Strictly, this dissertation on the Seventh Commandment is no marriage counselling discourse, but after touching on divorce and polygamy it will be incomplete without any word on the conjugal relationship principles that make for enjoyable Christian marriage.
Reference therefore is here drawn from Apostle Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians 7:3,4.
In verse 3, the Apostle says “let the husband render into the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife to the husband”. The Greek translated benevolence here, literally means “obligation” “that which is owed”. The verse therefore states the duties of husband and wife towards each other in the matter of conjugal rights, especially in regard to sexual intercourse. Each is bound to the other for life, and in every possible way each is to show kindness and consideration for the other. This counsel is often taken for granted, but more often violated, especially by Christian wives who believe that there is special virtue in husband and wife living or sleeping separately from each other, which of course denies both of them the legitimate privileges of the married condition and exposes them to the temptation to immorality.
Verse 4 clearly states the equal rights of husband and wife. Neither party has the right to deny the other, the intimate privileges of the marriage relations. This does not sanction any form of abuse or excess. On the contrary, Christians must recognize the need for temperance and moderation in everything (see 1Cor. 9:25). Married persons should consider themselves united in a most intimate union and with the most tender ties; therefore when temptation for unfaithfulness comes to them, each should spontaneously think of the mystical and sacred union that unites him with his married partner and should positively refuse to break this union. Chrysostom expresses this thus: “when therefore thou seest an harlot tempting thee, say,: my body is not mine, but my wife’s. The same also let the woman say to those who would undermine her chastity, “my body is not mine, but my husband’s” (Homilles xix, 2; I Cor. 7:3).
This verse shows that the very nature of marriage implies that the granting or withholding of the marriage privilege should not be subjected to the whim of either party. Each has a claim to conjugal rights; always, however, with the divine qualification that God is to – be honoured in all things (see 1Cor. 10:31). Knowing that his/her body is the temple of the Holy Spirit (see 1Cor. 6:19,20), the believer should not permit the privilege granted him/her to become a cause of the violation of the command to present his/her body without defect to the Lord. (see Rom. 12:1) The body must be kept under the control of sanctified reason.
Christians are advised that they must not deprive one another of the intimate privileges of marriage except for a limited time; under special circumstances and by mutual consent – for fasting and prayers – this temporary abstinence from intimate relations for religious exercise does not suggest the promotion of asceticism in married life, nor does it suggest that such refraining from the privileges of marriage is necessary in order to engage in regular daily seasons of prayer, but only that it is an allowable plan to adopt, when one feels the need of a period of specially intense devotion, such as is suggested herein earlier by the phrase “fasting and praying” (cf Ex. 19:14–15). After this, the couple is required to come together and resume normal relations to avoid sexual misconduct. Marriage guards the parity of the race; hence any attempt to introduce lengthy abstinence from intercourse between husband and wife would tend to remove the safeguard against fornication and adultery.
(Concluded)
THE SECOND TABLE OF THE DECLAOGUE (4)
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT
“Thou shalt not steal” – ex. 20:15.
The scope of this command is to protect the right to property. Under the simple head of “stealing”. It “forbids whatsoever doth or may hinder our own, our neighbour’s wealth and outward estate” and “requiring the lawful procuring and furtherance of the wealth of ourselves and others”. This exposition implies that there is a sense in which a man may steal from himself. While there is a sense in which our property belongs to us, and not to our neighbours, and his to him, and not to us; yet we are all stewards of God, and in the higher sense, all property belongs to Him. Obviously then, God may be as much outraged by our misuse of what is lawfully in our stewardship, as by interfering with another’s trust.
The forms, in which the wordly estate of our neighbour may be wronged, are innumerable. The essence of theft is in the violation of the Golden rule – “Do unto others as you wish them do unto you” – as to our neighbour’s property. The essence of stealing includes the obtaining of our neighbour’s goods without his intentional consent, and, without fair market value returned. No matter how it is done, whenever we get from another, something for nothing without his knowledge and consent, there is THEFT.
This commandment forbids any act directly or indirectly by which we dishonestly obtain another’s goods especially in these days when the keen edge of morality is becoming increasingly dull, we must remember that, adulteration, the concealment of defects, misrepresentation of quality, and the employment of false weights and measures, are all acts of stealing, as much as, pocket picking or shoplifting.
Employers steal when they withhold from their employees the benefits they promised, or allow their wages to fall into arrears, or force them to work overtime without proper remuneration, or deprive them of any other consideration they have a reasonable right to expect. It is a violation of this commandment to conceal goods from customs inspectors or misrepresent the goods in any way, or to make false and misleading tax declarations or cheat tradesmen or turn over their property to friends in view of pending bankruptcy.
Employees violet this commandment when they take “commission” unknown to their employers or superiors, or appropriate that which has not been expressly agreed upon or neglect whatever function they contracted to do, or perform it in a slovenly manner, or damage the company’s or proprietor’s property willfully and carelessly or diminish it by waste.
We may steal from others in more subtle ways – robbing them of their faith in God through doubt and criticizing through the shattering effect of bad examples when otherwise trusted, by confusing and perplexing them with statements they do not understand, by pernicious and slanderous gossip that may deprive them of their good name and character. Whatever withholds from another that which is rightfully his, or appropriates for one’s own use, that which is another’s, is stealing. To accept credit for the labours or ideas of another, to use that which is another’s without the owner’s permission, or, to take advantage of another in any way, violets the Eighth Commandment.
For clearer understanding of what is another’s often referred to in this discourse, some words on the right of possession and it’s references under this commandment are necessary. First, it must be accepted that the origin of the moral rights of possession is but one perfect source – the Creator of the heavens and the earth – He that created something out of nothing – God, the Maker. The only rational existence of a right of prosperity in man is also the scriptural one, that contained in Gen. 2;9 – God’s gift of the world and its contents to man, as His tenant. Our individual interests in the gift are, then based on the “Golden Rule” and properly regulated in detail by the laws of civil society. This position is vital to human security.
Taking advantage of the urgent needs of our follow man, in buying or selling, is sin against both honesty and charity. If a neighbour is compelled by want and need to put up his property for sale at whatever he can get, the fact of his predicament does not make that property or commodity worthless or lower than the market price or value. Conversely, if a neighbour needs a property or commodity urgently and instantly at whatever it might cost him, this fact does not make the property or commodity worth more then the market price or value. Both instances rob him of the difference. And it is fraud committed under base circumstances. For his need or necessity, instead of arousing your cupidity ought to excite compassion. And instead of taking advantage of his predicaments, you should charitably assist in relieving them. The excuse that the victim bargained voluntarily, or that his predicament dictated the price he got and perhaps met his need, neither is tenable because each at a touch exposes their worthlessness. “Do unto others as ye would they should do unto you” How would you like your predicament or necessity thus abused? And yet, how many men are there who watch, like hapies, for such opportunities to make what they call “a good bargain”.
However one considers the foregoing, the result is an invasion and assault on principle of fair deal. It is cheating which is a valid theft and therefore as much violation of the Eighth Commandment as robbery.
With the multiplication of the expedients and combinations of creating wealth, opportunities by which astute men can extract their fellows’ possessions with out equitable equivalent are enormously multiplied thee days with the intricacies of finance, the power of broad of directors of companies sitting in secret to enhance or depreciate the values entrusted to them, the vastness and complications of business and obligations of great corporations and government establishment who are debtors to multitude of private persons, rendering the credit of the former a question of utterly unfathomable to their creditors; the unscrupulous means of blighting the credit of securities; and a thousand other acts of like character, enable the adepts to fitch from their neighbours vast aggregate of wealth. All these measures are but disguised thefts. And, alas! They constitute a large part of modern business methods. The sudden accumulation of a large speculative fortune can rarely be innocent, and right. They should not be the object of any Christian’s desire. So, the concealment from the vendor of any particular product, of a recent increase in the value of the product he sells or markets, in order to buy it for less than its worth, is an injustice exactly parallel to the concealment of a defect in the thing sold for the purpose of getting more than its worth.
Those who practice these, argue that their special knowledge is their private property which they have a right to use for their own profit. The answer is; that knowledge affecting a joint transaction, involved in bargain and sale, where two parties’ rights are equitably involved, is not private knowledge, and cannot be monopolized without violating the law of love. It is admitted that when merchants employ their means and industry to obtain useful commercial intelligence, a fair compensation for that use of capital and labour should be part of the lawful profits of traffic. But when this power of knowledge is pressed beyond that limit, it becomes a breach of this commandment.
(THE NINTH AND TENTH COMMANDMENTS – NEXT WEEK)
