“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor,” is the ninth commandment of the Decalogue. According to Watson the tongue once made for praise to God has become an instrument of unrighteousness. We are commanded not to slander our neighbor. Anytime that we speak, witness or swear by something that is false against our neighbor or anytime that we speak what is false by swearing for our neighbor we break this command. In the world today we tend to take this commandment lightly by allowing certain lies like small ones, white lies, joking, or hiding things that could be harmful. God commands us to be truthful and live in the truth of his word, we should not deceive by lying or slandering. The mandatory part of the whole commandment is implied, which is that we stand up for others and vindicate them when they are injured by lying lips. We are called to love our neighbor, not harm them. In the same way we need to stand up for our God and not let and false slander be spread about him as well. We can bear false witness to God as well when we make God out to be something that he is not.
The 10th commandment is “You shall not covet thy neighbor’s house, wife, man-servant…” This commandment forbids covetousness in general and then gives a few specifics such as wife, ox, and so on. This I feel is one of the bigger problems in our culture today. Any time we see something that we want and we desire it more than anything else we covet that thing. Coveting is one of the leading causes of breaking the other commands, for example as we covet a neighbors wife we commit adultery, when we covet their things we steal, and so on. When our thoughts are wholly taken up by the items that we desire and we spend more time working to get items on earth than we do to get the things of heaven then we are coveting. When the focus is on the individual in society then the purpose become fulfilling the selfish desires of that individual, and this is the heart of covetousness. Our desire should be God, and our focus and work should be on obtaining a greater relationship with him and fulfilling greater glory to his name, and in seeking him first he will give us all that we need so that we do not have to covet. The best remedy to covetousness is contentment. If we are able to remain content with what we have and what God has given us then we will not covet that which others have. In our world we are bombarded with commercials and items to make us want and desire more than we have, and desiring more than we have is a direct violation of God’s command.
The ten commandments were an important part of the lives of the Israelites and continues to be important for our lives as well. As we seek to obey each command fully we will grow in our love for God in our hearts, minds, and souls, and as we grow in our love for God we will grow in our love for our neighbor. God has given us these commands for our own good, not to harm us but to help us and we would do good to observe each command in our thoughts, speech, and actions.
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