Swipe Right: When Desire Turns Dangerous
The Beauty and Risk of Being Human
This week in our Swipe Right series, we spent some time with Jesus' words in Matthew 5—a passage often read as a warning about lust. But what if it’s actually about something deeper? Something more human?
Jesus says, "Anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart." It sounds stark. But when we looked closer at the word translated as "lust" — epithumeō — we saw it actually has more to do with coveting. This is the kind of desire that isn’t content to admire beauty; it wants to own it. It’s not attraction that’s the problem. It’s the slide into possession, objectification, and dehumanization.
Coveting Isn't Just About Property
When Jesus uses this language, he’s echoing the Ten Commandments: Don’t covet your neighbor's house, spouse, ox, donkey. He’s not introducing a new rule; he’s highlighting an old one and applying it to human relationships. And notice—Jesus doesn’t say, "Don't look at someone who isn't your spouse." He says, "Don't look at a woman lustfully."
In other words, this teaching isn’t just for those tempted by an affair. It applies within marriages too. Because even in committed, faithful, monogamous relationships, our sexuality can veer off course. We can still dehumanize our partners, still reduce them to objects meant to gratify rather than be cherished.
Even Love Can Lose Its Way
We might think marriage gives us a free pass—as if desire, once safely inside covenant, can do no wrong. But the truth is, we can just as easily covet our spouse as we can a stranger. We can treat our partners as extensions of our will, our pleasure, our need. And when we do, even the most intimate relationships become distorted.
The goal, then, isn’t to suppress our desires or to pretend they don’t exist. It's to see them clearly, honor them appropriately, and direct them toward the full humanity of the other. To see our spouse, our friend, or even the image on a screen, not as a thing to be used, but as a person to be honored.
Sacred Desire, Rightly Directed
Your sexual desires are not shameful. They are good. They are holy. They are a reflection of your embodied humanity. But they come with power—power to honor or to harm.
So, when desire begins to tip into possession, when attraction crosses into objectification, that's a moment to pause. To reflect. To turn back toward the kind of love that dignifies the other. Because how we treat others inevitably shapes who we become.
The Invitation
This week, may you embrace your whole self—desires and all—with honesty and grace. And may you extend the same dignity to others that you long for yourself. May you be more fully human, and may your desires reflect the sacredness of every person you encounter.
