• Vision for a caring future
• The Commentary
  Soft-pedalling hell?
• Sex and sexuality
  Dr. Peter May on the background to the move to redefine marriage - part 1
• Taking it easy this summer?
  How to make our leisure time more godly
• Updating Matthew Henry's Commentary
• Mission - quo vadis?
  Part 1
• Understanding the new society
• Unapologetic Christianity
  The 'God particle' is found
• The Music Exchange
  Lord of the music
• Notes to growing Christians
  Holiday reading
• Crossing the culture
  Holy cow!
• Monthly youth leaders column
  Starting from scratch
• Reaching the world's universities

other articles

• Everyone a winner
• New Matthew Henry Commentary: the classic work with updated language - Psalm 23
• Matthew Henry - his life and influence
• The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
• Call me evil, let me go
• Finding my voice - Playing the fool and other triumphs
• How God became king
• Heaven
• Fruitful leaders
• The envy of Eve - Finding contentment in a covetous world
• Complete surrender - A biography of Eric Liddell, Olympic gold
• Archibald G. Brown - Spurgeon's successor
• Whole life, whole Bible - 50 readings on living in the light of Scripture
• The ethics of usury
• Living with other creatures - Green exegesis and theology
• Light from Dark Ages?
• Isaiah by the day - A new devotional translation
• Justification - Five views
• There are no strong people

Material girl?

THE ENVY OF EVE
Finding contentment in a covetous world
By Melissa B. Kruger
Christian Focus. 254 pages. £8.99
ISBN 978 1 845 507 756

This book brings a helpful consideration of a theme that is so relevant to the age we live in. As Kruger says of the sin of coveting: ‘It is like the drop of water that can find its way into the tiny crack of a rock. Once it freezes, it can cause a fissure that damages the rock and splits it to the core’.

She shows how it is not having desires that is the problem, rather it’s not having the right desires in the right way. Yet we live in a culture that constantly bombards us with messages telling us that if only we have this possession, this relationship, that success, then we will be satisfied — the truth is that once we have attained what we desire, we are fired with an even greater desire to possess more. Covetousness also spoils our relationships with those who have something that we desire.

What we need is to find our satisfaction in God, submitting to his Lordship, trusting in his sovereign goodness, recognising that we are not promised a life of ease or comfort. God’s plan for our lives isn’t to make us like everyone else, but that Christ might be seen in us more and more as we are moulded by the challenges that we face in this life. We must recognise that spiritual fruit and growth is ‘often born in the furnace of trials and afflictions’. Kruger outlines the ‘pattern of coveting’ from Eve’s experience. Eve first saw, then she coveted, she took and she hid. This pattern repeats itself in our lives in many different situations. This pattern is then helpfully applied to Money and possessions, Romantic relationships, Family and friendship, Seasons and circumstances, Giftedness and abilities. This is both challenging and helpful in working out where coveting has got its hold in our lives and in recognising how we must respond.

The great example of Christ is given as one who both broke the pattern and who enables us to break these patterns in our own lives and so know power over coveting. We need to be immersed in God’s Word and to live in the power of the Spirit. As we do so we will ‘increasingly become what we were always created to be — image bearers of God — as we look more and more like Jesus’.

Julia Jones,
Chair of FIEC’s Women’s Ministry Team