My men’s bible study class took up a lesson today on the Ten Commandments. One Commandment reads thus:
“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”
I was making the facetious point to the class that I didn’t have a sin problem with coveting anyone’s donkeys–the Commandment, after all, is a little dated. Who has donkeys any more, right? I thought I was illustrating the point safely that obeying some Commandments involves less commitment than others, but that was no excuse for breast-beating self-righteousness.
But guess what?
One of the guys, a high school agriculture teacher who lives in the country, laughed, exclaiming, “But I have a donkey.”
“Whoa!” I roared. “How many Sunday School teachers teaching this standardized lesson across the national denomination could claim he had a class mate who owns a donkey!”
And no sooner than I uttered that exclamation, another member of the class started laughing: “I have a donkey, too.”
OK, seriously, I want to know: How many Sunday School teachers across the land can claim he has two class mates who own donkeys?
Only in Louisiana, I suspect. At any rate, reader, heed the commandment: “Keep thy covetous eyeballs off of Randy’s and Greg’s donkeys, lest ye sin!” Who says God’s writ is not timeless?
That’s funny! What’s really comical is that in our family (MI members only) we’ve joked about how fun it would be to get a donkey….and I’d name it “Donkey”! Say “hi” to the fam for us!
And if we’re ever in town, we’d like to see someone’s pet donkey!