A Battle Against Covetousness Is a Battle Against Unbelief

What Is Covetousness? Amazingly, of all sins, covetousness ranks high enough—or low enough—to be explicitly forbidden in the Ten Commandments: “You shall not covet” (Ex. 20:17). There’s a good clue to its meaning in 1 Timothy 6:5–6. It speaks of “people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain. But godliness with contentment is great gain.” The word covetousness isn’t used here but the reality is what this text is all about. When 1 Timothy 6:5 says that some are treating godliness as a means of gain, Paul responds in 1 Timothy 6:6 that “there is great gain in godliness with contentment” (RSV). This gives us the key to the definition of covetousness: Covetousness is desiring something so much that you lose your contentment in God. The opposite of covetousness is contentment in God. When contentment in God decreases, covetousness for gain increases. That’s why Paul says in Colossians 3:5 that covetousness is idolatry. “Put to death . . . what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.” It’s idolatry because the contentment that the heart should be getting from God is...