Listen to the reading of Scripture below and then learn more from related resources. As you listen and reflect, think about this question: How is looking at someone lustfully rooted in the same attitude as adultery?
Matthew 5:27-30
Adultery and Lust
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The Old Testament law about adultery reveals God’s wisdom about how we reduce people to objects of desire. Jesus invites us to view every human as an image of God to be honored in our actions and imaginations.
Chapter from Sermon on the Mount E12
The Meaning and Impact of Lust
Looking at a woman as an object is the same thing as adultery, because both involve heart postures that reduce someone’s identity. This habit has devastating effects on the man who “goes on looking” and also on the woman who is objectified.
Within the command to not commit adultery, there is wisdom about how men can treat women as equal images of God. When a man “goes on looking at a woman in order to cultivate lust for her,” he corrupts his own heart and reduces the woman to an object of desire. For Jesus, true righteousness means viewing every human as an equal image of God to be honored in our actions and imaginations.