That's intentional.
Jesus designed it that way.
In Matthew 5:27-28, He takes the seventh commandment — you shall not commit adultery — and does the same thing He did with murder. He doesn't lower the standard. He exposes where the standard actually begins.
But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
Before we get to the uncomfortable part, let's get the definition right, because the biblical definition of adultery is not the same as the cultural one.
In our culture, adultery is the physical act of sexual intercourse with someone who is not your spouse. Not cheating if you're not technically there yet. That's the standard we've inherited.
The biblical definition is different. Adultery in the Bible is the betrayal of covenant faithfulness — in act, in word, or in thought.
How do I know that's the right definition? Because God uses the word adultery against His own people in the Old Testament when they chase after other gods. He doesn't say they broke a rule. He says they cheated on Him. That's covenant language. That's the language of a relationship that was built on faithfulness and has now been betrayed.
So when Jesus says that lust in the heart is adultery, He's not inventing a new category. He's pointing back to what covenant faithfulness has always meant. The betrayal doesn't begin with the act. It begins with the choice to let desire override faithfulness — in the heart, before anything happens anywhere else.
Now here is where it gets uncomfortable. And it's supposed to be uncomfortable equally.
For men, the application is obvious. Jesus makes it explicit. The second look — the one that turns from noticing to wanting — is where the line is. There is nothing wrong with recognizing that someone is attractive. There is a difference between a first glance and a sustained desire. The second one is where covenant faithfulness starts to fracture.
This is why pornography is adultery. Not almost adultery. Not adultery-adjacent. Adultery. The betrayal of covenant faithfulness begins in the heart, and pornography is a direct, deliberate, repeated invitation to betray it.
But Jesus is not only talking to the men. The principle applies across the board. Covenant faithfulness doesn't have a gender exception.
For women, the application lands differently because the stimulation is different. Men are generally stimulated visually. Women are generally stimulated by ideas and emotional narrative. Which means the category of content that does for a woman what pornography does for a man is not a screen — it's a page. The romance novel with content you would not let your children read. The story you follow because it gives you feelings about a fictional man that you are not bringing home to your actual husband.
That's not a comfortable thing to say. But if adultery begins in the heart, then the stimulation that invites that betrayal matters — regardless of the medium or the gender.
Here is the question Jesus is really asking in verses 29-30, when He talks about gouging out an eye or cutting off a hand. He is not teaching self-harm. He is asking: how much are you willing to inconvenience yourself in order to keep your covenant faithfulness intact?
Are you willing to put the phone down? To stop reading the series? To have a hard conversation with yourself about what you're letting in? Are you willing to let your life be genuinely uncomfortable in order to keep the thing that marriage is actually supposed to be?
Covenant faithfulness is not a feeling. It's a commitment. And it's kept or betrayed in the small, private moments long before anyone else ever knows.
The standard is the same for everyone. That's the point. And it starts in the same place for everyone too.