We are eight commandments into the Big Ten. These God gave for the creation of a stable and blessed society. Exodus 20:15, says simply, “You shall not steal.” Amazingly enough, however, many worldview assumptions exist inside those four words.
In the book, The Kite Runner, Baba, the narrator’s father, delivers an insightful speech on theft:
“…there is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft. …when you kill a man you steal a life. You steal a wife’s right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone’s right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness.”[1]
In this vein, “You shall not steal” is a command to give others their due, whether it regards their person or property, rights as a human being, or simply the civic privileges owed to citizens in good standing.
To fully unpack this idea, we need some sense of what a right is and what one has a right to. Denouncing “Stealing X’s right to Y” demands that we understand the basis of rights. Who gave them? Who is to judge their violation? What should those judgments entail? Scripture details all these things.
Westerners tend to run around yelling, “I have rights!” “I have a right to this!” “I have a right to that!” They are quick to insist that some opinion, or word, or action by others, some failing of circumstances, or even the necessity to work for what they want, has robbed them of some “right.” Let me just say, “Whoa! Bessy.” “Hold the phone on that!” “Not so fast, Jeeves!”
People can claim rights all day long, like my kids used to do, but in the real world yelling “Dibs!” or “Shotgun,” doesn’t secure rights. Rights have to be bound in something real… because the “right” of one person is a divine or legal obligation on another.
Natural rights, for instance, come from God and are rooted in the basic responsibilities that one image bearer of God has toward another because he or she IS an image bearer of God. These are “negative rights”… rights for a person and his or her property to be left unmolested, undamaged, alive and free. The only way that one forfeits such rights is by violating someone else’s and falling afoul of divinely mandated government, which according to the Apostle Paul “…does not bear the sword for nothing. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer.”[2]
To lay claim, therefore, to “goods and service rights,” for instance—free food, medical care, housing, clothes, etc—demands that someone else be robbed of “natural rights” by being forced to pay for, or otherwise provide, those goods and services.[3]
Living in society may require that some of our freedoms are willingly curtailed in order to reap the rewards of being in a society, (like taxes to pay for public administration, military defense, criminal justice systems, public services open to all citizens in good standing) but neither government agent nor neighbor nor foreign invader has the right to strip away these rights without divine justification through the rule of just law, even if they have the power to do so. Anything less and anything more is theft.
I may claim that I have not stolen anything in my adult life.[4] I am not a thief and, apart from a couple of incidents in my youth before the age of 17, I am innocent of the dark charge. This, however, is a shallow boast when the full nature of theft reveals itself to me in the mirror of Scripture… indeed, when it reveals itself in me as I am reflected there in that perfect measure.
All of the Big Ten commandments are encompassed in “You shall not steal.”
If there is One Holy Creator of all, then everything belongs to Him and to deny that claim is theft. Idolatry is giving to that which is not God what only God has a right to receive—Theft! To take up God’s name in doings that discredit His reputation among men is to rob God of the glory due His name—Theft!
Have we stolen honor from parents and robbed society by our poor example for others who catch our rebellion like a virus and go on to do yet more harm?[5]
Both fornication (sex before marriage) and adultery (sex that breaks the one flesh union of marriage) steal away a spouses right to true fidelity and robs society of the stability obtained through faithful unions.
To lie in court is to steal away justice, property, and, perhaps the freedom or even the life of the accused. To lie in order to set a guilty man free steals the right of society to protect itself from that person’s injustice. To lie generally about others steals truth, mars reputations, and breaks relationships.
One can steal peace, joy, trust, and confidence through the sowing of fear and threat, and through acts of physical and emotional violence. Envy and jealousy, lust and pride, sloth, wrath, and greed when put to work have ruined lives, tanked careers, fostered instability, eroded meaning and purpose, and severed sacred bonds—Theft!
The Apostle Paul gives some practical commands regarding thieves in Ephesians 4:28, saying “Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to give to anyone in need.” We have stolen many things in life that we can neither return nor restore, but Paul calls for a flip in orientation from being a taker to being a giver, from being sloppy and indolent to being industrious and attentive.
In Jesus Christ, there is mercy where there is confession and repentance. But it all begins with seeing one’s self in the mirror of God’s word. “You shall not steal!”
~Andrew D. Sargent, Ph.D.
[1] Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner, (London: Bloomsbury, 2003), pg. 17-18.
[2] Romans 13:4.
[3] Charity is another beast altogether. In charity, one willingly and happily gives up that which is his right, to bless another. This is a great principle for a covenant heart, but its soul dies beneath the law-maker’s gavel.
[4] I have told the tale of my Orange Soda exploits previously, and will tell of my battle with covetousness further on.
[5] Exodus 21:15, 17; Deuteronomy 21:18-21; See also Proverbs 20:20.
