7th Commandment: Do Not Commit Adultery
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What does the 7th commandment 'Do Not Commit Adultery' really mean?
We are in a series on the Ten Commandments, or as the Bible calls them, the Ten Words. These are not rules to check off a list. These are an invitation to rethink how we relate to God and humanity in a way that creates life and flourishing. Today, we'll look at command number seven, don't commit adultery.
It's two words in Hebrew, lo tin af, which means to violate another couple's marriage covenant, breaking it, shattering it. That's what na'af means.
And flip this command over, and it's a unique invitation.
Protect the covenant marriage partnership of your neighbor as if you were protecting their life, even if it comes at great cost to yourself.
So why is the marriage covenant so important in the Bible? Well, the answer starts in a place that if you're a regular listener to the show, you might anticipate.
Where would I go if I want to meditate on the nature and purpose of a marriage partnership between a man and a woman? It happens to be the subject of much focus in the seven-day creation narrative and the Eden narrative.
And we'll discover that the Bible thinks of marriage in cosmic terms. It's a symbol that teaches us a mystery about God.
Marriage is a symbol.
How does the concept of marriage differ in Israel's laws?
of the Creator's relentless focus, love, and loyalty towards creation. That he would relentlessly commit himself to the dirt creatures and pursue them, to love them as God loves God's own self. That's what a human marriage is meant to symbolize.
Marriage is a place where humans train to sacrificially love and be devoted to each other, just like how God is devoted to us. And all of this is what the seventh command is trying to protect.
If you see a married couple in your community, their marriage is the most important context where they're learning to become fully loving human beings towards each other. Protect that. Honor that. Don't shatter the marriage of another couple because of your sexual desire.
Today, Tim Mackey and I explore the wisdom of the seventh commandment, and it's a wisdom that's not just for those who are married.
What insights do Genesis 1-2 provide about the union of man and woman?
Thanks for joining us. Here we go. Hey, Tim. Hello, Jonathan Collins. We're in the Ten Commandments. We're doing the Ten Words, and we have set the stage that all of these are for life. How do you know how to connect to true divine life? Also just to have life on the land. How do we treat each other with respect and dignity and how do we flourish? That's what God wants for us.
Yeah. That is why God commands anything to anyone in the story of the Bible.
Because he wants us to be able to know the good from the bad and to choose life. And so that's what God's commands are all about. These 10 are really set apart, inscribed in stone, as it were. And they become this kind of foundational opportunity to reflect pretty holistically on what does it mean to be the image of God, to live holy. in a way that seeks life.
In what ways does marriage reflect God's covenant with humanity?
And so we've been going through these slowly and covered a lot of ground. We're in this little triad. Yeah. Commands six, seven, eight. Yeah. And these are deceivingly short. Two words each. Two words each. Yeah. Don't kill. No adultery.
What role does sacrificial love play in the context of marriage?
No stealing. Yeah. Yeah, I guess in Hebrew it's lo, no. No killing, no adultery, no stealing. Yeah. And so we spent last conversation really digging into this don't kill thing. And so now we're going to move on to the second one.
How can unmarried individuals apply the values of the 7th commandment?
Yep.
The second one, which is don't commit adultery. One of the big takeaways from the last one, and I don't know how important this will be for this one, is that this command, don't kill, is really an invitation to consider how valuable human life is. And not just human life. Yeah. Like all life. Yeah. And that's what the Bible, the story through Genesis has been putting in front of us, the readers, is just how significant life is and that God created life and he sustains life and he can rule over life and that we've been given the opportunity to also take care of life. But what does it mean to like end the life? God can do that. He has the right to do that.
Yeah.
But do we? And here it just comes out and it's like, nope. And then a thousand questions spiral out of that.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What does the 7th commandment 'Do Not Commit Adultery' really mean?
0:05–1:21
2
How does the concept of marriage differ in Israel's laws?
1:21–2:16
3
What insights do Genesis 1-2 provide about the union of man and woman?
2:16–3:23
4
In what ways does marriage reflect God's covenant with humanity?
3:23–3:43
5
What role does sacrificial love play in the context of marriage?
3:43–4:01
6
How can unmarried individuals apply the values of the 7th commandment?
4:01–4:55
7
Why is the marriage covenant considered a cosmic mystery?
4:55–5:18
8
What implications does the 7th commandment have for modern relationships?
5:18–1:06:50