God’s number one concern is idolatry. He wants to be unquestionably number one in our lives. Jesus made this clear in a passage that’s caused a lot of controversy: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26, NIV) Can you see why this is controversial? Hate? There’s another passage where Jesus says hating people is as bad as murder; is Jesus contradicting himself? As a kid growing up in the 80s, the New International Version (NIV) was a popular choice and this verse always bothered me. I was recently told the word “hate” in this passage is better translated as “prioritize”. That sounds a lot nicer. That’s the fun thing about translations – if something sounds off, check it out. I now lean toward the New Living Translation (NLT) because it’s meant to be more reader friendly and wouldn’t have left me as confused since it makes more sense: “If you want to be my disciple, you must, by comparison hate everyone else… yes, even your own life.”
This idea of prioritizing God follows one of the most important things we are taught in the Bible, the 10 Commandments. Why is it one of the most important things? Because they are directly given from God. The rest of the Bible is God inspired, but this directly is from God (that’s why the grammar is so good). The whole list is ultimately about making it easier to focus on him. For instance, it’s easier to focus on Him if you haven’t had a loved one murdered or if you’re not scared of someone robbing you. God wants us to be good enough to each other that we don’t distract each other from Him. Counting down from 10, the fifth commandment starts to be more about God since it’s about honoring your parents. If we respect our parents, it’s easier to respect authority, and the ultimate authority is God. From there each commandment gets more directly connected to God with the first two being redundant: Keep God first and don’t have anything before God. How bad is idolatry? There are two specific rules about them. Later Jesus says: “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. (Mat 22:37-38) God clearly wants to be number one in our heart (yet this is our biggest struggle).
The basis of idolatry is the basis of adultery. We are meant to have our spouse as number one human in our heart, and they ideally help us draw closer to God. Idolatry letting anything come between us and God with money being the biggest risk. As my pastor taught: Idolatry is trusting people, possessions, or positions to do for me what only God can do. Similarly, the foundation of adultery is letting anything come between us and our partner. It’s trusting a person, possession, or position to do for us what our partner is supposed to do for us. It’s normally seen as another person in a romantic way, but at the heart of adultery is letting anything be our priority over our partner.
Since I mentioned the 10 Commandments earlier, I should note that not committing adultery is the seventh commandment, which comes right after don’t murder and before don’t steal. This makes sense since adultery is less intense than murder and a specific form of theft. The tenth commandment is to not covet (or intensely desire) something someone else has (i.e. envy), and it lists their house, their spouse, their servants, their animals (i.e. their tools for work) or “anything else that belongs to your neighbor.” (Exo 20:17) Just like idolatry is mentioned twice, so is adultery. What’s also interesting is after Jesus says we are to love God as shared in the earlier verse, Mat 22:37-38, He continues: “A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Mat 22:39) Ultimately, if we are to love our neighbor, we’re not going to steal their spouse.
Tip: Having an affair means you’re not putting God first, but rather your own desires. That means adultery is also idolatry.
As a therapist, I find there are different categories for affair behaviors and things that can lead to affairs. Here’s a list of different options:
Physical Affair: There is inappropriate touching that is welcomed by both sides.
Inappropriate Sharing: This is sharing our heart with someone of the opposite gender who is not a professional, safe family member, or someone not at risk of attraction. This will likely lead to an emotional affair if neither side puts a stop to it after the first few messages.
Emotional Affair: An outside person becomes an inappropriate “safe” person for a member of a relationship. The member of a relationship should have a heart that is solely filled by the spouse, but as these people open their hearts to each other, this new member starts to share space with the spouse. In this way, it becomes like a polygamous relationship where the one person has two people in their heart filling two different roles. In this category, there isn’t anything really sexual, which allows the new couple to justify their interactions, but strong emotional attachments are typically more dangerous than a simple physical affair.
Verbal Affair: There is inappropriate use of sexual words, spoken or messaged, that is welcomed by both sides. These often come out of emotional affairs or a fantasy type meeting.
Tip: As a professional, I will work with a woman, but I will never let a non-relative woman share her heart with me in a non professional manner without my wife knowing and preferably beside me. Sharing our heart or letting others share their heart is like playing with dynamite. Men and women are meant to be best friends with those of the same gender (or same gender attraction) and save the intimate gender mixing relationships for their spouse or safe family like a parent or sibling. It’s never worth stepping on a slippery slope.
Persuasive Flirting: This is the kind of interaction that wait staff use in order to increase the likelihood of a bigger tip. Foolish people see it as “They like me,” when it’s all about someone getting what they want.
Inappropriate Flirting: This is it the kind of behavior that can lead to potential affairs. In this early stage, people can convince themselves it’s fine because they haven’t really done anything wrong, but they’re playing with dynamite.
Inappropriate Looking: This is looking at someone with sexual interest who is not their partner, and sees them more as an object than person. Some people want to get others to look at them inappropriately whether with the way they dress, get tattoos or piercings, or being a performer on stage because it gives them a sense of power. In this case, this person is also at fault. Some people will claim “It’s just the way I want to dress,” but there’s a reason they want to dress that way – for attention.
Recipient of Inappropriate Flirting and Looking: Some people don’t want to be leered at or ogled. Someone flirting with you is only wrong if you encourage it.
Misinterpreted Flirting or Looking: This is when someone is accused of doing something they weren’t doing. This can be a person looking in the direction of someone else, but not actually looking at them. It can also be when someone has something flashy on their chest, which is very eye catching, but the looking person is not “checking out” the flashy person; their eye was just naturally drawn to the flashy item.
Appreciating Beauty: God makes beautiful things. Appreciating a good-looking person is a lot like appreciating a beautiful tree. It’s not sexual. It’s acknowledging a fact.
Tip: As I often teach, never assume anything. If we have concern, we need to double check with a good two option question like “Was that message meant to be flirtatious or am I misreading it?” “Were you looking at that person in a sexual way or was it something else?” It’s never fair to simply accuse someone of something even if we “think” we know the truth.
This week may you consider how to keep your priorities in order.
Rev Chad David, ChadDavid.ca, learning to love dumb people (like me)
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