Monday, June 3, 2013

The Eighth Commandment: You Shall Not Steal



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 holinessLet 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).

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