Stealing fails to acknowledge that God is
the owner of all things and entrusts to each of us possessions for our wise
management. Furthermore, stealing is not limited to things we take but may
also involve deception, cheating, and failing to give an honest day’s work to
our employer.
God is
a giver. He gives and he entrusts to us things. He gave the children of Israel
land to possess. He has given things to us not merely for our gain but for his
purposes and glory. He gives to us so that we might be givers as well. Stealing
violates the very character of God and takes from others what God has entrusted
to them.
The
Old Testament word for stealing “covers all conventional types of theft:
burglary (breaking into a home or building to commit theft); robbery (taking
property directly from another using violence of intimidation); larceny (taking
something without permission and not returning it); hijacking (using force to
take goods in transit or seizing control of a bus, truck, plane, etc.);
shoplifting (taking items from a store during business hours without paying for
them); and pickpocketing and purse-snatching. The term also covers a wide range
of exotic and complex thefts… [such as] embezzlement (the fraudulent taking of
money or other goods entrusted to one’s care). There is extortion (getting
money from someone by means of threats or misuses of authority) and
racketeering (obtaining money by ay illegal means) (Rob Schenck, The Ten Words that Will Change a Nation: the
Ten Commandments, p155).
God
speaks very seriously about stealing and its consequences. The LORD spoke to Moses, saying,
“If anyone sins and commits a breach of faith against the LORD by deceiving his
neighbor in a matter of deposit or security, or through robbery, or if he has
oppressed his neighbor or has found something lost and lied about it, swearing
falsely—in any of all the things that people do and sin thereby—if he has
sinned and has realized his guilt and will restore what he took by robbery or
what he got by oppression or the deposit that was committed to him or the lost
thing that he found or anything about which he has sworn falsely, he shall
restore it in full and shall add a fifth to it, and give it to him to whom it
belongs on the day he realizes his guilt. And he shall bring to the priest as
his compensation to the LORD a ram without blemish out of the flock, or its
equivalent for a guilt offering. And the priest shall make atonement for him
before the LORD, and he shall be forgiven for any of the things that one may do
and thereby become guilty” (Leviticus 6:1-7).
Stealing
is forbidden by God and the consequence is a spiritual matter so that one needs
atonement before the Lord. God lists the serious consequences of taking that
which does not belong to us. In some passages such as Exodus 22, restitution is
required as much as fivefold. You steal one ox and you repay with five oxen.
David was so angry by the parable Nathan told him regarding the rich man with
many sheep who stole from the poor man his only lamb that he demanded
restitution as well as the man’s life (II Samuel 12:1-6). The parable was about
David’s adulteress relationship with Bathsheba and having her husband Uriah
killed to cover up his sin. This teaches us that adultery is also stealing. One
steals someone else’s wife or husband or steals the purity of the unmarried
from a future mate.
Paul
identified stealing as characteristic of the one who does not know Christ. Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that
you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds.
They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God
because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They
have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to
practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned
Christ!—assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the
truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner
of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the
spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of
God in true righteousness and holiness…Let
the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his
own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need
(Ephesians 4: 17-24, 28).
We may be guilty of
stealing in ways we have not considered. Do we give an honest day’s work to our
employer or do we use our time at work, for which we are being paid, for
personal matters? Do we steal from the government by not reporting all our
income? Are we dishonest in answering questions on our tax forms? Do we claim
deductions that are not accurate? We often times attempt to justify our
dishonesty with claiming unfairness, overwork, inadequate pay, overtaxing, etc.
God wants us to be honest and fulfill our responsibilities, regardless of our
view of “fairness” or cost.
Paul reminded us of this
truth: Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for
whatever one sows, that will he also reap (Galatians 6:7).
