“I don’t want that for you, and thus I have said, ‘You shall not steal.’ ”

The Ninth Commandment: The False-Witness Rule

You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

—EXODUS 20:16

There can be no meaningful exchanges in life apart from honesty. When someone tells a lie by either proclamation, promise, or pretense, he steals the trust and honor of the person to whom he lies. And when the lie is found out, he forfeits any honor he may have had, any esteem in which others held him.

Truth is the currency of God’s kingdom. If you expect to conduct meaningful spiritual business in that kingdom, it will happen only through the exchange of truth. Anyone who lies becomes, in that moment, an agent of darkness, doing Satan’s work instead of God’s. The devil is the “father of lies” (John 8:44 NLT).

Because God loves you He does not want you to suffer the consequences of being defrauded by a lie, or of defrauding others by a lie. He loves you so dearly that He sent the incarnation of truth into this world to die for you that you might be saved, and to pray for you that you might be sanctified by His Word, which is truth (John 17:17).

God gave us a commandment prohibiting lying because He wants you to be made holy—to be conformed into the image of the God of truth. And that can’t happen if your life is built on lies.

The Tenth Commandment: The Final Rule

You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.

—EXODUS 20:17

When Tim Keller was preaching a sermon on the seven deadly sins, his wife made an interesting prediction. She said that on the week when he dealt with greed, the service would have its lowest attendance.

His wife was right. Church members packed the auditorium for the topics of lust, wrath, and even pride. But there was no interest in greed. Keller observes that people have come to him to confess nearly every sin imaginable, but no one ever comes and says, “My greedy lust for money is harming my family, my soul, and people around me.” Greed, he concludes, is set in the blind spot of the soul, hidden from our own detection.16

Greed and coveting are nearly indistinguishable sins. They rise from a lack of contentment in what God has given us, and what we have worked to earn. Therefore, this is a commandment closely related to the one against stealing—in essence, the “gateway sin” that leads to theft.