The tenth commandment: contentment

This week's questions

Which is the tenth commandment? The tenth commandment is, Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbour's.

Question 79

What is required in the tenth commandment? The tenth commandment requireth full contentment with our own condition, with a right and charitable frame of spirit toward our neighbour, and all that is his.

Question 80

What is forbidden in the tenth commandment? The tenth commandment forbiddeth all discontentment with our own estate, envying or grieving at the good of our neighbour, and all inordinate motions and affections to anything that is his.

Question 81

This is the last of the ten. The ninth commandment guarded our words (last week); the tenth guards the heart that words and deeds come from.

The commandment that reaches the heart

Most of the commandments speak of what hands and mouths do; the tenth speaks of what the heart wants. The proof texts of Question 81 show how such wanting takes hold of a person. Ahab, king of Israel, could not have his neighbour Naboth's vineyard, the inheritance of Naboth's fathers, so he lay on his bed "sullen and angry", turned his face away and would not eat (1 Kings 21:4): a king with a kingdom, sulking over one vineyard. Haman, high in the Persian court, listed his riches and honours and then said, "Yet none of this satisfies me as long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king's gate" (Esther 5:13). Coveting spoils what we have and turns a neighbour into a rival; "Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying one another" (Galatians 5:26).

In another of those proof texts, Romans 7, Paul confesses that this very commandment showed him his sin:

I would not have been mindful of sin if not for the law. For I would not have been aware of coveting if the law had not said, “Do not covet.” But sin, seizing its opportunity through the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire.

Romans 7:7-8

A man who could think himself blameless in outward things saw his heart in this commandment. The Heidelberg Catechism says it requires that ‘not even the least inclination or thought against any of God's commandments ever enter into our heart’, but that we hate all sin and take pleasure in all righteousness Heidelberg Catechism, Q. 113. So the tenth commandment leads straight to Question 82, next week: no one keeps the commandments perfectly.

Today what others have passes before our eyes all day long. Advertising teaches us to want what we lack, and the pictures on our phones invite us to measure our lives against other people's. Noticing that wanting when it comes is the first step in learning this commandment.

Contentment learned in Christ

The first proof text of Question 80 grounds contentment not in our circumstances but in God's promise:

Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, for God has said: “Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you.”

Hebrews 13:5

Because God will not leave us, what we have is enough: "Of course, godliness with contentment is great gain" (1 Timothy 6:6); Paul goes on to warn that the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil (6:7-10). Paul says, "I have learned to be content regardless of my circumstances" (Philippians 4:11): contentment is learned, and its strength is Christ's (Philippians 4:12-13). Context, in the How to Read the Bible course, shows what the "all things" of verse 13 are. The English pastor Matthew Henry writes on the passage, "Pride, unbelief, vain hankering after something we have not got, and fickle disrelish of present things, make men discontented even under favourable circumstances" Matthew Henry.

Contentment turns outward, to the neighbour. Where envy grieves at another's good, love answers the call to "Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep" (Romans 12:15), for love "does not envy" (1 Corinthians 13:4). The Larger Catechism asks for full contentment and for such a charitable frame of the whole soul that all our inward motions and affections toward our neighbour ‘tend unto, and further all that good which is his’ Larger Catechism, Q. 147, and among the sins it forbids names envying and grieving at his good Q. 148.

The churches number these words differently. Catholics and Lutherans count the Reformed first and second commandments as one, and divide this one into two to make ten. Luther's Small Catechism makes "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house" the ninth commandment, and the neighbour's wife, servants, cattle and all that is his the tenth. The Catholic Church counts coveting a neighbour's wife as the ninth and his goods as the tenth Catechism of the Catholic Church; Deuteronomy, too, names the wife first (Deuteronomy 5:21). The Reformed and the Orthodox keep these words as one commandment. However they are counted, every church hears the same words. See also How should I think about money? and What is happiness?

To ponder this week

What do I find myself wanting most this week, and can I give thanks for what God has given instead? When envy stirs, notice it, and name one thing you have already received, with thanks. If a neighbour has had good news, tell them you are glad with them. Learn Questions 79 to 81 by heart.

Practice