You Shall Not Steal (Par 1)

“For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master’s money. Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me five talents; here, I have made five talents more.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ And he also who had the two talents came forward, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me two talents; here, I have made two talents more.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here, you have what is yours.’ But his master answered him, ‘You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

This week we’re beginning our look at the 8th commandment, “You shall not steal.” And like the commandments before it we’re going to look, first, at the nature this commandment, then in our next time we’ll look more specifically at its application. Now, I want to begin considering the nature of the 8th commandment by asking a particular question, that is, “Why is theft sin?” or “Why is stealing wrong?” Well, while I think all of us (even most unbelievers) are keenly aware that stealing is morally wrong, I doubt that many Christians could articulate very well why it’s wrong. It’s obvious to most of us that theft usually hurts people, and that we should do to others what we would want them to do to us, but there are deeper biblical reasons why theft is sin.

God owns everything

And to see this, we must first recognize that God owns everything, that God owns everything because he created everything. This is a repeated assertion throughout Scripture, for instance, Psalm 24:1-2 says, “The earth is the LORD’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein, for he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers,” or in Deuteronomy 10:14, “Behold, to the LORD your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it,” or in Psalm 50:10-11, “For every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the hills, and all that moves in the field is mine.”

Man is a steward

Second, we must recognize that God has made use stewards of is his creation, or managers of his assets. We’re all familiar with Genesis 1:28 that says, “And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” But this is taught elsewhere in Scripture as well, for example, King David wrote in Psalm 8:6-8, “You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.”

Each allotted a portion

Now, third, this teaches us that each of us have been allotted a portion of God’s assets to steward. Many of you may be familiar with Jesus’ Parable of the Talents found in Matthew 25 where Jesus likens the kingdom of heaven to “a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability.” The parable is meant to teach his disciples that they’ve been given a responsibility to steward and use the resources given to them to serve their master, to put their alloted resources to work.

And this is not a new expectation, but one that finds it origin at creation. Man is put in the garden of Eden to work it and to keep it, he’s given dominion over the earth, and he’s instructed to be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth. In other words, God’s intention is that we would take the resources we’ve been given (or what’s been allotted to us) and to multiply it. Just as the master in Jesus’ Parable of the Talents expected that his servants would provide him with a return on his investment. We read in Matthew 25:16-17, “He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. So also he who had the two talents made two talents more.”

However, the servant who was given one talent squandered it, he buried it until his master returned, and what did his master say to him? Matthew 25:26-30, “You wicked and slothful servant! ... you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest.” Again, there’s an expectation that we would put to work the resources that have been alloted to us, whatever that may be, whether it’s our time, our money, our strength, our minds, and so on. God has given us strength and allotted us resources to get wealth.

Stealing a sin against God

Therefore, to steal from your neighbor is to challenge what God has chosen to give him. To steal from your neighbor is to take from what God has alloted him. In other words, stealing does more than just harm your neighbor, stealing communicates that you know better than God, that you believe you would be a better asset manager than him. Theft challenges his authority and his competency. The thief does not trust God and he’s not content with what God has given him, and so he steals from his neighbor. This is the fundamental reason why theft is sin, because it’s first a sin against God himself.

Allotment disparity

Furthermore, we’re all given different gifts and abilities, therefore some will have more or less resources than others, we will have different allotments, varied gifts and abilities, and different circumstances, all ordered by God. Notice, again, in Jesus’ Parable of the Talents, that one is given five talents, while one is given two talents, and the other one talent. This is not by mistake, nor should we think that this is unfair, as though God were being unjust by handing out a varied quantity of talents.

However, this idea tends to rub us the wrong way, because we’ve been taught that fairness means everyone gets the same thing or the same amount. For example, it’s become increasingly common among parents to give birthday presents, not only to the child who’s birthday it is, but also to their siblings and to each one of their friends who attend the party, or to make sure everyone is given an identical slice of pie, because if they don’t it’ll either cause a fight between the children, or result in a temper tantrum. In fact, if we were in the place of God I suspect most of us would have gone to great lengths to make sure all three servants had the same quantity of talents.

And just as a quick word to parents, if you train up your children like this you will teach them to be entitled, and they will grow up thinking that anyone who has more than them owes them something. It will teach them to envy their neighbor who has more than them. Parents must not allow their children to guilt them into giving them what someone else has, children must learn to be content with what they have, and they will not if you give in to their demands. Unfortunately, our metric for gauging fairness is often driven more by entitlement, envy, and covetousness than it is by the Bible.

It’s really important that we come to understand that it is not inherently evil or wrong for a person to have more possessions than another, or to have greater wealth than another, or different resources than another. However, because our allotments are different from one another, our sinful hearts are naturally inclined to become envious of our neighbor’s property, whether because he possesses more or possesses something different than we do. In fact, because of envy it’s become popular in our day to assume that any economic disparity or difference between individuals is fundamentally unjust, or that it’s necessarily the result of injustice. Which is frequently referred to as inequity, or unfairness.

However, this notion is not biblical, but rather is usually a result of envy or covetousness, flying under the guise of equity and fairness. This isn’t to say that unjust gain never happens, it most certainly does, but to reason that any economic disparity between two individuals is fundamentally unfair or the result of unjust gain is simply not biblical. Instead this is envy and covetousness flying under the guise of equity and fairness. Your circumstances are not merely the result of other people’s actions, but the result of God’s providence, the result of God ordering all events according to the council of his will. We are not owed a different lot, and we’re not entitled to our neighbor’s lot.

Personal property

I also want us to see that the 8th commandment assumes that personal property is right and good. The notion of private property is not a modern idea, but a biblical one. The command not to steal assumes that people have personal property rights, it assumes the concept of private ownership of property. That something belongs to you and not to me, and that the 8th commandment is intended to protect personal property.

The reason I point this out is because government systems like socialism and communism have become popular over the last century, and these systems run contrary to the 8th commandment, because they deny, to varying degrees, the right to personal property. Instead these systems argue that most, or all property should be owned by the state rather than by individuals, that most or all businesses should be owned and operated by the government. Denying that resources are distributed by God’s providence to individuals, but that those resources are to be controlled by the state. In effect, these forms of government seek to take upon themselves the prerogatives of God himself, which is why atheism is usually the religion of communism where the state becomes like a god to its people, and steals their property from them.

We actually see an example of this in 1 Kings 21 when King Ahab of Samaria offered Naboth, a Jezreelite, money for his vineyard. Apparently, Naboth’s vineyard was beside Ahab’s palace, and Ahab wanted to buy it from him to plant a vegetable garden, but, despite offering Naboth a fair price, Naboth refused the offer. We’re told that this vexed the king, and that he became sullen, even refusing to eat, but when word reached his wife, Jezebel, she said to him, “Do you now govern Israel? Arise and eat bread and let your heart be cheerful; I will give you the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite.” So, Jezebel proceeded to bring false charges against Naboth and had him stoned to death outside the city, then she took Naboth’s vineyard and gave it to her husband. As a result, God sent the prophet Elijah to Ahab to condemn his actions, and prophesied disaster upon his house and upon Jezebel for their wickedness against Naboth.

Not even the government has the authority or right to take an individual’s private property, no matter whether you’re the king or not, not even the government has the authority to steal from its people. Which is also why we have to be very careful not to promote legislation or policies that violate the 8th commandment, even if those policies fly under the guise of compassion and equity. For example, we might be tempted to think that those who make more than us should be taxed at a higher percentage rate, under the guise that they should “pay their fair share.” But whenever you hear a politician use that phrase remember that they’re justifying governmental theft under the guise of fairness. Sadly, we’ve become increasingly content with stealing from our neighbor using the coercive means of government taxation under the guise of compassion and equity.

Or when governments print money in order to spend beyond their means. You see, when the government prints more currency to spend beyond its means, it inevitably devalues that currency (it dilutes it, like adding more water to a drink, and reducing it’s potency), prices increase as a result of inflation while wages remain stagnant, inevitably diminishing everyone’s buying power. All of a sudden groceries are more expensive and the buying power of the public is weakened. Therefore, a government steals from the people when it spends beyond it’s means.

Ethical capitalism

In contrast to economic systems like communism and socialism is capitalism and a free market. Capitalism has come under attack in recent decades, and many have come to believe that capitalism is founded upon greed, however, this is not at all the case, instead, capitalism is founded up the concept of personal property, where private individuals or businesses own and control the means of production, distribution, and exchange of goods and services, operating for profit within a competitive market. In other words, capitalism is founded upon the idea that an economy is driven by private individuals and their private property. It’s an economic system that doesn’t contradict the biblical principle of personal or private property, but instead is built upon it.

This doesn’t mean that capitalism is immune to the corrupting affects of human sinfulness and greed, but no system is. You’d be a fool to think that greed only impacts capitalism. It’s true that capitalism and a free market only works when their participants are ethical. This is where governments are intended to play a role, upholding God’s law in the market (rather than controlling it), punishing those who break the 8th commandment, protecting individuals and businesses against things like money laundering, fraud, scams, swindling, predatory lending, excessively high interest rates on loans, illegal trade (such as pornography, gambling, sex trafficking, prostitution, drugs, etc.), counterfeit money, piracy, extortion, and so on.

You see, it’s only within a free market that people trade and multiply the resources that God has given them. This is even illustrated in Jesus’ Parable to of the Talents in verses 15-16 when he says, “He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. So also he who had the two talents made two talents more.” This is the context in which we’re intended to put to work the resources God has alloted to us, including, our time, our money, our strength, our minds, and so on, all to the glory of God. And the 8th commandment is intended to govern that productivity and that multiplication.

Possessions are not evil

Which also teaches us that wealth and possessions are not inherently bad or evil, but that we’re intended to use them for God’s glory. That they’re intended to meet our needs and the needs of our neighbors. They’re necessary for raising a family, feeding and clothing your children. In fact, one of the major blessings promised under the old covenant was prosperity, that God was giving Israel a land filled with milk and honey, that he would give them “great and good cities that [they] did not build, and houses full of all good things that [they] did not fill, and cisterns that [they] did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that [they] did not plant.” (Deuteronomy 6:10-11) However, as we’ll see in our next time, we also recognize that wealth and possessions can pose a great threat to us, due to the sinfulness of our hearts. That we’re quick to make idols out of the gifts given to us by God.

Conclusion

Now, as we wrap up this morning, it’s important that we remember that the 8th commandment is more than a prohibition against taking what belongs to our neighbor, but that it’s a call to honor God as the ultimate owner of all things, to recognize our role as stewards of his creation, and to trust his wisdom in what he has allotted to each of us. Not envying one another, but trusting in his providence. Remembering that theft, at its heart, is a rejection of God’s authority and his providence. That we must learn to be content with our lot, to be content with what we’ve been given, not looking at what our neighbor has, but thankful for what we’ve been given, trusting that God has given each of us exactly what we need to fulfill His purposes. Therefore, let us use our time, talents, and resources to serve him, multiply what we’ve been given, and meet the needs of those around us.

In our next time we’ll going to consider, further, the scope of the 8th commandment, examining it’s prohibitions and its positive commands, what it looks like to keep this commandment in our daily lives.

Prayer

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