Honor People’s Property: The eighth command of the Ten Commandments is, “You shall not steal.” Why does God care if we take something that isn’t ours? Because God wants people to do good work, provide for themselves, and live in harmony with their neighbor. And, as they are able, to be generous and hospitable, especially toward those in need. Why? Because this is the way of Jesus. Recorded on Mar 19, 2023, on Exodus 20:15 by Pastor David Parks.
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Ten Commandments: Learning the Law of Love is a sermon series on the most influential legal code in human history. Why should we learn about the Ten Commandments today? Because they reveal God’s will for how human beings ought to live: to love God with all our heart and love our neighbor as ourselves. Ultimately, the law of love points us directly to Jesus.
Sermon Transcript
So, all year we’re focusing on Learning the way of Jesus. And today, we’re continuing a sermon series on the Ten Commandments. And we’ve said that the Ten Commandments, as part of God’s moral law, reveal how God wants people to live. Ultimately, this way of life can be summed up as learning to love the Lord your God, heart, soul, mind, and strength; and to love your neighbor as yourself — this is a law of love. So today, we’re considering the eighth command, which is a command to honor other people’s property, “You shall not steal.” But this command is more about loving your neighbor than it is about loving your neighbor’s stuff. There are so many implications of this command, and the connection to the grace and generosity of God is really interesting, so let’s jump right in. If you have a Bible/app, please open to Exodus 20:12. We’ll read through the second half of the Ten Commandments and then unpack the eighth together today.
Exodus 20:12-17 (NIV), “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” As we’ve said, the book of Exodus was written about 4,300 years ago by Moses, the great prophet and leader of ancient Israel. And Exodus describes a key turning point in history when God rescued the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt and entered into a covenant relationship with them, which included giving them the Law. The first four commands are focused on how we are to love the Lord our God, while the remaining six are about how to love our neighbor as ourselves. Well, today, we’re focusing on the eighth command, which reads simply, “You shall not steal.” This command prohibits or outlaws theft or the taking of someone else’s property. Put another way, we’re not supposed to take things that aren’t ours to take. This is about honoring other people’s property/stuff. This command is connected to the tenth command, which is about coveting or desiring what you don’t have. But first, here, the eighth command is specifically against taking something that isn’t yours. Have you ever stolen something? Maybe it seemed so small and insignificant that it really didn’t seem like a big deal. I think of shoplifting candy from a gas station or back in the year 2000 when Napster was breaking every copyright law ever by letting people share music for free. At the time, it didn’t seem like it was that wrong because it wasn’t hurting anyone, was it? Well, the gas station owner or the record companies and artists wouldn’t feel that way. The theft was directly cutting into their livelihood. But what does God think about this? What does the Bible say about the moral issue of theft? And what should we do if we’re already guilty of stealing? For the rest of our time, we’ll start with the OT first, then we’ll move to the NT, and then we’ll finish by considering how the gospel connects to this command. So first, what does the OT say about honoring other people’s property? Well, there are a number of laws that give us more detail than what we have here and provide a little more context for the eighth command. We’ll continue with the Torah in Lev 6.
Leviticus 6:2–5 (NIV), “If anyone sins and is unfaithful to the Lord by deceiving a neighbor about something entrusted to them or left in their care or about something stolen, or if they cheat their neighbor, 3 or if they find lost property and lie about it, or if they swear falsely about any such sin that people may commit—4 when they sin in any of these ways and realize their guilt, they must return what they have stolen or taken by extortion, or what was entrusted to them, or the lost property they found, 5 or whatever it was they swore falsely about. They must make restitution in full, add a fifth of the value to it and give it all to the owner on the day they present their guilt offering.” This passage gives several scenarios of theft and says that when someone realizes their guilt, they not only need to make restitution in full, meaning to give back what they stole but add 20% of the value to it, give it to the rightful owner, and make a sin offering to the Lord. Theft requires you to be reconciled to both God and your neighbor. Exodus 22 has a section of Scripture that includes a bunch of different scenarios of theft, and over and over, the Lord says that the one who is guilty of theft must make restitution. If you break the eighth command, you need to make it right. The eighth command legally and historically establishes the right to personal property. This means if you own something, you have the right to keep it. For example, if you have money, you have the right to keep it or spend it or give it away however you want, within the rule of law. (Of course, this command doesn’t give you the right to break the law with your personal property or use it for some evil purpose.) But think about the kind of people and society that God wants. God wants people to live together in harmony, loving one another and being loved in return. But theft breaks trust, which is the currency of love and healthy relationships. Even the threat of theft makes us defensive and suspicious of one another. The OT law is clear, this is simply not the type of society that God wants for us.
Now, I know that I’ve named this message Honor People’s Property, but this command goes beyond simply taking something that isn’t yours. It’s also about giving people what they deserve, including certain fundamental rights, including the right to life and liberty. To deny someone certain unalienable rights endowed by their creator would certainly include the crimes of kidnapping and selling someone into slavery. Deuteronomy 24:7 (NIV), “If someone is caught kidnapping a fellow Israelite and treating or selling them as a slave, the kidnapper must die. You must purge the evil from among you.” This is very serious language because, as it says, it is evil. Remember the context, too; the people of Israel were just liberated from slavery in Egypt. They were not to return to Egypt or return to the practices they saw and experienced in Egypt. They had been chosen by God, out of all the peoples of the earth, to be holy or set apart for the Lord. Even if certain crimes were common in other places and cultures, they were to have nothing to do with them, even if it would be to their advantage or gain in some way. I think of the story of Joseph in Genesis, who was sold into slavery by his own brothers because of their jealousy and anger toward him. Now, that story ended with Joseph saying to his brothers, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” (Ge 50:20). However, this doesn’t mean that what happened to him was good. But that God is an amazing redeemer, bringing good out of great evil. So the crime of theft includes, most seriously, the theft of human life.
There are many other places we could turn to in the OT, but let’s jump forward over a thousand years from the time of Moses and the Exodus to the time of Jesus and the NT in the Bible. To prepare the way for the coming of Jesus, the prophet John the Baptist preached a message of repentance and baptism for the forgiveness of sins, and many people responded. All kinds of people responded, not just the good or religious people, but people who were known to be guilty of breaking all sorts of commandments. And John told them they didn’t just need to get baptized; they needed to go on to actually bear the fruit of repentance — that repentance should have a visible impact on their lives. Not just that they would feel bad/remorseful for their sins, but their lives actually needed to go in a new direction. In Luke chapter 3, Luke records that various groups of people wanted to know what this kind of repentance might look like for them. Luke 3:10-14 (NIV), “What should we do then?” the crowd asked. 11 John answered, “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.” 12 Even tax collectors came to be baptized. “Teacher,” they asked, “what should we do?” 13 “Don’t collect any more than you are required to,” he told them. 14 Then some soldiers asked him, “And what should we do?” He replied, “Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely—be content with your pay.” Now, these examples all have to do with money/resources and what the fruit of repentance looks like. A godly change of heart will produce a generous person toward people in need. A person willing to share food or clothing with someone who has nothing. A godly change of heart will produce those who are honest, fair, and not exploitative in business (tax collection) or who will not use their positions of power/authority for personal gain at the expense of those who do not have positions of power/authority (soldiers). John doesn’t say that godly people cannot do business in a profitable way or wield power/authority at all, but that they must do those things in line with God’s will/way. A tax collector who refuses to play the corrupt game of the day in collecting as much as they could from people in their community so that they would get rich, or a soldier who is content with their maybe meager pay and refuses to use their power to take what they want both honor God and the eighth command and are in a very real sense loving their neighbor. A great example of this is found in the story of a tax collector named Zacchaeus, who met Jesus. Now, this is a story that is often taught to children because Zacchaeus was a short man who climbed a tree to be able to see Jesus. But this story should be taught at Harvard Business School in addition to Gospel Kids Midweek. Let’s look at this now. Luke 19:1–10 (NIV), “Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. 2 A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. 3 He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd. 4 So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way. 5 When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” 6 So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly. 7 All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.” 8 But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.” 9 Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” Now, it’s so typical of Jesus to invite himself over to the house of someone who was left out or despised in his community. Because of his vocation, getting rich by extorting his neighbors was the norm for his industry and his culture. So Zacchaeus was wealthy but not well-liked. But when he met Jesus, he realized his guilt, and he went far beyond what the OT law required of him. Remember, he only needed to add 20% to what he had taken unjustly from his neighbors. But after meeting Jesus, Zacchaeus said he would give half his possessions to the poor and pay back four times the amount he had taken! We see a similar dynamic in the instruction of the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 4:28 (NIV), “Anyone who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with their own hands, that they may have something to share with those in need.” Theft takes the possessions of someone else, against their will, for your benefit. But the type of people and the type of society that God wants is one where people do good work, so something useful, and so not only provide for their needs and the needs of their family but also so that they have the ability to provide for the needs of people who, for whatever reason, are not able to provide for themselves. The positive intent of God behind the eighth command is not that people would hoard their stuff but that they would learn to be generous and hospitable with what they have.
And all this leads us right to the foot of the cross. The big question we’ve been trying to answer all year is this: If the gospel is true, how then should we live? The OT not only says that theft is wrong because people have the right to keep their property but that it requires restitution/reconciliation for both God and neighbor. But also, the old and new testaments say that theft is wrong because it prevents us from being generous and hospitable toward those in need. But it’s only in the gospel that we see just how generous and hospitable our God truly is. He doesn’t command that we do something that he wouldn’t do. Think about it. God the Father wasn’t stingy or selfish when it came to giving his most treasured possession, his one and only Son. And Jesus wasn’t concerned with his needs or his comfort or security when he suffered and died on the cross for our sins, including when we have broken the eighth command in big ways or small ways. And the Holy Spirit doesn’t steal from us, but only gives and gives and gives. He gives us spiritual gifts; he gives us reminders of what is true; he gives us encouragement and reassurance that we are in fact children of God by faith in Jesus; he even gives us words to pray when we have nothing to offer ourselves. We receive grace upon grace from God. In fact, the whole idea of Christian salvation is that it is a gift of God’s grace. God doesn’t take anything from us but our sins and our death, and then he gives and gives and gives. He gives us forgiveness for sin and eternal life beyond death in his heavenly kingdom. He gives us a new family in the church and a wonderful purpose in life. He gives us spiritual power and the fruit of his Spirit and so much more. You shall not steal. Why? Because God wants people who honor other people’s property, who work hard and are wise with their possessions, so that they are able to be generous, especially toward those who are poor and in need, and hospitable, welcoming people in who are on the margins. Because God wants people who are able to build trust and love one another well, not people who are defensive and suspicious of one another or who hoard what they have for their own selfish gain alone. This is not how God has treated us in Jesus, and this is not the way of Jesus either. So today, may we be people who not only are careful not to take what isn’t ours but honor what isn’t ours. May we be people who are willing to make restitution if we have broken the eighth command. And may we be people who instead are overwhelmingly generous and hospitable and so reflect the goodness of the will and the way of our God. Let us pray.