner companion when they got up to go to the restroom? Then you are a thief. Have you ever “lifted” a few dollars from a family member’s purse or wallet? Then you are a thief.