An email from my son

I had an email from my son about the tenth commandment so I thought I would post it here.

He wrote:
Dad,

I'm reading through my professor's yet to be released New Testament Theology. It is really good. While reading on the problem of sin, Dr Schreiner says this:

"Refusing to honor God as God and to give him glory, to worship and adore him constitutes sin according to Paul. Therefore, he identifies coveting as idolatry (Eph 5:5; Col 3:5). The prohibition against coveting is the tenth commandment in the decalogue, and we see from Paul's commentary that the tenth and first commandment address the same reality. Whatever a person covets has become an idol, and hence coveting places the object of desire above God himself."

Thomas Schreiner, Magnifying God in Christ: New Testament Theology; ch 14 - "The Problem of Sin" (Forthcoming).

Dr. Schreiner rightly has argued that the first and last commandment really form an inclusio so that the rest of the commandments are interpreted as an explanation of the first and last (not his exact words, but mine!). Therefore, all sin is idolatry and is a failure to glorify God.